selected relevant studies: Topics by Science.gov

Sample records for selected relevant studies

Irrelevant reward and selection histories have different influences on task-relevant attentional selection.

PubMed

MacLean, Mary H; Giesbrecht, Barry

2015-07-01

Task-relevant and physically salient features influence visual selective attention. In the present study, we investigated the influence of task-irrelevant and physically nonsalient reward-associated features on visual selective attention. Two hypotheses were tested: One predicts that the effects of target-defining task-relevant and task-irrelevant features interact to modulate visual selection; the other predicts that visual selection is determined by the independent combination of relevant and irrelevant feature effects. These alternatives were tested using a visual search task that contained multiple targets, placing a high demand on the need for selectivity, and that was data-limited and required unspeeded responses, emphasizing early perceptual selection processes. One week prior to the visual search task, participants completed a training task in which they learned to associate particular colors with a specific reward value. In the search task, the reward-associated colors were presented surrounding targets and distractors, but were neither physically salient nor task-relevant. In two experiments, the irrelevant reward-associated features influenced performance, but only when they were presented in a task-relevant location. The costs induced by the irrelevant reward-associated features were greater when they oriented attention to a target than to a distractor. In a third experiment, we examined the effects of selection history in the absence of reward history and found that the interaction between task relevance and selection history differed, relative to when the features had previously been associated with reward. The results indicate that under conditions that demand highly efficient perceptual selection, physically nonsalient task-irrelevant and task-relevant factors interact to influence visual selective attention.
Oculomotor selection underlies feature retention in visual working memory.

PubMed

Hanning, Nina M; Jonikaitis, Donatas; Deubel, Heiner; Szinte, Martin

2016-02-01

Oculomotor selection, spatial task relevance, and visual working memory (WM) are described as three processes highly intertwined and sustained by similar cortical structures. However, because task-relevant locations always constitute potential saccade targets, no study so far has been able to distinguish between oculomotor selection and spatial task relevance. We designed an experiment that allowed us to dissociate in humans the contribution of task relevance, oculomotor selection, and oculomotor execution to the retention of feature representations in WM. We report that task relevance and oculomotor selection lead to dissociable effects on feature WM maintenance. In a first task, in which an object's location was encoded as a saccade target, its feature representations were successfully maintained in WM, whereas they declined at nonsaccade target locations. Likewise, we observed a similar WM benefit at the target of saccades that were prepared but never executed. In a second task, when an object's location was marked as task relevant but constituted a nonsaccade target (a location to avoid), feature representations maintained at that location did not benefit. Combined, our results demonstrate that oculomotor selection is consistently associated with WM, whereas task relevance is not. This provides evidence for an overlapping circuitry serving saccade target selection and feature-based WM that can be dissociated from processes encoding task-relevant locations. Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.
Evidence-based selection of theories for designing behaviour change interventions: using methods based on theoretical construct domains to understand clinicians' blood transfusion behaviour.

PubMed

Francis, Jill J; Stockton, Charlotte; Eccles, Martin P; Johnston, Marie; Cuthbertson, Brian H; Grimshaw, Jeremy M; Hyde, Chris; Tinmouth, Alan; Stanworth, Simon J

2009-11-01

Many theories of behaviour are potentially relevant to predictive and intervention studies but most studies investigate a narrow range of theories. Michie et al. (2005) agreed 12 'theoretical domains' from 33 theories that explain behaviour change. They developed a 'Theoretical Domains Interview' (TDI) for identifying relevant domains for specific clinical behaviours, but the framework has not been used for selecting theories for predictive studies. It was used here to investigate clinicians' transfusion behaviour in intensive care units (ICU). Evidence suggests that red blood cells transfusion could be reduced for some patients without reducing quality of care. (1) To identify the domains relevant to transfusion practice in ICUs and neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), using the TDI. (2) To use the identified domains to select appropriate theories for a study predicting transfusion behaviour. An adapted TDI about managing a patient with borderline haemoglobin by watching and waiting instead of transfusing red blood cells was used to conduct semi-structured, one-to-one interviews with 18 intensive care consultants and neonatologists across the UK. Relevant theoretical domains were: knowledge, beliefs about capabilities, beliefs about consequences, social influences, behavioural regulation. Further analysis at the construct level resulted in selection of seven theoretical approaches relevant to this context: Knowledge-Attitude-Behaviour Model, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Social Cognitive Theory, Operant Learning Theory, Control Theory, Normative Model of Work Team Effectiveness and Action Planning Approaches. This study illustrated, the use of the TDI to identify relevant domains in a complex area of inpatient care. This approach is potentially valuable for selecting theories relevant to predictive studies and resulted in greater breadth of potential explanations than would be achieved if a single theoretical model had been adopted.
For the general internist: a review of relevant 2013 innovations in medical education.

PubMed

Roy, Brita; Willett, Lisa L; Bates, Carol; Duffy, Briar; Dunn, Kathel; Karani, Reena; Chheda, Shobhina G

2015-04-01

We conducted a review of articles published in 2013 to identify high-quality research in medical education that was relevant to general medicine education practice. Our review team consisted of six general internists with expertise in medical education of varying ranks, as well as a professional medical librarian. We manually searched 15 journals in pairs, and performed an online search using the PubMed search engine for all original research articles in medical education published in 2013. From the total 4,181 citations identified, we selected 65 articles considered most relevant to general medicine educational practice. Each team member then independently reviewed and rated the quality of each selected article using the modified Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument. We then reviewed the quality and relevance of each selected study and grouped them into categories of propensity for inclusion. Nineteen studies were felt to be of adequate quality and were of moderate to high propensity for inclusion. Team members then independently voted for studies they felt to be of the highest relevance and quality within the 19 selected studies. The ten articles with the greatest number of votes were included in the review. We categorized the studies into five general themes: Improving Clinical Skills in UME, Inpatient Clinical Teaching Methods, Advancements in Continuity Clinic, Handoffs/Transitions in Care, and Trainee Assessment. Most studies in our review of the 2013 literature in general medical education were limited to single institutions and non-randomized study designs; we identified significant limitations of each study. Selected articles may inform future research and practice of medical educators.
Does Navigation Always Predict Performance? Effects of Navigation on Digital Reading Are Moderated by Comprehension Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Naumann, Johannes; Salmerón, Ladislao

2016-01-01

This study investigated interactive effects of navigation and offline comprehension skill on digital reading performance. As indicators of navigation, relevant page selection and irrelevant page selection were considered. In 533 Spanish high school students aged 11-17 positive effects of offline comprehension skill and relevant page selection on…
Statistical approach for selection of biologically informative genes.

PubMed

Das, Samarendra; Rai, Anil; Mishra, D C; Rai, Shesh N

2018-05-20

Selection of informative genes from high dimensional gene expression data has emerged as an important research area in genomics. Many gene selection techniques have been proposed so far are either based on relevancy or redundancy measure. Further, the performance of these techniques has been adjudged through post selection classification accuracy computed through a classifier using the selected genes. This performance metric may be statistically sound but may not be biologically relevant. A statistical approach, i.e. Boot-MRMR, was proposed based on a composite measure of maximum relevance and minimum redundancy, which is both statistically sound and biologically relevant for informative gene selection. For comparative evaluation of the proposed approach, we developed two biological sufficient criteria, i.e. Gene Set Enrichment with QTL (GSEQ) and biological similarity score based on Gene Ontology (GO). Further, a systematic and rigorous evaluation of the proposed technique with 12 existing gene selection techniques was carried out using five gene expression datasets. This evaluation was based on a broad spectrum of statistically sound (e.g. subject classification) and biological relevant (based on QTL and GO) criteria under a multiple criteria decision-making framework. The performance analysis showed that the proposed technique selects informative genes which are more biologically relevant. The proposed technique is also found to be quite competitive with the existing techniques with respect to subject classification and computational time. Our results also showed that under the multiple criteria decision-making setup, the proposed technique is best for informative gene selection over the available alternatives. Based on the proposed approach, an R Package, i.e. BootMRMR has been developed and available at https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/BootMRMR. This study will provide a practical guide to select statistical techniques for selecting informative genes from high dimensional expression data for breeding and system biology studies. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Multiple-input multiple-output causal strategies for gene selection.

PubMed

Bontempi, Gianluca; Haibe-Kains, Benjamin; Desmedt, Christine; Sotiriou, Christos; Quackenbush, John

2011-11-25

Traditional strategies for selecting variables in high dimensional classification problems aim to find sets of maximally relevant variables able to explain the target variations. If these techniques may be effective in generalization accuracy they often do not reveal direct causes. The latter is essentially related to the fact that high correlation (or relevance) does not imply causation. In this study, we show how to efficiently incorporate causal information into gene selection by moving from a single-input single-output to a multiple-input multiple-output setting. We show in synthetic case study that a better prioritization of causal variables can be obtained by considering a relevance score which incorporates a causal term. In addition we show, in a meta-analysis study of six publicly available breast cancer microarray datasets, that the improvement occurs also in terms of accuracy. The biological interpretation of the results confirms the potential of a causal approach to gene selection. Integrating causal information into gene selection algorithms is effective both in terms of prediction accuracy and biological interpretation.
The Effects of Topic Familiarity, Author Expertise, and Content Relevance on Norwegian Students' Document Selection: A Mixed Methods Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCrudden, Matthew T.; Stenseth, Tonje; Bråten, Ivar; Strømsø, Helge I.

2016-01-01

This mixed methods study investigated the extent to which author expertise and content relevance were salient to secondary Norwegian students (N = 153) when they selected documents that pertained to more familiar and less familiar topics. Quantitative results indicated that author expertise was more salient for the less familiar topic (nuclear…
A combined Fisher and Laplacian score for feature selection in QSAR based drug design using compounds with known and unknown activities.

PubMed

Valizade Hasanloei, Mohammad Amin; Sheikhpour, Razieh; Sarram, Mehdi Agha; Sheikhpour, Elnaz; Sharifi, Hamdollah

2018-02-01

Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) is an effective computational technique for drug design that relates the chemical structures of compounds to their biological activities. Feature selection is an important step in QSAR based drug design to select the most relevant descriptors. One of the most popular feature selection methods for classification problems is Fisher score which aim is to minimize the within-class distance and maximize the between-class distance. In this study, the properties of Fisher criterion were extended for QSAR models to define the new distance metrics based on the continuous activity values of compounds with known activities. Then, a semi-supervised feature selection method was proposed based on the combination of Fisher and Laplacian criteria which exploits both compounds with known and unknown activities to select the relevant descriptors. To demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed semi-supervised feature selection method in selecting the relevant descriptors, we applied the method and other feature selection methods on three QSAR data sets such as serine/threonine-protein kinase PLK3 inhibitors, ROCK inhibitors and phenol compounds. The results demonstrated that the QSAR models built on the selected descriptors by the proposed semi-supervised method have better performance than other models. This indicates the efficiency of the proposed method in selecting the relevant descriptors using the compounds with known and unknown activities. The results of this study showed that the compounds with known and unknown activities can be helpful to improve the performance of the combined Fisher and Laplacian based feature selection methods.
A combined Fisher and Laplacian score for feature selection in QSAR based drug design using compounds with known and unknown activities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valizade Hasanloei, Mohammad Amin; Sheikhpour, Razieh; Sarram, Mehdi Agha; Sheikhpour, Elnaz; Sharifi, Hamdollah

2018-02-01

Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) is an effective computational technique for drug design that relates the chemical structures of compounds to their biological activities. Feature selection is an important step in QSAR based drug design to select the most relevant descriptors. One of the most popular feature selection methods for classification problems is Fisher score which aim is to minimize the within-class distance and maximize the between-class distance. In this study, the properties of Fisher criterion were extended for QSAR models to define the new distance metrics based on the continuous activity values of compounds with known activities. Then, a semi-supervised feature selection method was proposed based on the combination of Fisher and Laplacian criteria which exploits both compounds with known and unknown activities to select the relevant descriptors. To demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed semi-supervised feature selection method in selecting the relevant descriptors, we applied the method and other feature selection methods on three QSAR data sets such as serine/threonine-protein kinase PLK3 inhibitors, ROCK inhibitors and phenol compounds. The results demonstrated that the QSAR models built on the selected descriptors by the proposed semi-supervised method have better performance than other models. This indicates the efficiency of the proposed method in selecting the relevant descriptors using the compounds with known and unknown activities. The results of this study showed that the compounds with known and unknown activities can be helpful to improve the performance of the combined Fisher and Laplacian based feature selection methods.
Using Confidence Interval-Based Estimation of Relevance to Select Social-Cognitive Determinants for Behavior Change Interventions.

PubMed

Crutzen, Rik; Peters, Gjalt-Jorn Ygram; Noijen, Judith

2017-01-01

When developing an intervention aimed at behavior change, one of the crucial steps in the development process is to select the most relevant social-cognitive determinants. These determinants can be seen as the buttons one needs to push to establish behavior change. Insight into these determinants is needed to select behavior change methods (i.e., general behavior change techniques that are applied in an intervention) in the development process. Therefore, a study on determinants is often conducted as formative research in the intervention development process. Ideally, all relevant determinants identified in such a study are addressed by an intervention. However, when developing a behavior change intervention, there are limits in terms of, for example, resources available for intervention development and the amount of content that participants of an intervention can be exposed to. Hence, it is important to select those determinants that are most relevant to the target behavior as these determinants should be addressed in an intervention. The aim of the current paper is to introduce a novel approach to select the most relevant social-cognitive determinants and use them in intervention development. This approach is based on visualization of confidence intervals for the means and correlation coefficients for all determinants simultaneously. This visualization facilitates comparison, which is necessary when making selections. By means of a case study on the determinants of using a high dose of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (commonly known as ecstasy), we illustrate this approach. We provide a freely available tool to facilitate the analyses needed in this approach.
Attitude importance and the accumulation of attitude-relevant knowledge in memory.

PubMed

Holbrook, Allyson L; Berent, Matthew K; Krosnick, Jon A; Visser, Penny S; Boninger, David S

2005-05-01

People who attach personal importance to an attitude are especially knowledgeable about the attitude object. This article tests an explanation for this relation: that importance causes the accumulation of knowledge by inspiring selective exposure to and selective elaboration of relevant information. Nine studies showed that (a) after watching televised debates between presidential candidates, viewers were better able to remember the statements made on policy issues on which they had more personally important attitudes; (b) importance motivated selective exposure and selective elaboration: Greater personal importance was associated with better memory for relevant information encountered under controlled laboratory conditions, and manipulations eliminating opportunities for selective exposure and selective elaboration eliminated the importance-memory accuracy relation; and (c) people do not use perceptions of their knowledge volume to infer how important an attitude is to them, but importance does cause knowledge accumulation.
Relevance Judging, Evaluation, and Decision Making in Virtual Libraries: A Descriptive Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fitzgerald, Mary Ann; Galloway, Chad

2001-01-01

Describes a study that investigated the cognitive processes undergraduates used to select information while using a virtual library, GALILEO (Georgia Library Learning Online). Discusses higher order thinking processes, relevance judging, evaluation (critical thinking), decision making, reasoning involving documents, relevance-related reasoning,…
Increasing Student Motivation and the Perception of Chemistry's Relevance in the Classroom by Learning about Tattooing from a Chemical and Societal View

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stuckey, Marc; Eilks, Ingo

2014-01-01

This paper presents a study on tattooing as a topic for chemistry education. The selection of the topic was inspired by a newly suggested framework, which focuses on the question of relevance of science education. The aim of this case was to get evidence on how topics selected based on the suggested model of relevance of science education affect…
Neural evidence reveals the rapid effects of reward history on selective attention.

PubMed

MacLean, Mary H; Giesbrecht, Barry

2015-05-05

Selective attention is often framed as being primarily driven by two factors: task-relevance and physical salience. However, factors like selection and reward history, which are neither currently task-relevant nor physically salient, can reliably and persistently influence visual selective attention. The current study investigated the nature of the persistent effects of irrelevant, physically non-salient, reward-associated features. These features affected one of the earliest reliable neural indicators of visual selective attention in humans, the P1 event-related potential, measured one week after the reward associations were learned. However, the effects of reward history were moderated by current task demands. The modulation of visually evoked activity supports the hypothesis that reward history influences the innate salience of reward associated features, such that even when no longer relevant, nor physically salient, these features have a rapid, persistent, and robust effect on early visual selective attention. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Rating the Relevance of QUORUM-Selected ASRS Incident Narratives to a "Controlled Flight into Terrain" Accident

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McGreevy, Michael W.; Statler, Irving C.

1998-01-01

An exploratory study was conducted to identify commercial aviation incidents that are relevant to a "controlled flight into terrain" (CFIT) accident using a NASA-developed text processing method. The QUORUM method was used to rate 67820 incident narratives, virtually all of the narratives in the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) database, according to their relevance to two official reports on the crash of American Airlines Flight 965 near Cali, Colombia in December 1995. For comparison with QUORUM's ratings, three experienced ASRS analysts read the reports of the crash and independently rated the relevance of the 100 narratives that were most highly rated by QUORUM, as well as 100 narratives randomly selected from the database. Eighty-four of 100 QUORUM-selected narratives were rated as relevant to the Cali accident by one or more of the analysts. The relevant incidents involved a variety of factors, including, over-reliance on automation, confusion and changes during descent/approach, terrain avoidance, and operations in foreign airspace. In addition, the QUORUM collection of incidents was found to be significantly more relevant than the random collection.
Measuring individual work performance: identifying and selecting indicators.

PubMed

Koopmans, Linda; Bernaards, Claire M; Hildebrandt, Vincent H; de Vet, Henrica C W; van der Beek, Allard J

2014-01-01

Theoretically, individual work performance (IWP) can be divided into four dimensions: task performance, contextual performance, adaptive performance, and counterproductive work behavior. However, there is no consensus on the indicators used to measure these dimensions. This study was designed to (1) identify indicators for each dimension, (2) select the most relevant indicators, and (3) determine the relative weight of each dimension in ratings of work performance. IWP indicators were identified from multiple research disciplines, via literature, existing questionnaires, and expert interviews. Subsequently, experts selected the most relevant indicators per dimension and scored the relative weight of each dimension in ratings of IWP. In total, 128 unique indicators were identified. Twenty-three of these indicators were selected by experts as most relevant for measuring IWP. Task performance determined 36% of the work performance rating, while the other three dimensions respectively determined 22%, 20% and 21% of the rating. Notable consensus was found on relevant indicators of IWP, reducing the number from 128 to 23 relevant indicators. This provides an important step towards the development of a standardized, generic and short measurement instrument for assessing IWP.
Evaluating candidate reactions to selection practices using organisational justice theory.

PubMed

Patterson, Fiona; Zibarras, Lara; Carr, Victoria; Irish, Bill; Gregory, Simon

2011-03-01

This study aimed to examine candidate reactions to selection practices in postgraduate medical training using organisational justice theory. We carried out three independent cross-sectional studies using samples from three consecutive annual recruitment rounds. Data were gathered from candidates applying for entry into UK general practice (GP) training during 2007, 2008 and 2009. Participants completed an evaluation questionnaire immediately after the short-listing stage and after the selection centre (interview) stage. Participants were doctors applying for GP training in the UK. Main outcome measures were participants' evaluations of the selection methods and perceptions of the overall fairness of each selection stage (short-listing and selection centre). A total of 23,855 evaluation questionnaires were completed (6893 in 2007, 10,497 in 2008 and 6465 in 2009). Absolute levels of perceptions of fairness of all the selection methods at both the short-listing and selection centre stages were consistently high over the 3years. Similarly, all selection methods were considered to be job-related by candidates. However, in general, candidates considered the selection centre stage to be significantly fairer than the short-listing stage. Of all the selection methods, the simulated patient consultation completed at the selection centre stage was rated as the most job-relevant. This is the first study to use a model of organisational justice theory to evaluate candidate reactions during selection into postgraduate specialty training. The high-fidelity selection methods are consistently viewed as more job-relevant and fairer by candidates. This has important implications for the design of recruitment systems for all specialties and, potentially, for medical school admissions. Using this approach, recruiters can systematically compare perceptions of the fairness and job relevance of various selection methods. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2011.
System for selecting relevant information for decision support.

PubMed

Kalina, Jan; Seidl, Libor; Zvára, Karel; Grünfeldová, Hana; Slovák, Dalibor; Zvárová, Jana

2013-01-01

We implemented a prototype of a decision support system called SIR which has a form of a web-based classification service for diagnostic decision support. The system has the ability to select the most relevant variables and to learn a classification rule, which is guaranteed to be suitable also for high-dimensional measurements. The classification system can be useful for clinicians in primary care to support their decision-making tasks with relevant information extracted from any available clinical study. The implemented prototype was tested on a sample of patients in a cardiological study and performs an information extraction from a high-dimensional set containing both clinical and gene expression data.
Intentional attention switching in dichotic listening: exploring the efficiency of nonspatial and spatial selection.

PubMed

Lawo, Vera; Fels, Janina; Oberem, Josefa; Koch, Iring

2014-10-01

Using an auditory variant of task switching, we examined the ability to intentionally switch attention in a dichotic-listening task. In our study, participants responded selectively to one of two simultaneously presented auditory number words (spoken by a female and a male, one for each ear) by categorizing its numerical magnitude. The mapping of gender (female vs. male) and ear (left vs. right) was unpredictable. The to-be-attended feature for gender or ear, respectively, was indicated by a visual selection cue prior to auditory stimulus onset. In Experiment 1, explicitly cued switches of the relevant feature dimension (e.g., from gender to ear) and switches of the relevant feature within a dimension (e.g., from male to female) occurred in an unpredictable manner. We found large performance costs when the relevant feature switched, but switches of the relevant feature dimension incurred only small additional costs. The feature-switch costs were larger in ear-relevant than in gender-relevant trials. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings using a simplified design (i.e., only within-dimension switches with blocked dimensions). In Experiment 3, we examined preparation effects by manipulating the cueing interval and found a preparation benefit only when ear was cued. Together, our data suggest that the large part of attentional switch costs arises from reconfiguration at the level of relevant auditory features (e.g., left vs. right) rather than feature dimensions (ear vs. gender). Additionally, our findings suggest that ear-based target selection benefits more from preparation time (i.e., time to direct attention to one ear) than gender-based target selection.

Relevant, irredundant feature selection and noisy example elimination.

PubMed

Lashkia, George V; Anthony, Laurence

2004-04-01

In many real-world situations, the method for computing the desired output from a set of inputs is unknown. One strategy for solving these types of problems is to learn the input-output functionality from examples in a training set. However, in many situations it is difficult to know what information is relevant to the task at hand. Subsequently, researchers have investigated ways to deal with the so-called problem of consistency of attributes, i.e., attributes that can distinguish examples from different classes. In this paper, we first prove that the notion of relevance of attributes is directly related to the consistency of attributes, and show how relevant, irredundant attributes can be selected. We then compare different relevant attribute selection algorithms, and show the superiority of algorithms that select irredundant attributes over those that select relevant attributes. We also show that searching for an "optimal" subset of attributes, which is considered to be the main purpose of attribute selection, is not the best way to improve the accuracy of classifiers. Employing sets of relevant, irredundant attributes improves classification accuracy in many more cases. Finally, we propose a new method for selecting relevant examples, which is based on filtering the so-called pattern frequency domain. By identifying examples that are nontypical in the determination of relevant, irredundant attributes, irrelevant examples can be eliminated prior to the learning process. Empirical results using artificial and real databases show the effectiveness of the proposed method in selecting relevant examples leading to improved performance even on greatly reduced training sets.
The Focus of Attention in Visual Working Memory: Protection of Focused Representations and Its Individual Variation.

PubMed

Heuer, Anna; Schubö, Anna

2016-01-01

Visual working memory can be modulated according to changes in the cued task relevance of maintained items. Here, we investigated the mechanisms underlying this modulation. In particular, we studied the consequences of attentional selection for selected and unselected items, and the role of individual differences in the efficiency with which attention is deployed. To this end, performance in a visual working memory task as well as the CDA/SPCN and the N2pc, ERP components associated with visual working memory and attentional processes, were analysed. Selection during the maintenance stage was manipulated by means of two successively presented retrocues providing spatial information as to which items were most likely to be tested. Results show that attentional selection serves to robustly protect relevant representations in the focus of attention while unselected representations which may become relevant again still remain available. Individuals with larger retrocueing benefits showed higher efficiency of attentional selection, as indicated by the N2pc, and showed stronger maintenance-associated activity (CDA/SPCN). The findings add to converging evidence that focused representations are protected, and highlight the flexibility of visual working memory, in which information can be weighted according its relevance.
Environmental Adaptation Contributes to Gene Polymorphism across the Arabidopsis thaliana Genome

PubMed Central

Lee, Cheng-Ruei

2012-01-01

The level of within-species polymorphism differs greatly among genes in a genome. Many genomic studies have investigated the relationship between gene polymorphism and factors such as recombination rate or expression pattern. However, the polymorphism of a gene is affected not only by its physical properties or functional constraints but also by natural selection on organisms in their environments. Specifically, if functionally divergent alleles enable adaptation to different environments, locus-specific polymorphism may be maintained by spatially heterogeneous natural selection. To test this hypothesis and estimate the extent to which environmental selection shapes the pattern of genome-wide polymorphism, we define the "environmental relevance" of a gene as the proportion of genetic variation explained by environmental factors, after controlling for population structure. We found substantial effects of environmental relevance on patterns of polymorphism among genes. In addition, the correlation between environmental relevance and gene polymorphism is positive, consistent with the expectation that balancing selection among heterogeneous environments maintains genetic variation at ecologically important genes. Comparison of the gene ontology annotations shows that genes with high environmental relevance are enriched in unknown function categories. These results suggest an important role for environmental factors in shaping genome-wide patterns of polymorphism and indicate another direction of genomic study. PMID:22798389
Transversal Traits in Science Education Research Relevant for Teaching and Research: A Meta-Interpretative Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lopes, J. Bernardino; Silva, Antonio Alberto; Cravino, Jose P.; Costa, Nilza; Marques, Luis; Campos, Carlos

2008-01-01

This study is a meta-interpretative analysis that focuses on research conducted and published by other researchers. Concepts central to this study include global practical relevance, curriculum design, and formative situation. We analyzed 35 studies selected from 374 published studies in the years 2000 and 2001 in three journals referenced in the…
Age-equivalent top-down modulation during cross-modal selective attention.

PubMed

Guerreiro, Maria J S; Anguera, Joaquin A; Mishra, Jyoti; Van Gerven, Pascal W M; Gazzaley, Adam

2014-12-01

Selective attention involves top-down modulation of sensory cortical areas, such that responses to relevant information are enhanced whereas responses to irrelevant information are suppressed. Suppression of irrelevant information, unlike enhancement of relevant information, has been shown to be deficient in aging. Although these attentional mechanisms have been well characterized within the visual modality, little is known about these mechanisms when attention is selectively allocated across sensory modalities. The present EEG study addressed this issue by testing younger and older participants in three different tasks: Participants attended to the visual modality and ignored the auditory modality, attended to the auditory modality and ignored the visual modality, or passively perceived information presented through either modality. We found overall modulation of visual and auditory processing during cross-modal selective attention in both age groups. Top-down modulation of visual processing was observed as a trend toward enhancement of visual information in the setting of auditory distraction, but no significant suppression of visual distraction when auditory information was relevant. Top-down modulation of auditory processing, on the other hand, was observed as suppression of auditory distraction when visual stimuli were relevant, but no significant enhancement of auditory information in the setting of visual distraction. In addition, greater visual enhancement was associated with better recognition of relevant visual information, and greater auditory distractor suppression was associated with a better ability to ignore auditory distraction. There were no age differences in these effects, suggesting that when relevant and irrelevant information are presented through different sensory modalities, selective attention remains intact in older age.
Age Differences in Selective Memory of Goal-Relevant Stimuli Under Threat.

PubMed

Durbin, Kelly A; Clewett, David; Huang, Ringo; Mather, Mara

2018-02-01

When faced with threat, people often selectively focus on and remember the most pertinent information while simultaneously ignoring any irrelevant information. Filtering distractors under arousal requires inhibitory mechanisms, which take time to recruit and often decline in older age. Despite the adaptive nature of this ability, relatively little research has examined how both threat and time spent preparing these inhibitory mechanisms affect selective memory for goal-relevant information across the life span. In this study, 32 younger and 31 older adults were asked to encode task-relevant scenes, while ignoring transparent task-irrelevant objects superimposed onto them. Threat levels were increased on some trials by threatening participants with monetary deductions if they later forgot scenes that followed threat cues. We also varied the time between threat induction and a to-be-encoded scene (i.e., 2 s, 4 s, 6 s) to determine whether both threat and timing effects on memory selectivity differ by age. We found that age differences in memory selectivity only emerged after participants spent a long time (i.e., 6 s) preparing for selective encoding. Critically, this time-dependent age difference occurred under threatening, but not neutral, conditions. Under threat, longer preparation time led to enhanced memory for task-relevant scenes and greater memory suppression of task-irrelevant objects in younger adults. In contrast, increased preparation time after threat induction had no effect on older adults' scene memory and actually worsened memory suppression of task-irrelevant objects. These findings suggest that increased time to prepare top-down encoding processes benefits younger, but not older, adults' selective memory for goal-relevant information under threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
Selecting relevant and feasible measurement instruments for the revised Dutch clinical practice guideline for physical therapy in patients after stroke.

PubMed

Otterman, Nicoline; Veerbeek, Janne; Schiemanck, Sven; van der Wees, Philip; Nollet, Frans; Kwakkel, Gert

2017-07-01

To select relevant and feasible instruments for the revision of the Dutch clinical practice guideline for physical therapy in patients with stroke. In this implementation study a comprehensive proposal for ICF categories and matching instruments was developed, based on reliability and validity. Relevant instruments were then selected in a consensus round by 11 knowledge brokers who were responsible for the implementation of the selected instruments. The feasibility of the selected instruments was tested by 36 physical therapists at different work settings within stroke services. Finally, instruments that were deemed relevant and feasible were included in the revised guideline. A total of 28 instruments were recommended for inclusion in the revised guideline. Nineteen instruments were retained from the previous guideline. Ten new instruments were tested in clinical practice, seven of which were found feasible. Two more instruments were added after critical appraisal of the set of the measurement instruments. The revised guideline contains 28 relevant and feasible instrument selected and tested in clinical practice by physical therapists. Further education and implementation is needed to integrate instruments in clinical practice. Further research is proposed for developing and implementing a core set of measurement instruments to be used at fixed time points to establish data registries that allow for continuous improvement of rehabilitation for stroke patients. Implications for Rehabilitation The revised Dutch Stroke Physical Therapy Guideline recommends a total of 28 instruments, that are relevant and feasible for clinical practice of physical therapist in the different settings of stroke rehabilitation. The selection of instrument in daily practice should be part of the clinical reasoning process of PTs and be tailored to individual patients' needs and the degree of priority of the affected ICF category. Suggested education strategies for further integration of instruments in of the daily practice of PTs in Stroke Rehabilitation are: 'Training on the job' and 'peer assessment in clinical situations'.
The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face

PubMed Central

Zell, Ethan; Balcetis, Emily

2012-01-01

Can the effects of social comparison extend beyond explicit evaluation to visual self-representation—a perceptual stimulus that is objectively verifiable, unambiguous, and frequently updated? We morphed images of participants' faces with attractive and unattractive references. With access to a mirror, participants selected the morphed image they perceived as depicting their face. Participants who engaged in upward comparison with relevant attractive targets selected a less attractive morph compared to participants exposed to control images (Study 1). After downward comparison with relevant unattractive targets compared to control images, participants selected a more attractive morph (Study 2). Biased representations were not the products of cognitive accessibility of beauty constructs; comparisons did not influence representations of strangers' faces (Study 3). We discuss implications for vision, social comparison, and body image. PMID:22662124
What are the essential features of resilience for informal caregivers of people living with dementia? A Delphi consensus examination.

PubMed

Joling, Karlijn J; Windle, Gill; Dröes, Rose-Marie; Huisman, Martijn; Hertogh, Cees M P M; Woods, Robert T

2017-05-01

Few studies have examined what might enable or prevent resilience in carers of people with dementia. Consequently, there are limited insights as to how it should be understood, defined and measured. This creates challenges for research, and also practice in terms of how it might best be promoted. This study aimed to address these limitations and add new insights, identifying the essential features of resilience in dementia caregiving. A Delphi consensus study was conducted, consulting a multi-disciplinary panel of informal caregivers and experts with relevant professional expertise. Panellists rated the relevance of various statements addressing essential components of resilience; 'adversity' and 'successful caregiving' on a 5-point Likert scale. Based on the median and Inter Quartile Range, the most relevant statements with moderate consensus were proposed in Round 2 in which panellists selected up to five statements in order of importance. Moderate consensus was reached for all statements after two rounds. Patients' behavioural problems and feeling competent as a caregiver were selected by both caregivers and professionals as essential resilience features. Caregivers also emphasized the importance of social support, the quality of the relationship with their relative and enjoying spending time together. Professionals considered coping skills, experiencing positive aspects of caregiving, and a good quality of life of caregivers most relevant. The essential elements of resilience selected from multiple stakeholder perspectives can be used to select appropriate outcomes for intervention studies and give guidance to policy to support caregivers more effectively and better tailored to their needs.
The Relevance of Emotional Intelligence in Personnel Selection for High Emotional Labor Jobs

PubMed Central

Hock, Michael; Schütz, Astrid

2016-01-01

Although a large number of studies have pointed to the potential of emotional intelligence (EI) in the context of personnel selection, research in real-life selection contexts is still scarce. The aim of the present study was to examine whether EI would predict Assessment Center (AC) ratings of job-relevant competencies in a sample of applicants for the position of a flight attendant. Applicants’ ability to regulate emotions predicted performance in group exercises. However, there were inconsistent effects of applicants’ ability to understand emotions: Whereas the ability to understand emotions had a positive effect on performance in interview and role play, the effect on performance in group exercises was negative. We suppose that the effect depends on task type and conclude that tests of emotional abilities should be used judiciously in personnel selection procedures. PMID:27124201
The effects of memory load and stimulus relevance on the EEG during a visual selective memory search task: an ERP and ERD/ERS study.

PubMed

Gomarus, H Karin; Althaus, Monika; Wijers, Albertus A; Minderaa, Ruud B

2006-04-01

Psychophysiological correlates of selective attention and working memory were investigated in a group of 18 healthy children using a visually presented selective memory search task. Subjects had to memorize one (load1) or 3 (load3) letters (memory set) and search for these among a recognition set consisting of 4 letters only if the letters appeared in the correct (relevant) color. Event-related potentials (ERPs) as well as alpha and theta event-related synchronization and desynchronization (ERD/ERS) were derived from the EEG that was recorded during the task. In the ERP to the memory set, a prolonged load-related positivity was found. In response to the recognition set, effects of relevance were manifested in an early frontal positivity and a later frontal negativity. Effects of load were found in a search-related negativity within the attended category and a suppression of the P3-amplitude. Theta ERS was most pronounced for the most difficult task condition during the recognition set, whereas alpha ERD showed a load-effect only during memorization. The manipulation of stimulus relevance and memory load affected both ERP components and ERD/ERS. The present paradigm may supply a useful method for studying processes of selective attention and working memory and can be used to examine group differences between healthy controls and children showing psychopathology.
Selective Attention to Perceptual Dimensions and Switching between Dimensions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meiran, Nachshon; Dimov, Eduard; Ganel, Tzvi

2013-01-01

In the present experiments, the question being addressed was whether switching attention between perceptual dimensions and selective attention to dimensions are processes that compete over a common resource? Attention to perceptual dimensions is usually studied by requiring participants to ignore a never-relevant dimension. Selection failure…
Selective Mutism in Elementary School: Multidisciplinary Interventions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giddan, Jane J.; And Others

1997-01-01

Presents the symptoms of selective mutism and historical background for treatment. It provides a case study which illustrates successful multidisciplinary treatment outcomes for a child who was selectively mute. Issues relevant to speech-language pathologists working with elementary school children are discussed and treatment guidelines provided.…
Mental health epidemiological research in South America: recent findings

PubMed Central

Silva de Lima, Maurício; Garcia de Oliveira Soares, Bernardo; de Jesus Mari, Jair

2004-01-01

This paper aims to review the recent mental health epidemiological research conducted in South America. The Latin American and the Caribbean (LILACS) database was searched from 1999 to 2003 using a specific strategy for identification of cohort, case-control and cross-sectional population-based studies in South America. The authors screened references and identified relevant studies. Further studies were obtained contacting local experts in epidemiology. 140 references were identified, and 12 studies were selected. Most selected studies explored the prevalence and risk factors for common mental disorders, and several of them used sophisticated methods of sample selection and analysis. There is a need for improving the quality of psychiatric journals in Latin America, and for increasing the distribution and access to research data. Regionally relevant problems such as violence and substance abuse should be considered in designing future investigations in this area. PMID:16633474
On the Fate of Distractor Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frings, Christian; Wentura, Dirk; Wuhr, Peter

2012-01-01

Research on the topic of distractor inhibition has used different empirical approaches to study how the human mind selects relevant information from the environment, and the results are controversially discussed. One key question that typically arises is how selection deals with the irrelevant information. We used a new selection task, in which…
Novel Tool Selection in Left Brain-Damaged Patients With Apraxia of Tool Use: A Study of Three Cases.

PubMed

Osiurak, François; Granjon, Marine; Bonnevie, Isabelle; Brogniart, Joël; Mechtouff, Laura; Benoit, Amandine; Nighoghossian, Norbert; Lesourd, Mathieu

2018-05-01

Recent evidence indicates that some left brain-damaged (LBD) patients have difficulties to use familiar tools because of the inability to reason about physical object properties. A fundamental issue is to understand the residual capacity of those LBD patients in tool selection. Three LBD patients with tool use disorders, three right brain-damaged (RBD) patients, and six matched healthy controls performed a novel tool selection task, consisting in extracting a target out from a box by selecting the relevant tool among eight, four, or two tools. Three criteria were manipulated to make relevant and irrelevant tools (size, rigidity, shape). LBD patients selected a greater number of irrelevant tools and had more difficulties to solve the task compared to RBD patients and controls. All participants committed more errors for selecting relevant tools based on rigidity and shape than size. In some LBD patients, the difficulties persisted even in the 2-Choice condition. Our findings confirm that tool use disorders result from impaired technical reasoning, leading patients to meet difficulties in selecting tools based on their physical properties. We also go further by showing that these difficulties can decrease as the choice is reduced, at least for some properties, opening new avenues for rehabilitation programs. (JINS, 2018, 24, 524-529).
Signal Enhancement and Suppression During Visual-Spatial Selective Attention

PubMed Central

Couperus, J. W.; Mangun, G.R.

2010-01-01

Selective attention involves the relative enhancement of relevant versus irrelevant stimuli. However, whether this relative enhancement involves primarily enhancement of attended stimuli, or suppression of irrelevant stimuli, remains controversial. Moreover, if both enhancement and suppression are involved, whether they result from a single mechanism or separate mechanisms during attentional control or selection is not known. In two experiments using a spatial cuing paradigm with task-relevant targets and irrelevant distractors, target and distracter processing was examined as a function of distractor expectancy. Additionally, in the second study the interaction of perceptual load and distractor expectancy was explored. In both experiments, distractors were either validly cued (70%) or invalidly cued (30%) in order to examine the effects of distractor expectancy on attentional control as well as target and distractor processing. The effects of distractor expectancy were assessed using event-related potentials recorded during the cue-to-target period (preparatory attention) and in response to the task-relevant target stimuli (selective stimulus processing). Analyses of distractor-present displays (anticipated versus unanticipated), showed modulations in brain activity during both the preparatory period and during target processing. The pattern of brain responses suggest both facilitation of attended targets and suppression of unattended distractors. These findings provide evidence for a two-process model of visual spatial selective attention, where one mechanism (facilitation) influences relevant stimuli and another (suppression) acts to filter distracting stimuli. PMID:20807513
Seeing the World through Another Person's Eyes: Simulating Selective Attention via Action Observation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frischen, Alexandra; Loach, Daniel; Tipper, Steven P.

2009-01-01

Selective attention is usually considered an egocentric mechanism, biasing sensory information based on its behavioural relevance to oneself. This study provides evidence for an equivalent allocentric mechanism that allows passive observers to selectively attend to information from the perspective of another person. In a negative priming task,…
Cultural Diversity in Introductory Psychology Textbook Selection: The Case for Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCUs)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Whaley, Arthur L.; Clay, William A. L.; Broussard, Dominique

2017-01-01

The present study describes a culturally relevant approach to introductory psychology textbook selection for students attending a historically Black college/university (HBCU). The following multistage procedure was used: (1) a survey of HBCU psychology departments was conducted to ascertain how they selected their introductory psychology…
Attentional Selection Can Be Predicted by Reinforcement Learning of Task-relevant Stimulus Features Weighted by Value-independent Stickiness.

PubMed

Balcarras, Matthew; Ardid, Salva; Kaping, Daniel; Everling, Stefan; Womelsdorf, Thilo

2016-02-01

Attention includes processes that evaluate stimuli relevance, select the most relevant stimulus against less relevant stimuli, and bias choice behavior toward the selected information. It is not clear how these processes interact. Here, we captured these processes in a reinforcement learning framework applied to a feature-based attention task that required macaques to learn and update the value of stimulus features while ignoring nonrelevant sensory features, locations, and action plans. We found that value-based reinforcement learning mechanisms could account for feature-based attentional selection and choice behavior but required a value-independent stickiness selection process to explain selection errors while at asymptotic behavior. By comparing different reinforcement learning schemes, we found that trial-by-trial selections were best predicted by a model that only represents expected values for the task-relevant feature dimension, with nonrelevant stimulus features and action plans having only a marginal influence on covert selections. These findings show that attentional control subprocesses can be described by (1) the reinforcement learning of feature values within a restricted feature space that excludes irrelevant feature dimensions, (2) a stochastic selection process on feature-specific value representations, and (3) value-independent stickiness toward previous feature selections akin to perseveration in the motor domain. We speculate that these three mechanisms are implemented by distinct but interacting brain circuits and that the proposed formal account of feature-based stimulus selection will be important to understand how attentional subprocesses are implemented in primate brain networks.

Personal relevance and the human right hemisphere.

PubMed

Van Lancker, D

1991-09-01

Brain damage can selectively disrupt or distort information and ability across the range of human behaviors. One domain that has not been considered as an independent attribute consists of acquisition and maintenance of personal relevant entities such as "familiar" faces, persons, voices, names, linguistic expressions, handwriting, topography, and so on. In experimental studies of normal mentation, personal relevance is revealed in studies of emotion, arousal, affect, preference and familiarity judgments, and memory. Following focal brain damage, deficits and distortions in the experience of personal relevance, as well as in recognizing formerly personally relevant phenomena, are well known to occur. A review and interpretation of these data lead to a proposal that the right hemisphere has a special role in establishing, maintaining, and processing personally relevant aspects of the individual's world.
SU-E-J-128: Two-Stage Atlas Selection in Multi-Atlas-Based Image Segmentation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhao, T; Ruan, D

2015-06-15

Purpose: In the new era of big data, multi-atlas-based image segmentation is challenged by heterogeneous atlas quality and high computation burden from extensive atlas collection, demanding efficient identification of the most relevant atlases. This study aims to develop a two-stage atlas selection scheme to achieve computational economy with performance guarantee. Methods: We develop a low-cost fusion set selection scheme by introducing a preliminary selection to trim full atlas collection into an augmented subset, alleviating the need for extensive full-fledged registrations. More specifically, fusion set selection is performed in two successive steps: preliminary selection and refinement. An augmented subset is firstmore » roughly selected from the whole atlas collection with a simple registration scheme and the corresponding preliminary relevance metric; the augmented subset is further refined into the desired fusion set size, using full-fledged registration and the associated relevance metric. The main novelty of this work is the introduction of an inference model to relate the preliminary and refined relevance metrics, based on which the augmented subset size is rigorously derived to ensure the desired atlases survive the preliminary selection with high probability. Results: The performance and complexity of the proposed two-stage atlas selection method were assessed using a collection of 30 prostate MR images. It achieved comparable segmentation accuracy as the conventional one-stage method with full-fledged registration, but significantly reduced computation time to 1/3 (from 30.82 to 11.04 min per segmentation). Compared with alternative one-stage cost-saving approach, the proposed scheme yielded superior performance with mean and medium DSC of (0.83, 0.85) compared to (0.74, 0.78). Conclusion: This work has developed a model-guided two-stage atlas selection scheme to achieve significant cost reduction while guaranteeing high segmentation accuracy. The benefit in both complexity and performance is expected to be most pronounced with large-scale heterogeneous data.« less
Top-down modulation: Bridging selective attention and working memory

PubMed Central

Gazzaley, Adam; Nobre, Anna C.

2012-01-01

Selective attention, the ability to focus our cognitive resources on information relevant to our goals, influences working memory (WM) performance. Indeed, attention and working memory are increasingly viewed as overlapping constructs. Here, we review recent evidence from human neurophysiological studies demonstrating that top-down modulation serves as a common neural mechanism underlying these two cognitive operations. The core features include activity modulation in stimulus-selective sensory cortices with concurrent engagement of prefrontal and parietal control regions that function as sources of top-down signals. Notably, top-down modulation is engaged during both stimulus-present and stimulus-absent stages of WM tasks, i.e., expectation of an ensuing stimulus to be remembered, selection and encoding of stimuli, maintenance of relevant information in mind and memory retrieval. PMID:22209601
Modernizing Selection and Promotion Procedures in the State Employment Security Service Agency.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Derryck, Dennis A.; Leyes, Richard

The purpose of this feasibility study was to discover the types ofselection and promotion models, strategies, and processes that must be employed if current State Employment Security Service Agency selection practices are to be made more directly relevant to the various populations currently being served. Specifically, the study sought to…
aCGH-MAS: Analysis of aCGH by means of Multiagent System

PubMed Central

Benito, Rocío; Bajo, Javier; Rodríguez, Ana Eugenia; Abáigar, María

2015-01-01

There are currently different techniques, such as CGH arrays, to study genetic variations in patients. CGH arrays analyze gains and losses in different regions in the chromosome. Regions with gains or losses in pathologies are important for selecting relevant genes or CNVs (copy-number variations) associated with the variations detected within chromosomes. Information corresponding to mutations, genes, proteins, variations, CNVs, and diseases can be found in different databases and it would be of interest to incorporate information of different sources to extract relevant information. This work proposes a multiagent system to manage the information of aCGH arrays, with the aim of providing an intuitive and extensible system to analyze and interpret the results. The agent roles integrate statistical techniques to select relevant variations and visualization techniques for the interpretation of the final results and to extract relevant information from different sources of information by applying a CBR system. PMID:25874203
Searching for Mirrors: Preservice Teachers' Journey toward More Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Christ, Tanya; Sharma, Sue Ann

2018-01-01

Culturally relevant text selection and pedagogy support students' motivation, engagement, literacy outcomes, and positive identity formation. Nevertheless, there is limited research on teacher preparation that fosters these outcomes. We explore 17 preservice teachers' challenges and successes with culturally relevant text selection and pedagogy…
Personality, Resilience, Self-Regulation and Cognitive Ability Relevant to Teacher Selection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sautelle, Eleanor; Bowles, Terry; Hattie, John; Arifin, Daniel N.

2015-01-01

The current study uses social judgment theory to inform the design of processes to be used in selecting teachers for training programs. Developing a comprehensive selection process to identify individuals who are likely to succeed as teachers is a mechanism for improving teacher quality and raising the profile of the profession. The design of such…
The Use of Application Blanks as Pre-Screening Devices in Employee Selection: An Assessment of Practices in Public Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bredeson, Paul V.

1988-01-01

Reports on a study of the use of employment application blanks as prescreening devices in public school employee selection. Findings suggest two major areas for further research. The first relates to legal compliance with Equal Opportunity Employment guidelines. The second concerns information relevancy to personnel selection. (JAM)
Indicators for evaluating European population health: a Delphi selection process.

PubMed

Freitas, Ângela; Santana, Paula; Oliveira, Mónica D; Almendra, Ricardo; Bana E Costa, João C; Bana E Costa, Carlos A

2018-04-27

Indicators are essential instruments for monitoring and evaluating population health. The selection of a multidimensional set of indicators should not only reflect the scientific evidence on health outcomes and health determinants, but also the views of health experts and stakeholders. The aim of this study is to describe the Delphi selection process designed to promote agreement on indicators considered relevant to evaluate population health at the European regional level. Indicators were selected in a Delphi survey conducted using a web-platform designed to implement and monitor participatory processes. It involved a panel of 51 experts and 30 stakeholders from different areas of knowledge and geographies. In three consecutive rounds the panel indicated their level of agreement or disagreement with indicator's relevance for evaluating population health in Europe. Inferential statistics were applied to draw conclusions on observed level of agreement (Scott's Pi interrater reliability coefficient) and opinion change (McNemar Chi-square test). Multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to check if the field of expertise influenced the panellist responses (Wilk's Lambda test). The panel participated extensively in the study (overall response rate: 80%). Eighty indicators reached group agreement for selection in the areas of: economic and social environment (12); demographic change (5); lifestyle and health behaviours (8); physical environment (6); built environment (12); healthcare services (11) and health outcomes (26). Higher convergence of group opinion towards agreement on the relevance of indicators was seen for lifestyle and health behaviours, healthcare services, and health outcomes. The panellists' field of expertise influenced responses: statistically significant differences were found for economic and social environment (p < 0.05 in round 1 and 2), physical environment (p < 0.01 in round 1) and health outcomes (p < 0.01 in round 3). The high levels of participation observed in this study, by involving experts and stakeholders and ascertaining their views, underpinned the added value of using a transparent Web-Delphi process to promote agreement on what indicators are relevant to appraise population health.
Selection as a learning experience: an exploratory study.

PubMed

de Visser, Marieke; Laan, Roland F; Engbers, Rik; Cohen-Schotanus, Janke; Fluit, Cornelia

2018-01-01

Research on selection for medical school does not explore selection as a learning experience, despite growing attention for the learning effects of assessment in general. Insight in the learning effects allows us to take advantage of selection as an inclusive part of medical students' learning process to become competent professionals. The aims of this study at Radboud University Medical Center, the Netherlands, were 1) to determine whether students have learning experiences in the selection process, and, if so, what experiences; and 2) to understand what students need in order to utilize the learning effects of the selection process at the start of the formal curriculum. We used focus groups to interview 30 students admitted in 2016 about their learning experiences in the selection process. Thematic analysis was used to explore the outcomes of the interviews and to define relevant themes. In the selection process, students learned about the curriculum, themselves, their relation to others, and the profession they had been selected to enter, although this was not explicitly perceived as learning. Students needed a connection between selection and the curriculum as well as feedback to be able to really use their learning experiences for their further development. Medical school selection qualifies as a learning experience, and students as well as medical schools can take advantage of this. We recommend a careful design of the selection procedure, integrating relevant selection learning experiences into the formal curriculum, providing feedback and explicitly approaching the selection and the formal curriculum as interconnected contributors to students' development.
Term Relevance Feedback and Mediated Database Searching: Implications for Information Retrieval Practice and Systems Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spink, Amanda

1995-01-01

This study uses the human approach to examine the sources and effectiveness of search terms selected during 40 mediated interactive database searches and focuses on determining the retrieval effectiveness of search terms identified by users and intermediaries from retrieved items during term relevance feedback. (Author/JKP)
Cultural Speak: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Experiential Learning in a Public Speaking Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Colvin, Janet; Tobler, Nancy

2013-01-01

This study describes the efficacy of modifications made to a higher education Latina/o public speaking course to enhance student growth and understanding. The changes included the addition of a service-learning component and the incorporation of culturally relevant pedagogy. Selected research, particularly related to college students, on…
Differential prioritization between relevance and redundancy in correlation-based feature selection techniques for multiclass gene expression data.

PubMed

Ooi, Chia Huey; Chetty, Madhu; Teng, Shyh Wei

2006-06-23

Due to the large number of genes in a typical microarray dataset, feature selection looks set to play an important role in reducing noise and computational cost in gene expression-based tissue classification while improving accuracy at the same time. Surprisingly, this does not appear to be the case for all multiclass microarray datasets. The reason is that many feature selection techniques applied on microarray datasets are either rank-based and hence do not take into account correlations between genes, or are wrapper-based, which require high computational cost, and often yield difficult-to-reproduce results. In studies where correlations between genes are considered, attempts to establish the merit of the proposed techniques are hampered by evaluation procedures which are less than meticulous, resulting in overly optimistic estimates of accuracy. We present two realistically evaluated correlation-based feature selection techniques which incorporate, in addition to the two existing criteria involved in forming a predictor set (relevance and redundancy), a third criterion called the degree of differential prioritization (DDP). DDP functions as a parameter to strike the balance between relevance and redundancy, providing our techniques with the novel ability to differentially prioritize the optimization of relevance against redundancy (and vice versa). This ability proves useful in producing optimal classification accuracy while using reasonably small predictor set sizes for nine well-known multiclass microarray datasets. For multiclass microarray datasets, especially the GCM and NCI60 datasets, DDP enables our filter-based techniques to produce accuracies better than those reported in previous studies which employed similarly realistic evaluation procedures.
The Power of Natural Selection: A Guided Investigation of Three Case Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beachly, William

2010-01-01

I describe a quantitative approach to three case studies in evolution that can be used to challenge college freshmen to explore the power of natural selection and ask questions that foster a deeper understanding of its operation and relevance. Hemochromatosis, the peppered moth, and hominid cranial capacity are investigated with a common algebraic…
ELT Research in Turkey: A Content Analysis of Selected Features of Published Articles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yagiz, Oktay; Aydin, Burcu; Akdemir, Ahmet Selçuk

2016-01-01

This study reviews a selected sample of 274 research articles on ELT, published between 2005 and 2015 in Turkish contexts. In the study, 15 journals in ULAKBIM database and articles from national and international journals accessed according to convenience sampling method were surveyed and relevant articles were obtained. A content analysis was…
Bootstrapping agency: How control-relevant information affects motivation.

PubMed

Karsh, Noam; Eitam, Baruch; Mark, Ilya; Higgins, E Tory

2016-10-01

How does information about one's control over the environment (e.g., having an own-action effect) influence motivation? The control-based response selection framework was proposed to predict and explain such findings. Its key tenant is that control relevant information modulates both the frequency and speed of responses by determining whether a perceptual event is an outcome of one's actions or not. To test this framework empirically, the current study examines whether and how temporal and spatial contiguity/predictability-previously established as being important for one's sense of agency-modulate motivation from control. In 5 experiments, participants responded to a cue, potentially triggering a perceptual effect. Temporal (Experiments 1a-c) and spatial (Experiments 2a and b) contiguity/predictability between actions and their potential effects were experimentally manipulated. The influence of these control-relevant factors was measured, both indirectly (through their effect on explicit judgments of agency) and directly on response time and response frequency. The pattern of results was highly consistent with the control-based response selection framework in suggesting that control relevant information reliably modulates the impact of "having an effect" on different levels of action selection. We discuss the implications of this study for the notion of motivation from control and for the empirical work on the sense of agency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).
Subset selective search on the basis of color and preview.

PubMed

Donk, Mieke

2017-01-01

In the preview paradigm observers are presented with one set of elements (the irrelevant set) followed by the addition of a second set among which the target is presented (the relevant set). Search efficiency in such a preview condition has been demonstrated to be higher than that in a full-baseline condition in which both sets are simultaneously presented, suggesting that a preview of the irrelevant set reduces its influence on the search process. However, numbers of irrelevant and relevant elements are typically not independently manipulated. Moreover, subset selective search also occurs when both sets are presented simultaneously but differ in color. The aim of the present study was to investigate how numbers of irrelevant and relevant elements contribute to preview search in the absence and presence of a color difference between subsets. In two experiments it was demonstrated that a preview reduced the influence of the number of irrelevant elements in the absence but not in the presence of a color difference between subsets. In the presence of a color difference, a preview lowered the effect of the number of relevant elements but only when the target was defined by a unique feature within the relevant set (Experiment 1); when the target was defined by a conjunction of features (Experiment 2), search efficiency as a function of the number of relevant elements was not modulated by a preview. Together the results are in line with the idea that subset selective search is based on different simultaneously operating mechanisms.
Sparse Bayesian Learning for Identifying Imaging Biomarkers in AD Prediction

PubMed Central

Shen, Li; Qi, Yuan; Kim, Sungeun; Nho, Kwangsik; Wan, Jing; Risacher, Shannon L.; Saykin, Andrew J.

2010-01-01

We apply sparse Bayesian learning methods, automatic relevance determination (ARD) and predictive ARD (PARD), to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) classification to make accurate prediction and identify critical imaging markers relevant to AD at the same time. ARD is one of the most successful Bayesian feature selection methods. PARD is a powerful Bayesian feature selection method, and provides sparse models that is easy to interpret. PARD selects the model with the best estimate of the predictive performance instead of choosing the one with the largest marginal model likelihood. Comparative study with support vector machine (SVM) shows that ARD/PARD in general outperform SVM in terms of prediction accuracy. Additional comparison with surface-based general linear model (GLM) analysis shows that regions with strongest signals are identified by both GLM and ARD/PARD. While GLM P-map returns significant regions all over the cortex, ARD/PARD provide a small number of relevant and meaningful imaging markers with predictive power, including both cortical and subcortical measures. PMID:20879451
Alternative microbial methods: An overview and selection criteria.

PubMed

Jasson, Vicky; Jacxsens, Liesbeth; Luning, Pieternel; Rajkovic, Andreja; Uyttendaele, Mieke

2010-09-01

This study provides an overview and criteria for the selection of a method, other than the reference method, for microbial analysis of foods. In a first part an overview of the general characteristics of rapid methods available, both for enumeration and detection, is given with reference to relevant bibliography. Perspectives on future development and the potential of the rapid method for routine application in food diagnostics are discussed. As various alternative "rapid" methods in different formats are available on the market, it can be very difficult for a food business operator or for a control authority to select the most appropriate method which fits its purpose. Validation of a method by a third party, according to international accepted protocol based upon ISO 16140, may increase the confidence in the performance of a method. A list of at the moment validated methods for enumeration of both utility indicators (aerobic plate count) and hygiene indicators (Enterobacteriaceae, Escherichia coli, coagulase positive Staphylococcus) as well as for detection of the four major pathogens (Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli O157 and Campylobacter spp.) is included with reference to relevant websites to check for updates. In a second part of this study, selection criteria are introduced to underpin the choice of the appropriate method(s) for a defined application. The selection criteria link the definition of the context in which the user of the method functions - and thus the prospective use of the microbial test results - with the technical information on the method and its operational requirements and sustainability. The selection criteria can help the end user of the method to obtain a systematic insight into all relevant factors to be taken into account for selection of a method for microbial analysis. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Automated selection of relevant information for notification of incident cancer cases within a multisource cancer registry.

PubMed

Jouhet, V; Defossez, G; Ingrand, P

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a selection algorithm of relevant records for the notification of incident cases of cancer on the basis of the individual data available in a multi-source information system. This work was conducted on data for the year 2008 in the general cancer registry of Poitou-Charentes region (France). The selection algorithm hierarchizes information according to its level of relevance for tumoral topography and tumoral morphology independently. The selected data are combined to form composite records. These records are then grouped in respect with the notification rules of the International Agency for Research on Cancer for multiple primary cancers. The evaluation, based on recall, precision and F-measure confronted cases validated manually by the registry's physicians with tumours notified with and without records selection. The analysis involved 12,346 tumours validated among 11,971 individuals. The data used were hospital discharge data (104,474 records), pathology data (21,851 records), healthcare insurance data (7508 records) and cancer care centre's data (686 records). The selection algorithm permitted performances improvement for notification of tumour topography (F-measure 0.926 with vs. 0.857 without selection) and tumour morphology (F-measure 0.805 with vs. 0.750 without selection). These results show that selection of information according to its origin is efficient in reducing noise generated by imprecise coding. Further research is needed for solving the semantic problems relating to the integration of heterogeneous data and the use of non-structured information.

Nanoparticle dispersion in environmentally relevant culture media: a TiO2 case study and considerations for a general approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horst, Allison M.; Ji, Zhaoxia; Holden, Patricia A.

2012-08-01

Nanoparticle exposure in toxicity studies requires that nanoparticles are bioavailable by remaining highly dispersed in culture media. However, reported dispersion approaches are variable, mostly study-specific, and not transferable owing to their empirical basis. Furthermore, many published approaches employ proteinaceous dispersants in rich laboratory media, both of which represent end members in environmental scenarios. Here, a systematic approach was developed to disperse initially agglomerated TiO2 nanoparticles (Aeroxide® TiO2 P25, Evonik, NJ; primary particle size range 6.4-73.8 nm) in oligotrophic culture medium for environmentally relevant bacterial toxicity studies. Based on understanding particle-particle interactions in aqueous media and maintaining environmental relevance, the approach involves (1) quantifying the relationship between pH and zeta potential to determine the point of zero charge of select nanoparticles in water; (2) nominating, then testing and selecting, environmentally relevant stabilizing agents; and (3) dispersing via "condition and capture" whereby stock dry powder nanoparticles are sonicated in pre-conditioned (with base, or acid, plus stabilizing agent) water, then diluted into culture media. The "condition and capture" principle is transferable to other nanoparticle and media chemistries: simultaneously, mechanically and electrostatically, nanoparticles can be dispersed with surrounding stabilizers that coat and sterically hinder reagglomeration in the culture medium.
Evidence based selection of probiotic strains to promote astronaut health or alleviate symptoms of illness on long duration spaceflight missions.

PubMed

Douglas, G L; Voorhies, A A

2017-10-13

Spaceflight impacts multiple aspects of human physiology, which will require non-invasive countermeasures as mission length and distance from Earth increases and the capability for external medical intervention decreases. Studies on Earth have shown that probiotics have the potential to improve some of the conditions that have manifested during spaceflight, such as gastrointestinal distress, dermatitis, and respiratory infections. The constraints and risks of spaceflight make it imperative that probiotics are carefully selected based on their strain-specific benefits, doses, delivery mechanisms, and relevance to likely crew conditions prior to evaluation in astronauts. This review focuses on probiotics that have been incorporated into healthy human gastrointestinal microbiomes and associated clinically with improvements in inflammatory state or alleviation of symptoms of crew-relevant illness. These studies provide an evidence base for probiotic selection with the greatest potential to support crew health and well-being in spaceflight.
Prognostic relevance of motor talent predictors in early adolescence: A group- and individual-based evaluation considering different levels of achievement in youth football.

PubMed

Höner, Oliver; Votteler, Andreas

2016-12-01

In the debate about the usefulness of motor diagnostics in the talent identification process, the prognostic validity for tests conducted in early adolescence is of critical interest. Using a group- and individual-based statistical approach, this prospective cohort study evaluated a nationwide assessment of speed abilities and technical skills regarding its relevance for future achievement levels. The sample consisted of 22,843 U12-players belonging to the top 4% in German football. The U12-results in five tests served as predictors for players' selection levels in U16-U19 (youth national team, regional association, youth academy, not selected). Group-mean differences proved the prognostic relevance for all predictors. Low individual selection probabilities demonstrated limited predictive values, while excellent test results proved their particular prognostic relevance. Players scoring percentile ranks (PRs) ≥ 99 had a 12 times higher chance to become youth national team players than players scoring PR < 99. Simulating increasing score cut-off values not only enhanced specificity (correctly identified non-talents) but also led to lower sensitivity (loss of talents). Extending the current research, these different approaches revealed the ambiguity of the diagnostics' prognostic relevance, representing both the usefulness and several pitfalls of nationwide diagnostics. Therefore, the present diagnostics can support but not substitute for coaches' subjective decisions for talent identification, and multidisciplinary designs are required.
An Examination of Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Baccalaureate Graduate Perspectives on the Modern-Day Educational Relevance of HBCUs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robinson, Christopher Wayne

2017-01-01

The intent of this qualitative research study is to explore the modern-day educational relevance of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) from the personal insights and perspectives of select African American baccalaureate degree holders who have received their undergraduate degrees from an accredited historically Black institution…
Person/Situation Selection Research: The Problem of Identifying Salient Situational Dimensions. Research Report No. 13.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schneider, Benjamin

The study was concerned with the persistent problem in conducting person/situation research--the identification of relevant dimensions or features of the situation. Since the usual strategy for discovering relevant perceptual dimension of organizational life is to ask organizational employees to respond to a set of predetermined questions, this…
Selection of relevant input variables in storm water quality modeling by multiobjective evolutionary polynomial regression paradigm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Creaco, E.; Berardi, L.; Sun, Siao; Giustolisi, O.; Savic, D.

2016-04-01

The growing availability of field data, from information and communication technologies (ICTs) in "smart" urban infrastructures, allows data modeling to understand complex phenomena and to support management decisions. Among the analyzed phenomena, those related to storm water quality modeling have recently been gaining interest in the scientific literature. Nonetheless, the large amount of available data poses the problem of selecting relevant variables to describe a phenomenon and enable robust data modeling. This paper presents a procedure for the selection of relevant input variables using the multiobjective evolutionary polynomial regression (EPR-MOGA) paradigm. The procedure is based on scrutinizing the explanatory variables that appear inside the set of EPR-MOGA symbolic model expressions of increasing complexity and goodness of fit to target output. The strategy also enables the selection to be validated by engineering judgement. In such context, the multiple case study extension of EPR-MOGA, called MCS-EPR-MOGA, is adopted. The application of the proposed procedure to modeling storm water quality parameters in two French catchments shows that it was able to significantly reduce the number of explanatory variables for successive analyses. Finally, the EPR-MOGA models obtained after the input selection are compared with those obtained by using the same technique without benefitting from input selection and with those obtained in previous works where other data-modeling techniques were used on the same data. The comparison highlights the effectiveness of both EPR-MOGA and the input selection procedure.
Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) initiative: protocol for an international Delphi study to achieve consensus on how to select outcome measurement instruments for outcomes included in a 'core outcome set'.

PubMed

Prinsen, Cecilia A C; Vohra, Sunita; Rose, Michael R; King-Jones, Susanne; Ishaque, Sana; Bhaloo, Zafira; Adams, Denise; Terwee, Caroline B

2014-06-25

The Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) initiative aims to facilitate the development and application of 'core outcome sets' (COS). A COS is an agreed minimum set of outcomes that should be measured and reported in all clinical trials of a specific disease or trial population. The overall aim of the Core Outcome Measurement Instrument Selection (COMIS) project is to develop a guideline on how to select outcome measurement instruments for outcomes included in a COS. As part of this project, we describe our current efforts to achieve a consensus on the methods for selecting outcome measurement instruments for outcomes to be included in a COS. A Delphi study is being performed by a panel of international experts representing diverse stakeholders with the intention that this will result in a guideline for outcome measurement instrument selection. Informed by a literature review, a Delphi questionnaire was developed to identify potentially relevant tasks on instrument selection. The Delphi study takes place in a series of rounds. In the first round, panelists were asked to rate the importance of different tasks in the selection of outcome measurement instruments. They were encouraged to justify their choices and to add other relevant tasks. Consensus was reached if at least 70% of the panelists considered a task 'highly recommended' or 'desirable' and if no opposing arguments were provided. These tasks will be included in the guideline. Tasks that at least 50% of the panelists considered 'not relevant' will be excluded from the guideline. Tasks that were indeterminate will be taken to the second round. All responses of the first round are currently being aggregated and will be fed back to panelists in the second round. A third round will only be performed if the results of the second round require it. Since the Delphi method allows a large group of international experts to participate, we consider it to be the preferred consensus-based method for our study. Based upon this consultation process, a guideline will be developed on instrument selection for outcomes to be included in a COS.
Evaluating L2 Readers' Vocabulary Strategies and Dictionary Use

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prichard, Caleb

2008-01-01

A review of the relevant literature concerning second language dictionary use while reading suggests that selective dictionary use may lead to improved comprehension and efficient vocabulary development. This study aims to examine the dictionary use of Japanese university students to determine just how selective they are when reading nonfiction…
Sex Role Socialization Patterns in Selected Societies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Safilios-Rothschild, Constantina

This document evolved because studies concerning sex role socialization patterns were available from only a limited number of societies. In addition to examining available research findings, the author develops a number of relevant hypotheses with respect to several selected societies--the United States, Russia, Greece, India, and Eastern Europe.…
SU-E-I-71: Quality Assessment of Surrogate Metrics in Multi-Atlas-Based Image Segmentation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhao, T; Ruan, D

Purpose: With the ever-growing data of heterogeneous quality, relevance assessment of atlases becomes increasingly critical for multi-atlas-based image segmentation. However, there is no universally recognized best relevance metric and even a standard to compare amongst candidates remains elusive. This study, for the first time, designs a quantification to assess relevance metrics’ quality, based on a novel perspective of the metric as surrogate for inferring the inaccessible oracle geometric agreement. Methods: We first develop an inference model to relate surrogate metrics in image space to the underlying oracle relevance metric in segmentation label space, with a monotonically non-decreasing function subject tomore » random perturbations. Subsequently, we investigate model parameters to reveal key contributing factors to surrogates’ ability in prognosticating the oracle relevance value, for the specific task of atlas selection. Finally, we design an effective contract-to-noise ratio (eCNR) to quantify surrogates’ quality based on insights from these analyses and empirical observations. Results: The inference model was specialized to a linear function with normally distributed perturbations, with surrogate metric exemplified by several widely-used image similarity metrics, i.e., MSD/NCC/(N)MI. Surrogates’ behaviors in selecting the most relevant atlases were assessed under varying eCNR, showing that surrogates with high eCNR dominated those with low eCNR in retaining the most relevant atlases. In an end-to-end validation, NCC/(N)MI with eCNR of 0.12 compared to MSD with eCNR of 0.10 resulted in statistically better segmentation with mean DSC of about 0.85 and the first and third quartiles of (0.83, 0.89), compared to MSD with mean DSC of 0.84 and the first and third quartiles of (0.81, 0.89). Conclusion: The designed eCNR is capable of characterizing surrogate metrics’ quality in prognosticating the oracle relevance value. It has been demonstrated to be correlated with the performance of relevant atlas selection and ultimate label fusion.« less
Comparing Web search engine performance in searching consumer health information: evaluation and recommendations.

PubMed Central

Wu, G; Li, J

1999-01-01

Identifying and accessing reliable, relevant consumer health information rapidly on the Internet may challenge the health sciences librarian and layperson alike. In this study, seven search engines are compared using representative consumer health topics for their content relevancy, system features, and attributes. The paper discusses evaluation criteria; systematically compares relevant results; analyzes performance in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the search engines; and illustrates effective search engine selection, search formulation, and strategies. PMID:10550031
Selection as a learning experience: an exploratory study

PubMed Central

de Visser, Marieke; Laan, Roland F; Engbers, Rik; Cohen-Schotanus, Janke; Fluit, Cornelia

2018-01-01

Introduction Research on selection for medical school does not explore selection as a learning experience, despite growing attention for the learning effects of assessment in general. Insight in the learning effects allows us to take advantage of selection as an inclusive part of medical students’ learning process to become competent professionals. The aims of this study at Radboud University Medical Center, the Netherlands, were 1) to determine whether students have learning experiences in the selection process, and, if so, what experiences; and 2) to understand what students need in order to utilize the learning effects of the selection process at the start of the formal curriculum. Materials and methods We used focus groups to interview 30 students admitted in 2016 about their learning experiences in the selection process. Thematic analysis was used to explore the outcomes of the interviews and to define relevant themes. Results In the selection process, students learned about the curriculum, themselves, their relation to others, and the profession they had been selected to enter, although this was not explicitly perceived as learning. Students needed a connection between selection and the curriculum as well as feedback to be able to really use their learning experiences for their further development. Discussion Medical school selection qualifies as a learning experience, and students as well as medical schools can take advantage of this. We recommend a careful design of the selection procedure, integrating relevant selection learning experiences into the formal curriculum, providing feedback and explicitly approaching the selection and the formal curriculum as interconnected contributors to students’ development. PMID:29785147
Evolutionary dynamics on networks of selectively neutral genotypes: effects of topology and sequence stability.

PubMed

Aguirre, Jacobo; Buldú, Javier M; Manrubia, Susanna C

2009-12-01

Networks of selectively neutral genotypes underlie the evolution of populations of replicators in constant environments. Previous theoretical analysis predicted that such populations will evolve toward highly connected regions of the genome space. We first study the evolution of populations of replicators on simple networks and quantify how the transient time to equilibrium depends on the initial distribution of sequences on the neutral network, on the topological properties of the latter, and on the mutation rate. Second, network neutrality is broken through the introduction of an energy for each sequence. This allows to study the competition between two features (neutrality and energetic stability) relevant for survival and subjected to different selective pressures. In cases where the two features are negatively correlated, the population experiences sudden migrations in the genome space for values of the relevant parameters that we calculate. The numerical study of larger networks indicates that the qualitative behavior to be expected in more realistic cases is already seen in representative examples of small networks.
Evolutionary dynamics on networks of selectively neutral genotypes: Effects of topology and sequence stability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aguirre, Jacobo; Buldú, Javier M.; Manrubia, Susanna C.

2009-12-01

Networks of selectively neutral genotypes underlie the evolution of populations of replicators in constant environments. Previous theoretical analysis predicted that such populations will evolve toward highly connected regions of the genome space. We first study the evolution of populations of replicators on simple networks and quantify how the transient time to equilibrium depends on the initial distribution of sequences on the neutral network, on the topological properties of the latter, and on the mutation rate. Second, network neutrality is broken through the introduction of an energy for each sequence. This allows to study the competition between two features (neutrality and energetic stability) relevant for survival and subjected to different selective pressures. In cases where the two features are negatively correlated, the population experiences sudden migrations in the genome space for values of the relevant parameters that we calculate. The numerical study of larger networks indicates that the qualitative behavior to be expected in more realistic cases is already seen in representative examples of small networks.
Free software to analyse the clinical relevance of drug interactions with antiretroviral agents (SIMARV®) in patients with HIV/AIDS.

PubMed

Giraldo, N A; Amariles, P; Monsalve, M; Faus, M J

Highly active antiretroviral therapy has extended the expected lifespan of patients with HIV/AIDS. However, the therapeutic benefits of some drugs used simultaneously with highly active antiretroviral therapy may be adversely affected by drug interactions. The goal was to design and develop a free software to facilitate analysis, assessment, and clinical decision making according to the clinical relevance of drug interactions in patients with HIV/AIDS. A comprehensive Medline/PubMed database search of drug interactions was performed. Articles that recognized any drug interactions in HIV disease were selected. The publications accessed were limited to human studies in English or Spanish, with full texts retrieved. Drug interactions were analyzed, assessed, and grouped into four levels of clinical relevance according to gravity and probability. Software to systematize the information regarding drug interactions and their clinical relevance was designed and developed. Overall, 952 different references were retrieved and 446 selected; in addition, 67 articles were selected from the citation lists of identified articles. A total of 2119 pairs of drug interactions were identified; of this group, 2006 (94.7%) were drug-drug interactions, 1982 (93.5%) had an identified pharmacokinetic mechanism, and 1409 (66.5%) were mediated by enzyme inhibition. In terms of clinical relevance, 1285 (60.6%) drug interactions were clinically significant in patients with HIV (levels 1 and 2). With this information, a software program that facilitates identification and assessment of the clinical relevance of antiretroviral drug interactions (SIMARV ® ) was developed. A free software package with information on 2119 pairs of antiretroviral drug interactions was designed and developed that could facilitate analysis, assessment, and clinical decision making according to the clinical relevance of drug interactions in patients with HIV/AIDS. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Comparison of Different EHG Feature Selection Methods for the Detection of Preterm Labor

PubMed Central

Alamedine, D.; Khalil, M.; Marque, C.

2013-01-01

Numerous types of linear and nonlinear features have been extracted from the electrohysterogram (EHG) in order to classify labor and pregnancy contractions. As a result, the number of available features is now very large. The goal of this study is to reduce the number of features by selecting only the relevant ones which are useful for solving the classification problem. This paper presents three methods for feature subset selection that can be applied to choose the best subsets for classifying labor and pregnancy contractions: an algorithm using the Jeffrey divergence (JD) distance, a sequential forward selection (SFS) algorithm, and a binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) algorithm. The two last methods are based on a classifier and were tested with three types of classifiers. These methods have allowed us to identify common features which are relevant for contraction classification. PMID:24454536
Memory Accessibility and Medical Decision-Making for Significant Others: The Role of Socially Shared Retrieval-Induced Forgetting

PubMed Central

Coman, Dora; Coman, Alin; Hirst, William

2013-01-01

Medical decisions will often entail a broad search for relevant information. No sources alone may offer a complete picture, and many may be selective in their presentation. This selectivity may induce forgetting for previously learned material, thereby adversely affecting medical decision-making. In the study phase of two experiments, participants learned information about a fictitious disease and advantages and disadvantages of four treatment options. In the subsequent practice phase, they read a pamphlet selectively presenting either relevant (Experiment 1) or irrelevant (Experiment 2) advantages or disadvantages. A final cued recall followed and, in Experiment 2, a decision as to the best treatment for a patient. Not only did reading the pamphlet induce forgetting for related and unmentioned information, the induced forgetting adversely affected decision-making. The research provides a cautionary note about the risks of searching through selectively presented information when making a medical decision. PMID:23785320
Choosing Appropriate Theories for Understanding Hospital Reporting of Adverse Drug Events, a Theoretical Domains Framework Approach

PubMed Central

Shalviri, Gloria; Yazdizadeh, Bahareh; Mirbaha, Fariba; Gholami, Kheirollah; Majdzadeh, Reza

2018-01-01

Adverse drug events (ADEs) may cause serious injuries including death. Spontaneous reporting of ADEs plays a great role in detection and prevention of them; however, underreporting always exists. Although several interventions have been utilized to solve this problem, they are mainly based on experience and the rationale for choosing them has no theoretical base. The vast variety of behavioural theories makes it difficult to choose appropriate theory. Theoretical domains framework (TDF) is suggested as a solution. The objective of this study was to select the best theory for evaluating ADE reporting in hospitals based on TDF. We carried out three focus group discussions with hospital pharmacists and nurses, based on TDF questions. The analysis was performed through five steps including coding discussions transcript, extracting beliefs, selecting relevant domains, matching related constructs to the extracted beliefs, and determining the appropriate theories in each domain. The theory with the highest number of matched domains and constructs was selected as the theory of choice. A total of six domains were identified relevant to ADE reporting, including “Knowledge”, “Skills”, “Beliefs about consequences”, “Motivation and goals”, “Environmental context and resources” and “Social influences”. We found theory of planned behavior as the comprehensive theory to study factors influencing ADE reporting in hospitals, since it was relevant theory in five out of six relevant domains and the common theory in 55 out of 75 identified beliefs. In conclusion, we suggest theory of planned behavior for further studies on designing appropriate interventions to increase ADE reporting in hospitals. PMID:29881437
Choosing Appropriate Theories for Understanding Hospital Reporting of Adverse Drug Events, a Theoretical Domains Framework Approach.

PubMed

Shalviri, Gloria; Yazdizadeh, Bahareh; Mirbaha, Fariba; Gholami, Kheirollah; Majdzadeh, Reza

2018-01-01

Adverse drug events (ADEs) may cause serious injuries including death. Spontaneous reporting of ADEs plays a great role in detection and prevention of them; however, underreporting always exists. Although several interventions have been utilized to solve this problem, they are mainly based on experience and the rationale for choosing them has no theoretical base. The vast variety of behavioural theories makes it difficult to choose appropriate theory. Theoretical domains framework (TDF) is suggested as a solution. The objective of this study was to select the best theory for evaluating ADE reporting in hospitals based on TDF. We carried out three focus group discussions with hospital pharmacists and nurses, based on TDF questions. The analysis was performed through five steps including coding discussions transcript, extracting beliefs, selecting relevant domains, matching related constructs to the extracted beliefs, and determining the appropriate theories in each domain. The theory with the highest number of matched domains and constructs was selected as the theory of choice. A total of six domains were identified relevant to ADE reporting, including "Knowledge", "Skills", "Beliefs about consequences", "Motivation and goals", "Environmental context and resources" and "Social influences". We found theory of planned behavior as the comprehensive theory to study factors influencing ADE reporting in hospitals, since it was relevant theory in five out of six relevant domains and the common theory in 55 out of 75 identified beliefs. In conclusion, we suggest theory of planned behavior for further studies on designing appropriate interventions to increase ADE reporting in hospitals.
Selection Dynamics in Transient Compartmentalization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blokhuis, Alex; Lacoste, David; Nghe, Philippe; Peliti, Luca

2018-04-01

Transient compartments have been recently shown to be able to maintain functional replicators in the context of prebiotic studies. Here, we show that a broad class of selection dynamics is able to achieve this goal. We identify two key parameters, the relative amplification of nonactive replicators (parasites) and the size of compartments. These parameters account for competition and diversity, and the results are relevant to similar multilevel selection problems, such as those found in virus-host ecology and trait group selection.

Feature-selective Attention in Frontoparietal Cortex: Multivoxel Codes Adjust to Prioritize Task-relevant Information.

PubMed

Jackson, Jade; Rich, Anina N; Williams, Mark A; Woolgar, Alexandra

2017-02-01

Human cognition is characterized by astounding flexibility, enabling us to select appropriate information according to the objectives of our current task. A circuit of frontal and parietal brain regions, often referred to as the frontoparietal attention network or multiple-demand (MD) regions, are believed to play a fundamental role in this flexibility. There is evidence that these regions dynamically adjust their responses to selectively process information that is currently relevant for behavior, as proposed by the "adaptive coding hypothesis" [Duncan, J. An adaptive coding model of neural function in prefrontal cortex. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 820-829, 2001]. Could this provide a neural mechanism for feature-selective attention, the process by which we preferentially process one feature of a stimulus over another? We used multivariate pattern analysis of fMRI data during a perceptually challenging categorization task to investigate whether the representation of visual object features in the MD regions flexibly adjusts according to task relevance. Participants were trained to categorize visually similar novel objects along two orthogonal stimulus dimensions (length/orientation) and performed short alternating blocks in which only one of these dimensions was relevant. We found that multivoxel patterns of activation in the MD regions encoded the task-relevant distinctions more strongly than the task-irrelevant distinctions: The MD regions discriminated between stimuli of different lengths when length was relevant and between the same objects according to orientation when orientation was relevant. The data suggest a flexible neural system that adjusts its representation of visual objects to preferentially encode stimulus features that are currently relevant for behavior, providing a neural mechanism for feature-selective attention.
The Relevance of Multi Media Skills in Teaching and Learning of Scientific Concepts in Secondary Schools in Lagos State, Nigeria

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Okedeyi, Abiodun S.; Oginni, Aderonke M.; Adegorite, Solomon O.; Saibu, Sakibu O.

2015-01-01

This study investigated the relevance of multi media skills in teaching and learning of scientific concepts in secondary schools. Self constructed questionnaire was administered to 120 students randomly selected in four secondary schools in Ojo Local Government Area of Lagos state. Data generated were analyzed using chi-square statistical…
THE EFFECTS ON LEARNING FROM A MOTION PICTURE FILM OF SELECTIVE CHANGES IN SOUND TRACK LOUDNESS LEVEL. FINAL REPORT.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MOAKLEY, FRANCIS X.

EFFECTS OF PERIODIC VARIATIONS IN AN INSTRUCTIONAL FILM'S NORMAL LOUDNESS LEVEL FOR RELEVANT AND IRRELEVANT FILM SEQUENCES WERE MEASURED BY A MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST. RIGOROUS PILOT STUDIES, RANDOM GROUPING OF SEVENTH GRADERS FOR TREATMENTS, AND RATINGS OF RELEVANT AND IRRELEVANT PORTIONS OF THE FILM BY AN UNSPECIFIED NUMBER OF JUDGES PRECEDED THE…
No interpretation without representation: the role of domain-specific representations and inferences in the Wason selection task.

PubMed

Fiddick, L; Cosmides, L; Tooby, J

2000-10-16

The Wason selection task is a tool used to study reasoning about conditional rules. Performance on this task changes systematically when one varies its content, and these content effects have been used to argue that the human cognitive architecture contains a number of domain-specific representation and inference systems, such as social contract algorithms and hazard management systems. Recently, however, Sperber, Cara & Girotto (Sperber, D., Cara, F., & Girotto, V. (1995). Relevance theory explains the selection task. Cognition, 57, 31-95) have proposed that relevance theory can explain performance on the selection task - including all content effects - without invoking inference systems that are content-specialized. Herein, we show that relevance theory alone cannot explain a variety of content effects - effects that were predicted in advance and are parsimoniously explained by theories that invoke domain-specific algorithms for representing and making inferences about (i) social contracts and (ii) reducing risk in hazardous situations. Moreover, although Sperber et al. (1995) were able to use relevance theory to produce some new content effects in other domains, they conducted no experiments involving social exchanges or precautions, and so were unable to determine which - content-specialized algorithms or relevance effects - dominate reasoning when the two conflict. When experiments, reported herein, are constructed so that the different theories predict divergent outcomes, the results support the predictions of social contract theory and hazard management theory, indicating that these inference systems override content-general relevance factors. The fact that social contract and hazard management algorithms provide better explanations for performance in their respective domains does not mean that the content-general logical procedures posited by relevance theory do not exist, or that relevance effects never occur. It does mean, however, that one needs a principled way of explaining which effects will dominate when a set of inputs activate more than one reasoning system. We propose the principle of pre-emptive specificity - that the human cognitive architecture should be designed so that more specialized inference systems pre-empt more general ones whenever the stimuli centrally fit the input conditions of the more specialized system. This principle follows from evolutionary and computational considerations that are common to both relevance theory and the ecological rationality approach.
Improved Variable Selection Algorithm Using a LASSO-Type Penalty, with an Application to Assessing Hepatitis B Infection Relevant Factors in Community Residents

PubMed Central

Guo, Pi; Zeng, Fangfang; Hu, Xiaomin; Zhang, Dingmei; Zhu, Shuming; Deng, Yu; Hao, Yuantao

2015-01-01

Objectives In epidemiological studies, it is important to identify independent associations between collective exposures and a health outcome. The current stepwise selection technique ignores stochastic errors and suffers from a lack of stability. The alternative LASSO-penalized regression model can be applied to detect significant predictors from a pool of candidate variables. However, this technique is prone to false positives and tends to create excessive biases. It remains challenging to develop robust variable selection methods and enhance predictability. Material and methods Two improved algorithms denoted the two-stage hybrid and bootstrap ranking procedures, both using a LASSO-type penalty, were developed for epidemiological association analysis. The performance of the proposed procedures and other methods including conventional LASSO, Bolasso, stepwise and stability selection models were evaluated using intensive simulation. In addition, methods were compared by using an empirical analysis based on large-scale survey data of hepatitis B infection-relevant factors among Guangdong residents. Results The proposed procedures produced comparable or less biased selection results when compared to conventional variable selection models. In total, the two newly proposed procedures were stable with respect to various scenarios of simulation, demonstrating a higher power and a lower false positive rate during variable selection than the compared methods. In empirical analysis, the proposed procedures yielding a sparse set of hepatitis B infection-relevant factors gave the best predictive performance and showed that the procedures were able to select a more stringent set of factors. The individual history of hepatitis B vaccination, family and individual history of hepatitis B infection were associated with hepatitis B infection in the studied residents according to the proposed procedures. Conclusions The newly proposed procedures improve the identification of significant variables and enable us to derive a new insight into epidemiological association analysis. PMID:26214802
Rational Action Selection in 1 1/2- to 3-Year-Olds Following an Extended Training Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klossek, Ulrike M. H.; Dickinson, Anthony

2012-01-01

Previous studies failed to find evidence for rational action selection in children under 2 years of age. The current study investigated whether younger children required more training to encode the relevant causal relationships. Children between 1 1/2 and 3 years of age were trained over two sessions to perform actions on a touch-sensitive screen…
From Reactionary to Responsive: Applying the Internal Environmental Scan Protocol to Lifelong Learning Strategic Planning and Operational Model Selection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Downing, David L.

2009-01-01

This study describes and implements a necessary preliminary strategic planning procedure, the Internal Environmental Scanning (IES), and discusses its relevance to strategic planning and university-sponsored lifelong learning program model selection. Employing a qualitative research methodology, a proposed lifelong learning-centric IES process…
Development, Awareness and Inductive Selectivity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayes, Brett K.; Lim, Melissa

2013-01-01

Two studies examined whether adults and children could learn to make context-dependent inferences about novel stimuli and the role of awareness of context cues in such learning. Participants were trained to match probes to targets on the basis of shape or color with the relevant dimension shifting according to item context. A selective induction…
Do chimpanzees use weight to select hammer tools?

PubMed

Schrauf, Cornelia; Call, Josep; Fuwa, Koki; Hirata, Satoshi

2012-01-01

The extent to which tool-using animals take into account relevant task parameters is poorly understood. Nut cracking is one of the most complex forms of tool use, the choice of an adequate hammer being a critical aspect in success. Several properties make a hammer suitable for nut cracking, with weight being a key factor in determining the impact of a strike; in general, the greater the weight the fewer strikes required. This study experimentally investigated whether chimpanzees are able to encode the relevance of weight as a property of hammers to crack open nuts. By presenting chimpanzees with three hammers that differed solely in weight, we assessed their ability to relate the weight of the different tools with their effectiveness and thus select the most effective one(s). Our results show that chimpanzees use weight alone in selecting tools to crack open nuts and that experience clearly affects the subjects' attentiveness to the tool properties that are relevant for the task at hand. Chimpanzees can encode the requirements that a nut-cracking tool should meet (in terms of weight) to be effective.
Mode Selection Rules for a Two-Delay System with Positive and Negative Feedback Loops

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takahashi, Kin'ya; Kobayashi, Taizo

2018-04-01

The mode selection rules for a two-delay system, which has negative feedback with a short delay time t1 and positive feedback with a long delay time t2, are studied numerically and theoretically. We find two types of mode selection rules depending on the strength of the negative feedback. When the strength of the negative feedback |α1| (α1 < 0) is sufficiently small compared with that of the positive feedback α2 (> 0), 2m + 1-th harmonic oscillation is well sustained in a neighborhood of t1/t2 = even/odd, i.e., relevant condition. In a neighborhood of the irrelevant condition given by t1/t2 = odd/even or t1/t2 = odd/odd, higher harmonic oscillations are observed. However, if |α1| is slightly less than α2, a different mode selection rule works, where the condition t1/t2 = odd/even is relevant and the conditions t1/t2 = odd/odd and t1/t2 = even/odd are irrelevant. These mode selection rules are different from the mode selection rule of the normal two-delay system with two positive feedback loops, where t1/t2 = odd/odd is relevant and the others are irrelevant. The two types of mode selection rules are induced by individually different mechanisms controlling the Hopf bifurcation, i.e., the Hopf bifurcation controlled by the "boosted bifurcation process" and by the "anomalous bifurcation process", which occur for |α1| below and above the threshold value αth, respectively.
Hebbian Learning in a Random Network Captures Selectivity Properties of the Prefrontal Cortex.

PubMed

Lindsay, Grace W; Rigotti, Mattia; Warden, Melissa R; Miller, Earl K; Fusi, Stefano

2017-11-08

Complex cognitive behaviors, such as context-switching and rule-following, are thought to be supported by the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Neural activity in the PFC must thus be specialized to specific tasks while retaining flexibility. Nonlinear "mixed" selectivity is an important neurophysiological trait for enabling complex and context-dependent behaviors. Here we investigate (1) the extent to which the PFC exhibits computationally relevant properties, such as mixed selectivity, and (2) how such properties could arise via circuit mechanisms. We show that PFC cells recorded from male and female rhesus macaques during a complex task show a moderate level of specialization and structure that is not replicated by a model wherein cells receive random feedforward inputs. While random connectivity can be effective at generating mixed selectivity, the data show significantly more mixed selectivity than predicted by a model with otherwise matched parameters. A simple Hebbian learning rule applied to the random connectivity, however, increases mixed selectivity and enables the model to match the data more accurately. To explain how learning achieves this, we provide analysis along with a clear geometric interpretation of the impact of learning on selectivity. After learning, the model also matches the data on measures of noise, response density, clustering, and the distribution of selectivities. Of two styles of Hebbian learning tested, the simpler and more biologically plausible option better matches the data. These modeling results provide clues about how neural properties important for cognition can arise in a circuit and make clear experimental predictions regarding how various measures of selectivity would evolve during animal training. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The prefrontal cortex is a brain region believed to support the ability of animals to engage in complex behavior. How neurons in this area respond to stimuli-and in particular, to combinations of stimuli ("mixed selectivity")-is a topic of interest. Even though models with random feedforward connectivity are capable of creating computationally relevant mixed selectivity, such a model does not match the levels of mixed selectivity seen in the data analyzed in this study. Adding simple Hebbian learning to the model increases mixed selectivity to the correct level and makes the model match the data on several other relevant measures. This study thus offers predictions on how mixed selectivity and other properties evolve with training. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/3711021-16$15.00/0.
Feature-Selective Attention Adaptively Shifts Noise Correlations in Primary Auditory Cortex.

PubMed

Downer, Joshua D; Rapone, Brittany; Verhein, Jessica; O'Connor, Kevin N; Sutter, Mitchell L

2017-05-24

Sensory environments often contain an overwhelming amount of information, with both relevant and irrelevant information competing for neural resources. Feature attention mediates this competition by selecting the sensory features needed to form a coherent percept. How attention affects the activity of populations of neurons to support this process is poorly understood because population coding is typically studied through simulations in which one sensory feature is encoded without competition. Therefore, to study the effects of feature attention on population-based neural coding, investigations must be extended to include stimuli with both relevant and irrelevant features. We measured noise correlations ( r noise ) within small neural populations in primary auditory cortex while rhesus macaques performed a novel feature-selective attention task. We found that the effect of feature-selective attention on r noise depended not only on the population tuning to the attended feature, but also on the tuning to the distractor feature. To attempt to explain how these observed effects might support enhanced perceptual performance, we propose an extension of a simple and influential model in which shifts in r noise can simultaneously enhance the representation of the attended feature while suppressing the distractor. These findings present a novel mechanism by which attention modulates neural populations to support sensory processing in cluttered environments. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Although feature-selective attention constitutes one of the building blocks of listening in natural environments, its neural bases remain obscure. To address this, we developed a novel auditory feature-selective attention task and measured noise correlations ( r noise ) in rhesus macaque A1 during task performance. Unlike previous studies showing that the effect of attention on r noise depends on population tuning to the attended feature, we show that the effect of attention depends on the tuning to the distractor feature as well. We suggest that these effects represent an efficient process by which sensory cortex simultaneously enhances relevant information and suppresses irrelevant information. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/375378-15$15.00/0.
Feature-Selective Attention Adaptively Shifts Noise Correlations in Primary Auditory Cortex

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Sensory environments often contain an overwhelming amount of information, with both relevant and irrelevant information competing for neural resources. Feature attention mediates this competition by selecting the sensory features needed to form a coherent percept. How attention affects the activity of populations of neurons to support this process is poorly understood because population coding is typically studied through simulations in which one sensory feature is encoded without competition. Therefore, to study the effects of feature attention on population-based neural coding, investigations must be extended to include stimuli with both relevant and irrelevant features. We measured noise correlations (rnoise) within small neural populations in primary auditory cortex while rhesus macaques performed a novel feature-selective attention task. We found that the effect of feature-selective attention on rnoise depended not only on the population tuning to the attended feature, but also on the tuning to the distractor feature. To attempt to explain how these observed effects might support enhanced perceptual performance, we propose an extension of a simple and influential model in which shifts in rnoise can simultaneously enhance the representation of the attended feature while suppressing the distractor. These findings present a novel mechanism by which attention modulates neural populations to support sensory processing in cluttered environments. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Although feature-selective attention constitutes one of the building blocks of listening in natural environments, its neural bases remain obscure. To address this, we developed a novel auditory feature-selective attention task and measured noise correlations (rnoise) in rhesus macaque A1 during task performance. Unlike previous studies showing that the effect of attention on rnoise depends on population tuning to the attended feature, we show that the effect of attention depends on the tuning to the distractor feature as well. We suggest that these effects represent an efficient process by which sensory cortex simultaneously enhances relevant information and suppresses irrelevant information. PMID:28432139
Development of a two-stage gene selection method that incorporates a novel hybrid approach using the cuckoo optimization algorithm and harmony search for cancer classification.

PubMed

Elyasigomari, V; Lee, D A; Screen, H R C; Shaheed, M H

2017-03-01

For each cancer type, only a few genes are informative. Due to the so-called 'curse of dimensionality' problem, the gene selection task remains a challenge. To overcome this problem, we propose a two-stage gene selection method called MRMR-COA-HS. In the first stage, the minimum redundancy and maximum relevance (MRMR) feature selection is used to select a subset of relevant genes. The selected genes are then fed into a wrapper setup that combines a new algorithm, COA-HS, using the support vector machine as a classifier. The method was applied to four microarray datasets, and the performance was assessed by the leave one out cross-validation method. Comparative performance assessment of the proposed method with other evolutionary algorithms suggested that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms other methods in selecting a fewer number of genes while maintaining the highest classification accuracy. The functions of the selected genes were further investigated, and it was confirmed that the selected genes are biologically relevant to each cancer type. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.
The cognitive loci of the display and task-relevant set size effects on distractor interference: Evidence from a dual-task paradigm.

PubMed

Park, Bo Youn; Kim, Sujin; Cho, Yang Seok

2018-02-01

The congruency effect of a task-irrelevant distractor has been found to be modulated by task-relevant set size and display set size. The present study used a psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm to examine the cognitive loci of the display set size effect (dilution effect) and the task-relevant set size effect (perceptual load effect) on distractor interference. A tone discrimination task (Task 1), in which a response was made to the pitch of the target tone, was followed by a letter discrimination task (Task 2) in which different types of visual target display were used. In Experiment 1, in which display set size was manipulated to examine the nature of the display set size effect on distractor interference in Task 2, the modulation of the congruency effect by display set size was observed at both short and long stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs), indicating that the display set size effect occurred after the target was selected for processing in the focused attention stage. In Experiment 2, in which task-relevant set size was manipulated to examine the nature of the task-relevant set size effect on distractor interference in Task 2, the effects of task-relevant set size increased with SOA, suggesting that the target selection efficiency in the preattentive stage was impaired with increasing task-relevant set size. These results suggest that display set size and task-relevant set size modulate distractor processing in different ways.
Cholinergic enhancement augments magnitude and specificity of visual perceptual learning in healthy humans

PubMed Central

Rokem, Ariel; Silver, Michael A.

2010-01-01

Summary Learning through experience underlies the ability to adapt to novel tasks and unfamiliar environments. However, learning must be regulated so that relevant aspects of the environment are selectively encoded. Acetylcholine (ACh) has been suggested to regulate learning by enhancing the responses of sensory cortical neurons to behaviorally-relevant stimuli [1]. In this study, we increased synaptic levels of ACh in the brains of healthy human subjects with the cholinesterase inhibitor donepezil (trade name: Aricept) and measured the effects of this cholinergic enhancement on visual perceptual learning. Each subject completed two five-day courses of training on a motion direction discrimination task [2], once while ingesting 5 mg of donepezil before every training session and once while placebo was administered. We found that cholinergic enhancement augmented perceptual learning for stimuli having the same direction of motion and visual field location used during training. In addition, perceptual learning under donepezil was more selective to the trained direction of motion and visual field location. These results, combined with previous studies demonstrating an increase in neuronal selectivity following cholinergic enhancement [3–5], suggest a possible mechanism by which ACh augments neural plasticity by directing activity to populations of neurons that encode behaviorally-relevant stimulus features. PMID:20850321
Prediction of lysine glutarylation sites by maximum relevance minimum redundancy feature selection.

PubMed

Ju, Zhe; He, Jian-Jun

2018-06-01

Lysine glutarylation is new type of protein acylation modification in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. To better understand the molecular mechanism of glutarylation, it is important to identify glutarylated substrates and their corresponding glutarylation sites accurately. In this study, a novel bioinformatics tool named GlutPred is developed to predict glutarylation sites by using multiple feature extraction and maximum relevance minimum redundancy feature selection. On the one hand, amino acid factors, binary encoding, and the composition of k-spaced amino acid pairs features are incorporated to encode glutarylation sites. And the maximum relevance minimum redundancy method and the incremental feature selection algorithm are adopted to remove the redundant features. On the other hand, a biased support vector machine algorithm is used to handle the imbalanced problem in glutarylation sites training dataset. As illustrated by 10-fold cross-validation, the performance of GlutPred achieves a satisfactory performance with a Sensitivity of 64.80%, a Specificity of 76.60%, an Accuracy of 74.90% and a Matthew's correlation coefficient of 0.3194. Feature analysis shows that some k-spaced amino acid pair features play the most important roles in the prediction of glutarylation sites. The conclusions derived from this study might provide some clues for understanding the molecular mechanisms of glutarylation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The cost of selective attention in category learning: Developmental differences between adults and infants

PubMed Central

Best, Catherine A.; Yim, Hyungwook; Sloutsky, Vladimir M.

2013-01-01

Selective attention plays an important role in category learning. However, immaturities of top-down attentional control during infancy coupled with successful category learning suggest that early category learning is achieved without attending selectively. Research presented here examines this possibility by focusing on category learning in infants (6–8 months old) and adults. Participants were trained on a novel visual category. Halfway through the experiment, unbeknownst to participants, the to-be-learned category switched to another category, where previously relevant features became irrelevant and previously irrelevant features became relevant. If participants attend selectively to the relevant features of the first category, they should incur a cost of selective attention immediately after the unknown category switch. Results revealed that adults demonstrated a cost, as evidenced by a decrease in accuracy and response time on test trials as well as a decrease in visual attention to newly relevant features. In contrast, infants did not demonstrate a similar cost of selective attention as adults despite evidence of learning both to-be-learned categories. Findings are discussed as supporting multiple systems of category learning and as suggesting that learning mechanisms engaged by adults may be different from those engaged by infants. PMID:23773914
Appropriateness guidelines and predictive rules to select patients for upper endoscopy: a nationwide multicenter study.

PubMed

Buri, Luigi; Hassan, Cesare; Bersani, Gianluca; Anti, Marcello; Bianco, Maria Antonietta; Cipolletta, Livio; Di Giulio, Emilio; Di Matteo, Giovanni; Familiari, Luigi; Ficano, Leonardo; Loriga, Pietro; Morini, Sergio; Pietropaolo, Vincenzo; Zambelli, Alessandro; Grossi, Enzo; Intraligi, Marco; Buscema, Massimo

2010-06-01

Selecting patients appropriately for upper endoscopy (EGD) is crucial for efficient use of endoscopy. The objective of this study was to compare different clinical strategies and statistical methods to select patients for EGD, namely appropriateness guidelines, age and/or alarm features, and multivariate and artificial neural network (ANN) models. A nationwide, multicenter, prospective study was undertaken in which consecutive patients referred for EGD during a 1-month period were enrolled. Before EGD, the endoscopist assessed referral appropriateness according to the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) guidelines, also collecting clinical and demographic variables. Outcomes of the study were detection of relevant findings and new diagnosis of malignancy at EGD. The accuracy of the following clinical strategies and predictive rules was compared: (i) ASGE appropriateness guidelines (indicated vs. not indicated), (ii) simplified rule (>or=45 years or alarm features vs. <45 years without alarm features), (iii) logistic regression model, and (iv) ANN models. A total of 8,252 patients were enrolled in 57 centers. Overall, 3,803 (46%) relevant findings and 132 (1.6%) new malignancies were detected. Sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the simplified rule were similar to that of the ASGE guidelines for both relevant findings (82%/26%/0.55 vs. 88%/27%/0.52) and cancer (97%/22%/0.58 vs. 98%/20%/0.58). Both logistic regression and ANN models seemed to be substantially more accurate in predicting new cases of malignancy, with an AUC of 0.82 and 0.87, respectively. A simple predictive rule based on age and alarm features is similarly effective to the more complex ASGE guidelines in selecting patients for EGD. Regression and ANN models may be useful in identifying a relatively small subgroup of patients at higher risk of cancer.
Fairness and equity in the provision of anti-retroviral therapy: some reflections from Lesotho.

PubMed

Armstrong, Russell

2010-12-01

The number of people in immediate need of anti-retroviral treatment (ART) in the southern African region continues to significantly exceed the capacity of health systems there to provide it. Approaches to this complex rationing dilemma have evolved in different directions. The ethical concepts of fairness and equity have been suggested as a basis to guide the development of approaches to select patients for ART. This article reports the results of a case study on patient selection at a rural ART clinic in Lesotho. The purpose of the study was to examine whether or not such concepts had relevance or operative value for a treatment team providing ART in rural Lesotho. The study found that while concepts of fairness and equity were relevant to the work of the treatment team, patient selection practices did not necessarily reflect what these concepts entail. The idea of fairness as a structured, formalized selection process did not figure in the approach to ART provision at the site. A less formal, 'first-come-first-served' approach was adopted. While there was knowledge among some team members that social, economic or geographic conditions inhibit individuals and groups from gaining access to ART and that this was inequitable, it was felt that there was little they could do to try to mediate the impact of these conditions. The study's findings pose importance questions about the approach to ART programming in resource constrained settings. The findings also question the relevance of trying to achieve fairness and equity when the gap between need for care and capacity to provide it remains so large. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Substance abuse prevention intervention research with Hispanic populations.

PubMed

Castro, Felipe González; Barrera, Manuel; Pantin, Hilda; Martinez, Charles; Felix-Ortiz, Maria; Rios, Rebeca; Lopez, Vera A; Lopez, Cristy

2006-09-01

Selected studies with specific relevance to substance abuse prevention interventions with Hispanic youth and families were examined to identify prior findings and emerging issues that may guide the design of future substance abuse prevention intervention research and its implementation with Hispanic populations. The origins of prevention research and role of risk and protective factors are examined, including culturally-specific risk and protective factors for Hispanic populations. Correlational studies, non-experimental interventions, and randomized controlled trials were examined for the period of 1974-2003. The literature search yielded 15 articles selected for this review that exhibited adequate methodological rigor. An added search for more recent studies identified three additional articles, for a total of 18 prevention intervention articles that were reviewed. Theoretical and methodological issues and recommendations are presented for future research aimed at improving the efficacy and effectiveness of future prevention intervention studies and their cultural relevance for Hispanic populations.
Distinct learning-induced changes in stimulus selectivity and interactions of GABAergic interneuron classes in visual cortex.

PubMed

Khan, Adil G; Poort, Jasper; Chadwick, Angus; Blot, Antonin; Sahani, Maneesh; Mrsic-Flogel, Thomas D; Hofer, Sonja B

2018-06-01

How learning enhances neural representations for behaviorally relevant stimuli via activity changes of cortical cell types remains unclear. We simultaneously imaged responses of pyramidal cells (PYR) along with parvalbumin (PV), somatostatin (SOM), and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) inhibitory interneurons in primary visual cortex while mice learned to discriminate visual patterns. Learning increased selectivity for task-relevant stimuli of PYR, PV and SOM subsets but not VIP cells. Strikingly, PV neurons became as selective as PYR cells, and their functional interactions reorganized, leading to the emergence of stimulus-selective PYR-PV ensembles. Conversely, SOM activity became strongly decorrelated from the network, and PYR-SOM coupling before learning predicted selectivity increases in individual PYR cells. Thus, learning differentially shapes the activity and interactions of multiple cell classes: while SOM inhibition may gate selectivity changes, PV interneurons become recruited into stimulus-specific ensembles and provide more selective inhibition as the network becomes better at discriminating behaviorally relevant stimuli.
Do High-Functioning People with Autism Spectrum Disorder Spontaneously Use Event Knowledge to Selectively Attend to and Remember Context-Relevant Aspects in Scenes?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loth, Eva; Gomez, Juan Carlos; Happe, Francesca

2011-01-01

This study combined an event schema approach with top-down processing perspectives to investigate whether high-functioning children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) spontaneously attend to and remember context-relevant aspects of scenes. Participants read one story of story-pairs (e.g., burglary or tea party). They then inspected a…
Development, awareness and inductive selectivity.

PubMed

Hayes, Brett K; Lim, Melissa

2013-05-01

Two studies examined whether adults and children could learn to make context-dependent inferences about novel stimuli and the role of awareness of context cues in such learning. Participants were trained to match probes to targets on the basis of shape or color with the relevant dimension shifting according to item context. A selective induction test then examined context-dependent responding in a more complex matching task. Awareness of the role of context was assessed using a behavioral task and explicit questions. Experiment 1 showed that after training with the procedure described by Sloutsky and Fisher (2008), only a minority of adults showed evidence of context-dependent responding in the selective induction test. Experiment 2 used a modified training protocol that promoted attention to context cues. This led to reliable selective induction in a majority of adults and a sizeable proportion of 4- to 6-year-olds. Crucially, in both age groups, selective induction was dependent on awareness of context. Hence, children as young as 4 can learn to make selective inferences about novel stimuli, but only when they are aware of the relevant context cues. These results challenge previous claims that selective induction in children is the product of implicit learning.
Effects of selective attention on the electrophysiological representation of concurrent sounds in the human auditory cortex.

PubMed

Bidet-Caulet, Aurélie; Fischer, Catherine; Besle, Julien; Aguera, Pierre-Emmanuel; Giard, Marie-Helene; Bertrand, Olivier

2007-08-29

In noisy environments, we use auditory selective attention to actively ignore distracting sounds and select relevant information, as during a cocktail party to follow one particular conversation. The present electrophysiological study aims at deciphering the spatiotemporal organization of the effect of selective attention on the representation of concurrent sounds in the human auditory cortex. Sound onset asynchrony was manipulated to induce the segregation of two concurrent auditory streams. Each stream consisted of amplitude modulated tones at different carrier and modulation frequencies. Electrophysiological recordings were performed in epileptic patients with pharmacologically resistant partial epilepsy, implanted with depth electrodes in the temporal cortex. Patients were presented with the stimuli while they either performed an auditory distracting task or actively selected one of the two concurrent streams. Selective attention was found to affect steady-state responses in the primary auditory cortex, and transient and sustained evoked responses in secondary auditory areas. The results provide new insights on the neural mechanisms of auditory selective attention: stream selection during sound rivalry would be facilitated not only by enhancing the neural representation of relevant sounds, but also by reducing the representation of irrelevant information in the auditory cortex. Finally, they suggest a specialization of the left hemisphere in the attentional selection of fine-grained acoustic information.
Hebbian Learning in a Random Network Captures Selectivity Properties of the Prefrontal Cortex

PubMed Central

Lindsay, Grace W.

2017-01-01

Complex cognitive behaviors, such as context-switching and rule-following, are thought to be supported by the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Neural activity in the PFC must thus be specialized to specific tasks while retaining flexibility. Nonlinear “mixed” selectivity is an important neurophysiological trait for enabling complex and context-dependent behaviors. Here we investigate (1) the extent to which the PFC exhibits computationally relevant properties, such as mixed selectivity, and (2) how such properties could arise via circuit mechanisms. We show that PFC cells recorded from male and female rhesus macaques during a complex task show a moderate level of specialization and structure that is not replicated by a model wherein cells receive random feedforward inputs. While random connectivity can be effective at generating mixed selectivity, the data show significantly more mixed selectivity than predicted by a model with otherwise matched parameters. A simple Hebbian learning rule applied to the random connectivity, however, increases mixed selectivity and enables the model to match the data more accurately. To explain how learning achieves this, we provide analysis along with a clear geometric interpretation of the impact of learning on selectivity. After learning, the model also matches the data on measures of noise, response density, clustering, and the distribution of selectivities. Of two styles of Hebbian learning tested, the simpler and more biologically plausible option better matches the data. These modeling results provide clues about how neural properties important for cognition can arise in a circuit and make clear experimental predictions regarding how various measures of selectivity would evolve during animal training. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The prefrontal cortex is a brain region believed to support the ability of animals to engage in complex behavior. How neurons in this area respond to stimuli—and in particular, to combinations of stimuli (“mixed selectivity”)—is a topic of interest. Even though models with random feedforward connectivity are capable of creating computationally relevant mixed selectivity, such a model does not match the levels of mixed selectivity seen in the data analyzed in this study. Adding simple Hebbian learning to the model increases mixed selectivity to the correct level and makes the model match the data on several other relevant measures. This study thus offers predictions on how mixed selectivity and other properties evolve with training. PMID:28986463
Application of Multilabel Learning Using the Relevant Feature for Each Label in Chronic Gastritis Syndrome Diagnosis

PubMed Central

Liu, Guo-Ping; Yan, Jian-Jun; Wang, Yi-Qin; Fu, Jing-Jing; Xu, Zhao-Xia; Guo, Rui; Qian, Peng

2012-01-01

Background. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), most of the algorithms are used to solve problems of syndrome diagnosis that only focus on one syndrome, that is, single label learning. However, in clinical practice, patients may simultaneously have more than one syndrome, which has its own symptoms (signs). Methods. We employed a multilabel learning using the relevant feature for each label (REAL) algorithm to construct a syndrome diagnostic model for chronic gastritis (CG) in TCM. REAL combines feature selection methods to select the significant symptoms (signs) of CG. The method was tested on 919 patients using the standard scale. Results. The highest prediction accuracy was achieved when 20 features were selected. The features selected with the information gain were more consistent with the TCM theory. The lowest average accuracy was 54% using multi-label neural networks (BP-MLL), whereas the highest was 82% using REAL for constructing the diagnostic model. For coverage, hamming loss, and ranking loss, the values obtained using the REAL algorithm were the lowest at 0.160, 0.142, and 0.177, respectively. Conclusion. REAL extracts the relevant symptoms (signs) for each syndrome and improves its recognition accuracy. Moreover, the studies will provide a reference for constructing syndrome diagnostic models and guide clinical practice. PMID:22719781
7 CFR 3430.33 - Selection of reviewers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... selected based upon training and experience in relevant scientific, extension, or education fields taking into account the following factors: (1) Level of relevant formal scientific, technical education, and... research, education, or extension activities. (2) Need to include as reviewers experts from various areas...
7 CFR 3430.33 - Selection of reviewers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... selected based upon training and experience in relevant scientific, extension, or education fields taking into account the following factors: (1) Level of relevant formal scientific, technical education, and... research, education, or extension activities. (2) Need to include as reviewers experts from various areas...
7 CFR 3430.33 - Selection of reviewers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... selected based upon training and experience in relevant scientific, extension, or education fields taking into account the following factors: (1) Level of relevant formal scientific, technical education, and... research, education, or extension activities. (2) Need to include as reviewers experts from various areas...
Effects of selective attention on continuous opinions and discrete decisions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Si, Xia-Meng; Liu, Yun; Xiong, Fei; Zhang, Yan-Chao; Ding, Fei; Cheng, Hui

2010-09-01

Selective attention describes that individuals have a preference on information according to their involving motivation. Based on achievements of social psychology, we propose an opinion interacting model to improve the modeling of individuals’ interacting behaviors. There are two parameters governing the probability of agents interacting with opponents, i.e. individual relevance and time-openness. It is found that, large individual relevance and large time-openness advance the appearance of large clusters, but large individual relevance and small time-openness favor the lessening of extremism. We also put this new model into application to work out some factor leading to a successful product. Numerical simulations show that selective attention, especially individual relevance, cannot be ignored by launcher firms and information spreaders so as to attain the most successful promotion.
Attention improves encoding of task-relevant features in the human visual cortex

PubMed Central

Jehee, Janneke F.M.; Brady, Devin K.; Tong, Frank

2011-01-01

When spatial attention is directed towards a particular stimulus, increased activity is commonly observed in corresponding locations of the visual cortex. Does this attentional increase in activity indicate improved processing of all features contained within the attended stimulus, or might spatial attention selectively enhance the features relevant to the observer’s task? We used fMRI decoding methods to measure the strength of orientation-selective activity patterns in the human visual cortex while subjects performed either an orientation or contrast discrimination task, involving one of two laterally presented gratings. Greater overall BOLD activation with spatial attention was observed in areas V1-V4 for both tasks. However, multivariate pattern analysis revealed that orientation-selective responses were enhanced by attention only when orientation was the task-relevant feature, and not when the grating’s contrast had to be attended. In a second experiment, observers discriminated the orientation or color of a specific lateral grating. Here, orientation-selective responses were enhanced in both tasks but color-selective responses were enhanced only when color was task-relevant. In both experiments, task-specific enhancement of feature-selective activity was not confined to the attended stimulus location, but instead spread to other locations in the visual field, suggesting the concurrent involvement of a global feature-based attentional mechanism. These results suggest that attention can be remarkably selective in its ability to enhance particular task-relevant features, and further reveal that increases in overall BOLD amplitude are not necessarily accompanied by improved processing of stimulus information. PMID:21632942
Attention improves encoding of task-relevant features in the human visual cortex.

PubMed

Jehee, Janneke F M; Brady, Devin K; Tong, Frank

2011-06-01

When spatial attention is directed toward a particular stimulus, increased activity is commonly observed in corresponding locations of the visual cortex. Does this attentional increase in activity indicate improved processing of all features contained within the attended stimulus, or might spatial attention selectively enhance the features relevant to the observer's task? We used fMRI decoding methods to measure the strength of orientation-selective activity patterns in the human visual cortex while subjects performed either an orientation or contrast discrimination task, involving one of two laterally presented gratings. Greater overall BOLD activation with spatial attention was observed in visual cortical areas V1-V4 for both tasks. However, multivariate pattern analysis revealed that orientation-selective responses were enhanced by attention only when orientation was the task-relevant feature and not when the contrast of the grating had to be attended. In a second experiment, observers discriminated the orientation or color of a specific lateral grating. Here, orientation-selective responses were enhanced in both tasks, but color-selective responses were enhanced only when color was task relevant. In both experiments, task-specific enhancement of feature-selective activity was not confined to the attended stimulus location but instead spread to other locations in the visual field, suggesting the concurrent involvement of a global feature-based attentional mechanism. These results suggest that attention can be remarkably selective in its ability to enhance particular task-relevant features and further reveal that increases in overall BOLD amplitude are not necessarily accompanied by improved processing of stimulus information.
Consequences of Residential Density for Urban Life.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marans, Robert W.; Zehner, Robert B.

Typical objectives of urban planners are reviewed and 3 are selected as relevant to this study which focuses on density as a measure of the number of dwellings per given land area, as distinguished from number of persons per room. Those selected: (1) consider the juxtaposition of housing and other land uses; (2) relate density to desired patterns…
An Approach for Selecting a Theoretical Framework for the Evaluation of Training Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tasca, Jorge Eduardo; Ensslin, Leonardo; Ensslin, Sandra Rolim; Alves, Maria Bernardete Martins

2010-01-01

Purpose: This research paper proposes a method for selecting references related to a research topic, and seeks to exemplify it for the case of a study evaluating training programs. The method is designed to identify references with high academic relevance in databases accessed via the internet, using a bibliometric analysis to sift the selected…
Selecting climate change scenarios using impact-relevant sensitivities

Treesearch

Julie A. Vano; John B. Kim; David E. Rupp; Philip W. Mote

2015-01-01

Climate impact studies often require the selection of a small number of climate scenarios. Ideally, a subset would have simulations that both (1) appropriately represent the range of possible futures for the variable/s most important to the impact under investigation and (2) come from global climate models (GCMs) that provide plausible results for future climate in the...
ASCO 2017-highlights of gynecological cancer.

PubMed

Radl, Bianca; Mlineritsch, Brigitte

2017-01-01

At this year's ASCO annual meeting several important studies in the field of gynecological cancer were presented. Here we report a personal selection of the most interesting and clinically relevant data.
The influence of perceptual load on age differences in selective attention.

PubMed

Maylor, E A; Lavie, N

1998-12-01

The effect of perceptual load on age differences in visual selective attention was examined in 2 studies. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults made speeded choice responses indicating which of 2 target letters was present in a relevant set of letters in the center of the display while they attempted to ignore an irrelevant distractor in the periphery. The perceptual load of relevant processing was manipulated by varying the central set size. When the relevant set size was small, the adverse effect of an incompatible distractor was much greater for the older participants than for the younger ones. However, with larger relevant set sizes, this was no longer the case, with the distractor effect decreasing for older participants at lower levels of perceptual load than for younger ones. In Experiment 2, older adults were tested with the empty locations in the central set either unmarked (as in Experiment 1) or marked by small circles to form a group of 6 items irrespective of set size; the 2 conditions did not differ markedly, ruling out an explanation based entirely on perceptual grouping.
Selective attention to perceptual dimensions and switching between dimensions.

PubMed

Meiran, Nachshon; Dimov, Eduard; Ganel, Tzvi

2013-02-01

In the present experiments, the question being addressed was whether switching attention between perceptual dimensions and selective attention to dimensions are processes that compete over a common resource? Attention to perceptual dimensions is usually studied by requiring participants to ignore a never-relevant dimension. Selection failure (Garner's Interference, GI) is indicated by poorer performance in the filtering condition (when this dimension varies) as compared with baseline (when it is fixed). Switching between perceptual dimensions is usually studied with the task switching paradigm. In the present experiments, attention switching was manipulated by using single-task blocks and blocks in which participants switched between tasks or dimensions in reaction to task cues, and attention to dimensions was assessed by including a third, never-relevant dimension that was either fixed or varied randomly. In Experiments 1 (long cue-target interval, CTI) and 2 (short CTI), the tasks involved shape and color and the never-relevant dimension (texture) was chosen to be separable from them. In Experiments 3 (long CTI) and 4 (short CTI), the tasks involved shape and brightness and the never-relevant dimension, saturation, was chosen to be separable from shape and integral with brightness. Task switching did not generate GI but a short CTI did. Thus, switching and filtering generally do not compete over central limited resources unless under tight time pressure. Experiment 3 shows GI in the brightness task but not in the shape task, suggesting that participants switched their attention between brightness and shape when they switched tasks. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.
Socioeconomic and Other Social Stressors and Biomarkers of Cardiometabolic Risk in Youth: A Systematic Review of Less Studied Risk Factors

PubMed Central

Slopen, Natalie; Goodman, Elizabeth; Koenen, Karestan C.; Kubzansky, Laura D.

2013-01-01

Background Socioeconomic disadvantage and other social stressors in childhood have been linked with cardiometabolic diseases in adulthood; however the mechanisms underlying these observed associations and the timing of their emergence are unclear. The aim of this review was to evaluate research that examined relationships between socioeconomic disadvantage and other social stressors in relation to less-studied cardiometabolic risk factors among youth, including carbohydrate metabolism-related factors, lipids, and central adiposity. Methods We searched PubMed and ISI Web of Science to identify relevant publications between 2001 and 2013.Studies were selected based on 4 criteria: (1) the study examined an association between at least one social or economic stressor and one relevant outcome prior to age 21; (2) the sample originated from a high-income country; (3) the sample was not selected based on a health condition; and (4) a central aim was to evaluate the effect of the social or economic stressor on at least one relevant outcome. Abstracts were screened and relevant publications were obtained and evaluated for inclusion criteria. We abstracted data from selected articles, summarized them by exposures and outcomes, and assigned an evidence grade. Results Our search identified 37 publications from 31 studies. Socioeconomic disadvantage was consistently associated with greater central adiposity. Research to date does not provide clear evidence of an association between childhood stressors and lipids or carbohydrate metabolism-related factors. Conclusions This review demonstrates a paucity of research on the relationship of socioeconomic disadvantage and other social stressors to lipid and carbohydrate metabolism-related factors in youth. Accordingly, it is not possible to form strong conclusions, particularly with regard to stressors other than socioeconomic disadvantage. Findings are used to inform priorities for future research. An improved understanding of these pathways is critical for identifying novel prevention targets and intervention opportunities to protect the long-term health of children and adolescents. PMID:23691213

Developing a national framework of quality indicators for public hospitals.

PubMed

Simou, Effie; Pliatsika, Paraskevi; Koutsogeorgou, Eleni; Roumeliotou, Anastasia

2014-01-01

The current study describes the development of a preliminary set of quality indicators for public Greek National Health System (GNHS) hospitals, which were used in the "Health Monitoring Indicators System: Health Map" (Ygeionomikos Chartis) project, with the purpose that these quality indicators would assess the quality of all the aspects relevant to public hospital healthcare workforce and services provided. A literature review was conducted in the MEDLINE database to identify articles referring to international and national hospital quality assessment projects, together with an online search for relevant projects. Studies were included if they were published in English, from 1980 to 2010. A consensus panel took place afterwards with 40 experts in the field and tele-voting procedure. Twenty relevant projects and their 1698 indicators were selected through the literature search, and after the consensus panel process, a list of 67 indicators were selected to be implemented for the assessment of the public hospitals categorized under six distinct dimensions: Quality, Responsiveness, Efficiency, Utilization, Timeliness, and Resources and Capacity. Data gathered and analyzed in this manner provided a novel evaluation and monitoring system for Greece, which can assist decision-makers, healthcare professionals, and patients in Greece to retrieve relevant information, with the long-term goal to improve quality in care in the GNHS hospital sector. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Application of all relevant feature selection for failure analysis of parameter-induced simulation crashes in climate models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paja, W.; Wrzesień, M.; Niemiec, R.; Rudnicki, W. R.

2015-07-01

The climate models are extremely complex pieces of software. They reflect best knowledge on physical components of the climate, nevertheless, they contain several parameters, which are too weakly constrained by observations, and can potentially lead to a crash of simulation. Recently a study by Lucas et al. (2013) has shown that machine learning methods can be used for predicting which combinations of parameters can lead to crash of simulation, and hence which processes described by these parameters need refined analyses. In the current study we reanalyse the dataset used in this research using different methodology. We confirm the main conclusion of the original study concerning suitability of machine learning for prediction of crashes. We show, that only three of the eight parameters indicated in the original study as relevant for prediction of the crash are indeed strongly relevant, three other are relevant but redundant, and two are not relevant at all. We also show that the variance due to split of data between training and validation sets has large influence both on accuracy of predictions and relative importance of variables, hence only cross-validated approach can deliver robust prediction of performance and relevance of variables.
The Relevance of Vocational High School Curriculum with the Requirement of the Heavy Equipment Industries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asfiyanur, E. P.; Sumardi, K.; Rahayu, Y.; Putra, R. C.

2018-02-01

This study aims to determine the relevance of competencies developed by vocational high schools with the needs of workers in the industrial world. This is to answer the statement from the world of industry that the competencies possessed by vocational secondary education graduates are not in accordance with industry standards. This research is a qualitative research conducted by collecting data, presenting accurate and objective information. Respondents of this research are industrial institutions in the field of heavy equipment, vocational education institutions and government agencies in charge of manpower. Selection of informants / sources of information used is purposive sample technique, which aims to give consideration to select informants who meet the criteria in providing accurate information. The results of this study provide insight and input to vocational secondary education managers about various information in developing vocational secondary education curriculum, major issues include curriculum content relevance, technological advances in the heavy equipment industry, updating of school facilities and collaboration between educational institutions and labor institutions and the industrial world in the development of vocational secondary education.
The cost of selective attention in category learning: developmental differences between adults and infants.

PubMed

Best, Catherine A; Yim, Hyungwook; Sloutsky, Vladimir M

2013-10-01

Selective attention plays an important role in category learning. However, immaturities of top-down attentional control during infancy coupled with successful category learning suggest that early category learning is achieved without attending selectively. Research presented here examines this possibility by focusing on category learning in infants (6-8months old) and adults. Participants were trained on a novel visual category. Halfway through the experiment, unbeknownst to participants, the to-be-learned category switched to another category, where previously relevant features became irrelevant and previously irrelevant features became relevant. If participants attend selectively to the relevant features of the first category, they should incur a cost of selective attention immediately after the unknown category switch. Results revealed that adults demonstrated a cost, as evidenced by a decrease in accuracy and response time on test trials as well as a decrease in visual attention to newly relevant features. In contrast, infants did not demonstrate a similar cost of selective attention as adults despite evidence of learning both to-be-learned categories. Findings are discussed as supporting multiple systems of category learning and as suggesting that learning mechanisms engaged by adults may be different from those engaged by infants. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Eye movements in pedophiles: automatic and controlled attentional processes while viewing prepubescent stimuli.

PubMed

Fromberger, Peter; Jordan, Kirsten; Steinkrauss, Henrike; von Herder, Jakob; Stolpmann, Georg; Kröner-Herwig, Birgit; Müller, Jürgen Leo

2013-05-01

Recent theories in sexuality highlight the importance of automatic and controlled attentional processes in viewing sexually relevant stimuli. The model of Spiering and Everaerd (2007) assumes that sexually relevant features of a stimulus are preattentively selected and automatically induce focal attention to these sexually relevant aspects. Whether this assumption proves true for pedophiles is unknown. It is aim of this study to test this assumption empirically for people suffering from pedophilic interests. Twenty-two pedophiles, 8 nonpedophilic forensic controls, and 52 healthy controls simultaneously viewed the picture of a child and the picture of an adult while eye movements were measured. Entry time was assessed as a measure of automatic attentional processes and relative fixation time in order to assess controlled attentional processes. Pedophiles demonstrated significantly shorter entry time to child stimuli than to adult stimuli. The opposite was the case for nonpedophiles, as they showed longer relative fixation time for adult stimuli, and, against all expectations, pedophiles also demonstrated longer relative fixation time for adult stimuli. The results confirmed the hypothesis that pedophiles automatically selected sexually relevant stimuli (children). Contrary to all expectations, this automatic selection did not trigger the focal attention to these sexually relevant pictures. Furthermore, pedophiles were first and longest attracted by faces and pubic regions of children; nonpedophiles were first and longest attracted by faces and breasts of adults. The results demonstrated, for the first time, that the face and pubic region are the most attracting regions in children for pedophiles. © 2013 American Psychological Association
Auditory Task Irrelevance: A Basis for Inattentional Deafness

PubMed Central

Scheer, Menja; Bülthoff, Heinrich H.; Chuang, Lewis L.

2018-01-01

Objective This study investigates the neural basis of inattentional deafness, which could result from task irrelevance in the auditory modality. Background Humans can fail to respond to auditory alarms under high workload situations. This failure, termed inattentional deafness, is often attributed to high workload in the visual modality, which reduces one’s capacity for information processing. Besides this, our capacity for processing auditory information could also be selectively diminished if there is no obvious task relevance in the auditory channel. This could be another contributing factor given the rarity of auditory warnings. Method Forty-eight participants performed a visuomotor tracking task while auditory stimuli were presented: a frequent pure tone, an infrequent pure tone, and infrequent environmental sounds. Participants were required either to respond to the presentation of the infrequent pure tone (auditory task-relevant) or not (auditory task-irrelevant). We recorded and compared the event-related potentials (ERPs) that were generated by environmental sounds, which were always task-irrelevant for both groups. These ERPs served as an index for our participants’ awareness of the task-irrelevant auditory scene. Results Manipulation of auditory task relevance influenced the brain’s response to task-irrelevant environmental sounds. Specifically, the late novelty-P3 to irrelevant environmental sounds, which underlies working memory updating, was found to be selectively enhanced by auditory task relevance independent of visuomotor workload. Conclusion Task irrelevance in the auditory modality selectively reduces our brain’s responses to unexpected and irrelevant sounds regardless of visuomotor workload. Application Presenting relevant auditory information more often could mitigate the risk of inattentional deafness. PMID:29578754
Association of physical activity with cognition, metacognition and academic performance in children and adolescents: a protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

PubMed

Álvarez-Bueno, Celia; Pesce, Caterina; Cavero-Redondo, Iván; Sánchez-López, Mairena; Pardo-Guijarro, María Jesús; Martínez-Vizcaíno, Vicente

2016-06-28

Schools provide a relevant context for improving children's and adolescents' physical and mental health by increasing physical activity during school hours and/or beyond. The interest in the relationship between physical activity programmes and cognition during development has recently increased, with evidence suggesting a positive association. We present a protocol of systematic reviews and meta-analysis of intervention studies that, by determining the effects of chronic physical exercise on children's and adolescents' cognitive and metacognitive functions, cognitive life skills, academic behaviours and achievement, aims to ensure procedural objectivity and transparency, and maximise the extraction of relevant information to inform policy development. This protocol is guided by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) and by the Cochrane Collaboration Handbook. Databases to be utilised for a thorough selection of the pertinent literature are MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Web of Science, PsycINFO and ERIC. Selection is proposed to encompass an international and a national publication level, with inclusion of experimental studies written in English or in Spanish, respectively. Also, relevant references included in the selected studies will be considered suitable for review as supplemental sources.We present an integrated approach to the methodological quality assessment of the selected studies, including the Jadad Scale for the assessment of the quality of randomised controlled trials and the Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies for pre-post studies and non-randomised controlled trials. The pre-post interventions mean differences will be the primary indicator of the intervention outcome. A subgroup analysis is proposed based on cognitive functions and their neural correlates, metacognitive functions and cognitive life skills, academic achievement areas and academic behaviours. PROSPERO CRD42015029913. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/
Event-related potential (ERP) measures reveal the timing of memory selection processes and proactive interference resolution in working memory.

PubMed

Yi, Yuji; Friedman, David

2011-09-09

Behavioral studies show that no-longer-relevant information, although presumably removed from working memory (WM), still engenders proactive interference (PI). However, the timing of selecting items within WM and resolving PI is relatively unknown. To assess this, we recorded ERPs during WM from 20 young adults. In all conditions, a 4-digit display was followed by a cue indicating which digits to remember. In the selection condition, 2 digits were cued. The reaction time difference between the intrusion probe, a match of a to-be-rejected digit, and the non-intrusion probe, which did not match any of the 4 digits, was reliable, indicating a robust effect of PI. In the neutral-2 (remember 2 digits) and -4 (remember all 4) conditions, participants maintained the digits following the cue. Relative to neutral-4, selection elicited larger positivity at parietal sites (approximately 260ms) and negativity at frontal sites (approximately 420ms). Relative to the non-intrusion probe ERP, that to the intrusion probe was more negative over frontal scalp (approximately 500ms). We conclude that initial selection occurs over parietal cortex and reflects top-down attention to task relevant items, whereas the subsequent negativity may reflect inhibition of no-longer-relevant items over frontal cortex. The probe-locked ERPs suggest that the frontal negativity (approximately 500ms) reflects the final resolution of PI. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Sulfated Pentagalloylglucoside is a Potent, Allosteric, and Selective Inhibitor of Factor XIa

PubMed Central

Al-Horani, Rami A.; Ponnusamy, Pooja; Mehta, Akul Y.; Gailani, David; Desai, Umesh R.

2013-01-01

Inhibition of factor XIa (FXIa) is a novel paradigm for developing anticoagulants without major bleeding consequences. We present the discovery of sulfated pentagalloylglucoside (6) as a highly selective inhibitor of human FXIa. Biochemical screening of a focused library led to the identification of 6, a sulfated aromatic mimetic of heparin. Inhibitor 6 displayed a potency of 551 nM against FXIa, which was at least 200-fold more selective than other relevant enzymes. It also prevented activation of factor IX and prolonged human plasma and whole blood clotting. Inhibitor 6 reduced VMAX of FXIa hydrolysis of chromogenic substrate without affecting the KM suggesting an allosteric mechanism. Competitive studies showed that 6 bound in the heparin-binding site of FXIa. No allosteric small molecule has been discovered to date that exhibits equivalent potency against FXIa. Inhibitor 6 is expected to open up a major route to allosteric FXIa anticoagulants with clinical relevance. PMID:23316863
Fragrance allergy in patients with hand eczema - a clinical study.

PubMed

Heydorn, Siri; Johansen, Jeanne Duus; Andersen, Klaus E; Bruze, Magnus; Svedman, Cecilia; White, Ian R; Basketter, David A; Menné, Torkil

2003-06-01

Fragrance allergy and hand eczema are both common among dermatological patients. Fragrance mix (FM) and its constituents have a recognized relevance to exposure to fine fragrances and cosmetic products. Based on extensive chemical analysis and database search, a new selection of fragrances was established, including 14 known fragrance allergens present in products to which hand exposure would occur. A non-irritating patch-test concentration for some fragrances was established in 212 consecutive patients. 658 consecutive patients presenting with hand eczema were patch tested with the European standard series and the developed selection of fragrances. 67 (10.2%) of the 658 patients had a positive reaction to 1 or more of our selection of fragrance chemicals present in the new selection. The most common reactions to fragrances not included in the FM were to citral, Lyral (hydroxyisohexyl-3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde) and oxidized l-limonene. A concomitant reaction to the FM identified potential fragrance allergy in less than (1/2) of these patients. Exposure assessment and a statistically significant association between a positive patch test to our selected fragrances and patients' history support the relevance of this selection of fragrances. Those with a positive reaction to our selected fragrances were significantly more likely to have 1 or more positive patch tests in the standard series. This observation is the basis for the hypothesis concerning cross-reactivity and the effect of simultaneous exposure. The study found that fragrance allergy could be a common problem in patients with eczema on the hands.
Survival-related Selection Bias in Studies of Racial Health Disparities: The Importance of the Target Population and Study Design.

PubMed

Howe, Chanelle J; Robinson, Whitney R

2018-07-01

The impact of survival-related selection bias has not always been discussed in relevant studies of racial health disparities. Moreover, the analytic approaches most frequently employed in the epidemiologic literature to minimize selection bias are difficult to implement appropriately in racial disparities research. This difficulty stems from the fact that frequently employed analytic techniques require that common causes of survival and the outcome are accurately measured. Unfortunately, such common causes are often unmeasured or poorly measured in racial health disparities studies. In the absence of accurate measures of the aforementioned common causes, redefining the target population or changing the study design represents a useful approach for reducing the extent of survival-related selection bias. To help researchers recognize and minimize survival-related selection bias in racial health disparities studies, we illustrate the aforementioned selection bias and how redefining the target population or changing the study design can be useful.
A general framework to learn surrogate relevance criterion for atlas based image segmentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Tingting; Ruan, Dan

2016-09-01

Multi-atlas based image segmentation sees great opportunities in the big data era but also faces unprecedented challenges in identifying positive contributors from extensive heterogeneous data. To assess data relevance, image similarity criteria based on various image features widely serve as surrogates for the inaccessible geometric agreement criteria. This paper proposes a general framework to learn image based surrogate relevance criteria to better mimic the behaviors of segmentation based oracle geometric relevance. The validity of its general rationale is verified in the specific context of fusion set selection for image segmentation. More specifically, we first present a unified formulation for surrogate relevance criteria and model the neighborhood relationship among atlases based on the oracle relevance knowledge. Surrogates are then trained to be small for geometrically relevant neighbors and large for irrelevant remotes to the given targets. The proposed surrogate learning framework is verified in corpus callosum segmentation. The learned surrogates demonstrate superiority in inferring the underlying oracle value and selecting relevant fusion set, compared to benchmark surrogates.
Structural, functional and spectroscopic MRI studies of methamphetamine addiction.

PubMed

Salo, Ruth; Fassbender, Catherine

2012-01-01

This chapter reviews selected neuroimaging findings related to long-term amphetamine and methamphetamine (MA) use. An overview of structural and functional (fMRI) MR studies, Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) studies conducted in long-term MA abusers is presented. The focus of this chapter is to present the relevant studies as tools to understand brain changes following drug abstinence and recovery from addiction. The behavioral relevance of these neuroimaging studies is discussed as they relate to clinical symptoms and treatment. Within each imaging section this chapter includes a discussion of the relevant imaging studies as they relate to patterns of drug use (i.e., duration of MA use, cumulative lifetime dose and time MA abstinent) as well as an overview of studies that link the imaging findings to cognitive measures. In our conclusion we discuss some of the future directions of neuroimaging as it relates to the pathophysiology of addiction.
Pharmacoeconomics and its implication on priority-setting for essential medicines in Tanzania: a systematic review.

PubMed

Mori, Amani Thomas; Robberstad, Bjarne

2012-09-27

Due to escalating treatment costs, pharmacoeconomic analysis has been assigned a key role in the quest for increased efficiency in resource allocation for drug therapies in high-income countries. The extent to which pharmacoeconomic analysis is employed in the same role in low-income countries is less well established. This systematic review identifies and briefly describes pharmacoeconomic studies which have been conducted in Tanzania and further assesses their influence in the selection of essential medicines. Pubmed, Embase, Cinahl and Cochrane databases were searched using "economic evaluation", "cost-effectiveness analysis", "cost-benefit analysis" AND "Tanzania" as search terms. We also scanned reference lists and searched in Google to identify other relevant articles. Only articles reporting full economic evaluations about drug therapies and vaccines conducted in Tanzania were included. The national essential medicine list and other relevant policy documents related to the identified articles were screened for information regarding the use of economic evaluation as a criterion for medicine selection. Twelve pharmacoeconomic studies which met our inclusion criteria were identified. Seven studies were on HIV/AIDS, malaria and diarrhoea, the three highest ranked diseases on the disease burden in Tanzania. Six studies were on preventive and treatment interventions targeting pregnant women and children under the age of five years. The national essential medicine list and the other identified policy documents do not state the use of economic evaluation as one of the criteria which has influenced the listing of the drugs. Country specific pharmacoeconomic analyses are too scarce and inconsistently used to have had a significant influence on the selection of essential medicines in Tanzania. More studies are required to fill the existing gap and to explore whether decision-makers have the ability to interpret and utilise pharmacoeconomic evidence. Relevant health authorities in Tanzania should also consider how to apply pharmacoeconomic analyses more consistently in the future priority-setting decisions for selection of essential medicines.
Attentional Selection of Feature Conjunctions Is Accomplished by Parallel and Independent Selection of Single Features.

PubMed

Andersen, Søren K; Müller, Matthias M; Hillyard, Steven A

2015-07-08

Experiments that study feature-based attention have often examined situations in which selection is based on a single feature (e.g., the color red). However, in more complex situations relevant stimuli may not be set apart from other stimuli by a single defining property but by a specific combination of features. Here, we examined sustained attentional selection of stimuli defined by conjunctions of color and orientation. Human observers attended to one out of four concurrently presented superimposed fields of randomly moving horizontal or vertical bars of red or blue color to detect brief intervals of coherent motion. Selective stimulus processing in early visual cortex was assessed by recordings of steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) elicited by each of the flickering fields of stimuli. We directly contrasted attentional selection of single features and feature conjunctions and found that SSVEP amplitudes on conditions in which selection was based on a single feature only (color or orientation) exactly predicted the magnitude of attentional enhancement of SSVEPs when attending to a conjunction of both features. Furthermore, enhanced SSVEP amplitudes elicited by attended stimuli were accompanied by equivalent reductions of SSVEP amplitudes elicited by unattended stimuli in all cases. We conclude that attentional selection of a feature-conjunction stimulus is accomplished by the parallel and independent facilitation of its constituent feature dimensions in early visual cortex. The ability to perceive the world is limited by the brain's processing capacity. Attention affords adaptive behavior by selectively prioritizing processing of relevant stimuli based on their features (location, color, orientation, etc.). We found that attentional mechanisms for selection of different features belonging to the same object operate independently and in parallel: concurrent attentional selection of two stimulus features is simply the sum of attending to each of those features separately. This result is key to understanding attentional selection in complex (natural) scenes, where relevant stimuli are likely to be defined by a combination of stimulus features. Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/359912-08$15.00/0.
29 CFR 1607.7 - Use of other validity studies.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... consider, as one factor in the decision to purchase a particular selection procedure, the availability of... constitutes a significant factor in the borrowing user's relevant labor market for the job or jobs in question...
Experimental Studies on Electronic Portfolios in Turkey: A Literature Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alan, Selahattin; Sünbül, Ali Murat

2015-01-01

In this study, a literature review was conducted about an individual's selected efforts, products stored in electronic format, and electronic portfolios that reflect the development and capacity of multimedia systems. In this context, relevant experimental studies performed in Turkey are collected to show e-portfolio application forms, their…
Heat-Irrigate Effect' of Radiofrequency Ablation on Relevant Regional Hepatocyte in Living Swine Liver-Initial Study on Pathology.

PubMed

Jiang, Kai; Chen, Jiye; Liu, Yang; Liu, Jiang; Liu, Aijun; Dong, Jiahong; Huang, Zhiqiang

2015-05-01

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is one of the effective methods for HCC treatment. However, because of the "heat-sink effect" (HSE), it is very difficult to achieve a complete ablation in intrahepatic tumors. This study establishes the animal model of RFA on living swine liver and observes the 'heat-irrigate effect' on relevant regional hepatocytes. Three liver segments of 6 Guangxi Bama mini-pigs were selected to be ablated closed to segmental outflow vessel under surveillance of sonography for 6 min, and pathological changes of relevant downstream region were observed. We observed an elliptic shape of ablated area with diameter of 2.2 ± 1.1 cm on gross liver. Thermal damage was seen in downstream regional of relevant portal vein under microscope. However, adjacent area around the vessel was remained intact. In conclusion, the 'heat-irrigate effect' in RFA could cause thermal damage along the downstream region of relevant portal vein and this influence decreased gradually toward the surface.
Assessing the relevance of ecotoxicological studies for regulatory decision making.

PubMed

Rudén, Christina; Adams, Julie; Ågerstrand, Marlene; Brock, Theo Cm; Poulsen, Veronique; Schlekat, Christian E; Wheeler, James R; Henry, Tala R

2017-07-01

Regulatory policies in many parts of the world recognize either the utility of or the mandate that all available studies be considered in environmental or ecological hazard and risk assessment (ERA) of chemicals, including studies from the peer-reviewed literature. Consequently, a vast array of different studies and data types need to be considered. The first steps in the evaluation process involve determining whether the study is relevant to the ERA and sufficiently reliable. Relevance evaluation is typically performed using existing guidance but involves application of "expert judgment" by risk assessors. In the present paper, we review published guidance for relevance evaluation and, on the basis of the practical experience within the group of authors, we identify additional aspects and further develop already proposed aspects that should be considered when conducting a relevance assessment for ecotoxicological studies. From a regulatory point of view, the overarching key aspect of relevance concerns the ability to directly or indirectly use the study in ERA with the purpose of addressing specific protection goals and ultimately regulatory decision making. Because ERA schemes are based on the appropriate linking of exposure and effect estimates, important features of ecotoxicological studies relate to exposure relevance and biological relevance. Exposure relevance addresses the representativeness of the test substance, environmental exposure media, and exposure regime. Biological relevance deals with the environmental significance of the test organism and the endpoints selected, the ecological realism of the test conditions simulated in the study, as well as a mechanistic link of treatment-related effects for endpoints to the protection goal identified in the ERA. In addition, uncertainties associated with relevance should be considered in the assessment. A systematic and transparent assessment of relevance is needed for regulatory decision making. The relevance aspects also need to be considered by scientists when designing, performing, and reporting ecotoxicological studies to facilitate their use in ERA. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2017;13:652-663. © 2016 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC). © 2016 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).
Nursing Outcomes for Patients with Risk of Perioperative Positioning Injury.

PubMed

de Lima, Luciana Bjorklund; E Cardozo, Michelle Cardoso; Bernardes, Daniela de Souza; Rabelo-Silva, Eneida Rejane

2018-04-16

To select and refine the outcomes and indicators of Nursing Outcomes Classification for the diagnosis of risk for perioperative positioning injury. Validation study on expert consensus and refinement through pilot study. Eight outcomes and 35 indicators were selected in consensus. After clinical testing was performed, in which 10 patients were assessed at five different times. Eight outcomes and 33 indicators remained in the protocol. This study made it possible to select the most relevant outcomes and indicators to be measured for this diagnosis in clinical practice. Validation studies by consensus and clinical testing are important to promote the accuracy, creating opportunities to legitimize, and improve the concepts of taxonomies. © 2018 NANDA International, Inc.

Quality-of-Life Priorities in Patients with Thyroid Cancer: A Multinational European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Phase I Study.

PubMed

Singer, Susanne; Husson, Olga; Tomaszewska, Iwona M; Locati, Laura D; Kiyota, Naomi; Scheidemann-Wesp, Ulrike; Hofmeister, Dirk; Winterbotham, Melanie; Brannan, Christine; Araújo, Cláudia; Gamper, Eva M; Kulis, Dagmara; Rimmele, Harald; Andry, Guy; Licitra, Lisa

2016-11-01

The objectives of this study were to determine quality of life (QoL) issues that are relevant to thyroid cancer patients cross-culturally, and to identify those with highest relevance to them in addition to the more general issues covered by the core European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer QoL questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30). A systematic literature search provided a list of potentially relevant QoL issues to supplement the core questionnaire EORTC QLQ-C30, which is widely used in research and in care and addresses QoL issues relevant to all groups of cancer patients. A panel of experts revised this list, and thyroid cancer patients rated the issues regarding their relevance for QoL by selecting the 25 issues that they would include in a thyroid cancer-specific QoL module. The literature search and expert discussion provided a list of 71 QoL issues that was rated by thyroid cancer patients (n = 110) from seven countries. All issues were of high priority to at least some of the patients. The most frequently selected issues were sudden attacks of tiredness, exhaustion, quality of sleep, employment, social support, fear of cancer progression, fear of second operation, difficulties swallowing, and globus sensation. Thyroid cancer patients cross-culturally rate fatigue-related issues as highly important for their QoL, calling for increased efforts to find successful treatments for this problem. Vocational rehabilitation is also highly relevant for them and should therefore be an important aim of multidisciplinary care. The third important area of concern is psychological issues, especially fear of progression and of additional treatments.
Terror Operations: Case Studies in Terrorism. U.S. Army DCSINT Handbook No. 1.01

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-08-15

relevant resource. A selected bibliography presents citations for detailed study of specific terrorism topics. Unless stated otherwise, masculine ...of instability within the region include hegemony , terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and ballistic missiles. Conflict is a
Non-Discriminatory Psychological Assessment of the Handicapped.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Phelps, William R.

In 1979 the National Research Council established a panel to study testing of handicapped people for selection and placement purposes in educational and employment settings. The study involved the review of relevant literature, solicitation of pertinent information from organizations representing handicapped persons and from professionals involved…
Applying Q-methodology to select and define attributes for non-market valuation: A case study from Northwest Wyoming, United States

Treesearch

Christopher A. Armatas; Tyron J. Venn; Alan E. Watson

2014-01-01

The underlying validity of stated preference non-market valuation methods relies on the analyst's ability to identify, select, define, and articulate the goods being valued in a way that is relevant and understandable to the respondent, which requires detailed understanding of the respondents' experiences and points of view. Poor articulation of the good...
The Differential Effects of Selected Programs on the Performance, Degree of Satisfaction and Retention of Community College Women Students. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gillie, Angelo C.

This study, by examining how female post-secondary students view themselves within their college environment, attempts to determine how education can become more relevant for these women. Random samples of freshmen women students from four community colleges were selected according to the type of program in which they were enrolled--human service,…
The Construct of Attention in Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Luck, Steven J.; Gold, James M.

2008-01-01

Schizophrenia is widely thought to involve deficits of attention. However, the term attention can be defined so broadly that impaired performance on virtually any task could be construed as evidence for a deficit in attention, and this has slowed cumulative progress in understanding attention deficits in schizophrenia. To address this problem, we divide the general concept of attention into two distinct constructs: input selection, the selection of task-relevant inputs for further processing; and rule selection, the selective activation of task-appropriate rules. These constructs are closely tied to working memory, because input selection mechanisms are used to control the transfer of information into working memory and because working memory stores the rules used by rule selection mechanisms. These constructs are also closely tied to executive function, because executive systems are used to guide input selection and because rule selection is itself at key aspect of executive function. Within the domain of input selection, it is important to distinguish between the control of selection—the processes that guide attention to task-relevant inputs—and the implementation of selection—the processes that enhance the processing of the relevant inputs and suppress the irrelevant inputs. Current evidence suggests that schizophrenia involves a significant impairment in the control of selection but little or no impairment in the implementation of selection. Consequently, the CNTRICS participants agreed by consensus that attentional control should be a priority target for measurement and treatment research in schizophrenia. PMID:18374901
Methods for the guideline-based development of quality indicators--a systematic review

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Quality indicators (QIs) are used in many healthcare settings to measure, compare, and improve quality of care. For the efficient development of high-quality QIs, rigorous, approved, and evidence-based development methods are needed. Clinical practice guidelines are a suitable source to derive QIs from, but no gold standard for guideline-based QI development exists. This review aims to identify, describe, and compare methodological approaches to guideline-based QI development. Methods We systematically searched medical literature databases (Medline, EMBASE, and CINAHL) and grey literature. Two researchers selected publications reporting methodological approaches to guideline-based QI development. In order to describe and compare methodological approaches used in these publications, we extracted detailed information on common steps of guideline-based QI development (topic selection, guideline selection, extraction of recommendations, QI selection, practice test, and implementation) to predesigned extraction tables. Results From 8,697 hits in the database search and several grey literature documents, we selected 48 relevant references. The studies were of heterogeneous type and quality. We found no randomized controlled trial or other studies comparing the ability of different methodological approaches to guideline-based development to generate high-quality QIs. The relevant publications featured a wide variety of methodological approaches to guideline-based QI development, especially regarding guideline selection and extraction of recommendations. Only a few studies reported patient involvement. Conclusions Further research is needed to determine which elements of the methodological approaches identified, described, and compared in this review are best suited to constitute a gold standard for guideline-based QI development. For this research, we provide a comprehensive groundwork. PMID:22436067
Bayesian Covariate Selection in Mixed-Effects Models For Longitudinal Shape Analysis

PubMed Central

Muralidharan, Prasanna; Fishbaugh, James; Kim, Eun Young; Johnson, Hans J.; Paulsen, Jane S.; Gerig, Guido; Fletcher, P. Thomas

2016-01-01

The goal of longitudinal shape analysis is to understand how anatomical shape changes over time, in response to biological processes, including growth, aging, or disease. In many imaging studies, it is also critical to understand how these shape changes are affected by other factors, such as sex, disease diagnosis, IQ, etc. Current approaches to longitudinal shape analysis have focused on modeling age-related shape changes, but have not included the ability to handle covariates. In this paper, we present a novel Bayesian mixed-effects shape model that incorporates simultaneous relationships between longitudinal shape data and multiple predictors or covariates to the model. Moreover, we place an Automatic Relevance Determination (ARD) prior on the parameters, that lets us automatically select which covariates are most relevant to the model based on observed data. We evaluate our proposed model and inference procedure on a longitudinal study of Huntington's disease from PREDICT-HD. We first show the utility of the ARD prior for model selection in a univariate modeling of striatal volume, and next we apply the full high-dimensional longitudinal shape model to putamen shapes. PMID:28090246
Relevance Rank Platform (RRP) for Functional Filtering of High Content Protein-Protein Interaction Data.

PubMed

Pokharel, Yuba Raj; Saarela, Jani; Szwajda, Agnieszka; Rupp, Christian; Rokka, Anne; Lal Kumar Karna, Shibendra; Teittinen, Kaisa; Corthals, Garry; Kallioniemi, Olli; Wennerberg, Krister; Aittokallio, Tero; Westermarck, Jukka

2015-12-01

High content protein interaction screens have revolutionized our understanding of protein complex assembly. However, one of the major challenges in translation of high content protein interaction data is identification of those interactions that are functionally relevant for a particular biological question. To address this challenge, we developed a relevance ranking platform (RRP), which consist of modular functional and bioinformatic filters to provide relevance rank among the interactome proteins. We demonstrate the versatility of RRP to enable a systematic prioritization of the most relevant interaction partners from high content data, highlighted by the analysis of cancer relevant protein interactions for oncoproteins Pin1 and PME-1. We validated the importance of selected interactions by demonstration of PTOV1 and CSKN2B as novel regulators of Pin1 target c-Jun phosphorylation and reveal previously unknown interacting proteins that may mediate PME-1 effects via PP2A-inhibition. The RRP framework is modular and can be modified to answer versatile research problems depending on the nature of the biological question under study. Based on comparison of RRP to other existing filtering tools, the presented data indicate that RRP offers added value especially for the analysis of interacting proteins for which there is no sufficient prior knowledge available. Finally, we encourage the use of RRP in combination with either SAINT or CRAPome computational tools for selecting the candidate interactors that fulfill the both important requirements, functional relevance, and high confidence interaction detection. © 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.
Seeing without knowing: task relevance dissociates between visual awareness and recognition.

PubMed

Eitam, Baruch; Shoval, Roy; Yeshurun, Yaffa

2015-03-01

We demonstrate that task relevance dissociates between visual awareness and knowledge activation to create a state of seeing without knowing-visual awareness of familiar stimuli without recognizing them. We rely on the fact that in order to experience a Kanizsa illusion, participants must be aware of its inducers. While people can indicate the orientation of the illusory rectangle with great ease (signifying that they have consciously experienced the illusion's inducers), almost 30% of them could not report the inducers' color. Thus, people can see, in the sense of phenomenally experiencing, but not know, in the sense of recognizing what the object is or activating appropriate knowledge about it. Experiment 2 tests whether relevance-based selection operates within objects and shows that, contrary to the pattern of results found with features of different objects in our previous studies and replicated in Experiment 1, selection does not occur when both relevant and irrelevant features belong to the same object. We discuss these findings in relation to the existing theories of consciousness and to attention and inattentional blindness, and the role of cognitive load, object-based attention, and the use of self-reports as measures of awareness. © 2015 New York Academy of Sciences.
Insights into the virulence of oral biofilms: discoveries from proteomics.

PubMed

Kuboniwa, Masae; Tribble, Gena D; Hendrickson, Erik L; Amano, Atsuo; Lamont, Richard J; Hackett, Murray

2012-06-01

This review covers developments in the study of polymicrobial communities, biofilms and selected areas of host response relevant to dental plaque and related areas of oral biology. The emphasis is on recent studies in which proteomic methods, particularly those using mass spectrometry as a readout, have played a major role in the investigation. The last 5-10 years have seen a transition of such methods from the periphery of oral biology to the mainstream, as in other areas of biomedical science. For reasons of focus and space, the authors do not discuss biomarker studies relevant to improved diagnostics for oral health, as this literature is rather substantial in its own right and deserves a separate treatment. Here, global gene regulation studies of plaque-component organisms, biofilm formation, multispecies interactions and host-microbe interactions are discussed. Several aspects of proteomics methodology that are relevant to the studies of multispecies systems are commented upon.
Application of all-relevant feature selection for the failure analysis of parameter-induced simulation crashes in climate models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paja, Wiesław; Wrzesien, Mariusz; Niemiec, Rafał; Rudnicki, Witold R.

2016-03-01

Climate models are extremely complex pieces of software. They reflect the best knowledge on the physical components of the climate; nevertheless, they contain several parameters, which are too weakly constrained by observations, and can potentially lead to a simulation crashing. Recently a study by Lucas et al. (2013) has shown that machine learning methods can be used for predicting which combinations of parameters can lead to the simulation crashing and hence which processes described by these parameters need refined analyses. In the current study we reanalyse the data set used in this research using different methodology. We confirm the main conclusion of the original study concerning the suitability of machine learning for the prediction of crashes. We show that only three of the eight parameters indicated in the original study as relevant for prediction of the crash are indeed strongly relevant, three others are relevant but redundant and two are not relevant at all. We also show that the variance due to the split of data between training and validation sets has a large influence both on the accuracy of predictions and on the relative importance of variables; hence only a cross-validated approach can deliver a robust prediction of performance and relevance of variables.
Executive function is necessary for perspective selection, not Level-1 visual perspective calculation: evidence from a dual-task study of adults.

PubMed

Qureshi, Adam W; Apperly, Ian A; Samson, Dana

2010-11-01

Previous research suggests that perspective-taking and other "theory of mind" processes may be cognitively demanding for adult participants, and may be disrupted by concurrent performance of a secondary task. In the current study, a Level-1 visual perspective task was administered to 32 adults using a dual-task paradigm in which the secondary task tapped executive function. Results suggested that the secondary task did not affect the calculation of perspective, but did affect the selection of the relevant (Self or Other) perspective for a given trial. This is the first direct evidence of a cognitively efficient process for "theory of mind" in adults that operates independently of executive function. The contrast between this and previous findings points to a distinction between simple perspective-taking and the more complex and cognitively demanding abilities more typically examined in studies of "theory of mind". It is suggested that these findings may provide a parsimonious explanation of the success of infants on 'indirect' measures of perspective-taking that do not explicitly require selection of the relevant perspective. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Behind the scenes: how visual memory load biases selective attention during processing of visual streams.

PubMed

Klaver, Peter; Talsma, Durk

2013-11-01

We recorded ERPs to investigate whether the visual memory load can bias visual selective attention. Participants memorized one or four letters and then responded to memory-matching letters presented in a relevant color while ignoring distractor letters or letters in an irrelevant color. Stimuli in the relevant color elicited larger frontal selection positivities (FSP) and occipital selection negativities (OSN) compared to irrelevant color stimuli. Only distractors elicited a larger FSP in the high than in the low memory load task. Memory load prolonged the OSN for all letters. Response mapping complexity was also modulated but did not affect the FSP and OSN. Together, the FSP data suggest that high memory load increased distractability. The OSN data suggest that memory load sustained attention to letters in a relevant color until working memory processing was completed, independently of whether the letters were in working memory or not. Copyright © 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research.
Who Leads China's Leading Universities?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Futao

2017-01-01

This study attempts to identify the major characteristics of two different groups of institutional leaders in China's leading universities. The study begins with a review of relevant literature and theory. Then, there is a brief introduction to the selection of party secretaries, deputy secretaries, presidents and vice presidents in leading…
The effects of visual stimulation and selective visual attention on rhythmic neuronal synchronization in macaque area V4.

PubMed

Fries, Pascal; Womelsdorf, Thilo; Oostenveld, Robert; Desimone, Robert

2008-04-30

Selective attention lends relevant sensory input priority access to higher-level brain areas and ultimately to behavior. Recent studies have suggested that those neurons in visual areas that are activated by an attended stimulus engage in enhanced gamma-band (30-70 Hz) synchronization compared with neurons activated by a distracter. Such precise synchronization could enhance the postsynaptic impact of cells carrying behaviorally relevant information. Previous studies have used the local field potential (LFP) power spectrum or spike-LFP coherence (SFC) to indirectly estimate spike synchronization. Here, we directly demonstrate zero-phase gamma-band coherence among spike trains of V4 neurons. This synchronization was particularly evident during visual stimulation and enhanced by selective attention, thus confirming the pattern inferred from LFP power and SFC. We therefore investigated the time course of LFP gamma-band power and found rapid dynamics consistent with interactions of top-down spatial and feature attention with bottom-up saliency. In addition to the modulation of synchronization during visual stimulation, selective attention significantly changed the prestimulus pattern of synchronization. Attention inside the receptive field of the recorded neuronal population enhanced gamma-band synchronization and strongly reduced alpha-band (9-11 Hz) synchronization in the prestimulus period. These results lend further support for a functional role of rhythmic neuronal synchronization in attentional stimulus selection.
The Influence of Surface and Deep Cues on Primary and Secondary School Students' Assessment of Relevance in Web Menus

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rouet, Jean-Francois; Ros, Christine; Goumi, Antonine; Macedo-Rouet, Monica; Dinet, Jerome

2011-01-01

Two experiments investigated primary and secondary school students' Web menu selection strategies using simulated Web search tasks. It was hypothesized that students' selections of websites depend on their perception and integration of multiple relevance cues. More specifically, students should be able to disentangle superficial cues (e.g.,…
The role of the parafascicular complex (CM-Pf) of the human thalamus in the neuronal mechanisms of selective attention.

PubMed

Raeva, S N

2006-03-01

The reactions of 93 neurons in the parafascicular complex (CM-Pf) of the human thalamus were studied by microelectrode recording during stereotaxic neurosurgical operations in patients with spastic torticollis. High reactivity was demonstrated for two previously classified types of neurons with identical irregular (type A) and bursting Ca2+ -dependent (type B) activities in response to presentation of relevant verbal stimuli evoking selective attention in humans. Concordant changes in the network activity of A and B neurons were observed, in the form of linked activatory-inhibitory patterns of responses and the appearance, at the moment of presentation of an imperative morpheme of the command stimulus, of rapidly occurring intercellular interactions consisting of local synchronization with simultaneously developing rhythmic oscillatory (3-4 Hz) activity. Data are presented on the existence of a direct connection between these neuronal rearrangements and activation of selective attention, providing evidence for the involvement of the thalamic parafascicular complex (CM-Pf) in the mechanisms of selective attention and processing of relevant verbal information during the preparative period of voluntary actions.
Distinct regions of prefrontal cortex are associated with the controlled retrieval and selection of social information.

PubMed

Satpute, Ajay B; Badre, David; Ochsner, Kevin N

2014-05-01

Research in social neuroscience has uncovered a social knowledge network that is particularly attuned to making social judgments. However, the processes that are being performed by both regions within this network and those outside of this network that are nevertheless engaged in the service of making a social judgment remain unclear. To help address this, we drew upon research in semantic memory, which suggests that making a semantic judgment engages 2 distinct control processes: A controlled retrieval process, which aids in bringing goal-relevant information to mind from long-term stores, and a selection process, which aids in selecting the information that is goal-relevant from the information retrieved. In a neuroimaging study, we investigated whether controlled retrieval and selection for social information engage distinct portions of both the social knowledge network and regions outside this network. Controlled retrieval for social information engaged an anterior ventrolateral portion of the prefrontal cortex, whereas selection engaged both the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction within the social knowledge network. These results suggest that the social knowledge network may be more involved with the selection of social information than the controlled retrieval of it and incorporates lateral prefrontal regions in accessing memory for making social judgments.
Feature Selection for Speech Emotion Recognition in Spanish and Basque: On the Use of Machine Learning to Improve Human-Computer Interaction

PubMed Central

Arruti, Andoni; Cearreta, Idoia; Álvarez, Aitor; Lazkano, Elena; Sierra, Basilio

2014-01-01

Study of emotions in human–computer interaction is a growing research area. This paper shows an attempt to select the most significant features for emotion recognition in spoken Basque and Spanish Languages using different methods for feature selection. RekEmozio database was used as the experimental data set. Several Machine Learning paradigms were used for the emotion classification task. Experiments were executed in three phases, using different sets of features as classification variables in each phase. Moreover, feature subset selection was applied at each phase in order to seek for the most relevant feature subset. The three phases approach was selected to check the validity of the proposed approach. Achieved results show that an instance-based learning algorithm using feature subset selection techniques based on evolutionary algorithms is the best Machine Learning paradigm in automatic emotion recognition, with all different feature sets, obtaining a mean of 80,05% emotion recognition rate in Basque and a 74,82% in Spanish. In order to check the goodness of the proposed process, a greedy searching approach (FSS-Forward) has been applied and a comparison between them is provided. Based on achieved results, a set of most relevant non-speaker dependent features is proposed for both languages and new perspectives are suggested. PMID:25279686

Modulation of alpha and gamma oscillations related to retrospectively orienting attention within working memory.

PubMed

Poch, Claudia; Campo, Pablo; Barnes, Gareth R

2014-07-01

Selective attention mechanisms allow us to focus on information that is relevant to the current behavior and, equally important, ignore irrelevant information. An influential model proposes that oscillatory neural activity in the alpha band serves as an active functional inhibitory mechanism. Recent studies have shown that, in the same way that attention can be selectively oriented to bias sensory processing in favor of relevant stimuli in perceptual tasks, it is also possible to retrospectively orient attention to internal representations held in working memory. However, these studies have not explored the associated oscillatory phenomena. In the current study, we analysed the patterns of neural oscillatory activity recorded with magnetoencephalography while participants performed a change detection task, in which a spatial retro-cue was presented during the maintenance period, indicating which item or items were relevant for subsequent retrieval. Participants benefited from retro-cues in terms of accuracy and reaction time. Retro-cues also modulated oscillatory activity in the alpha and gamma frequency bands. We observed greater alpha activity in a ventral visual region ipsilateral to the attended hemifield, thus supporting its suppressive role, i.e., a functional disengagement of task-irrelevant regions. Accompanying this modulation, we found an increase in gamma activity contralateral to the attended hemifield, which could reflect attentional orienting and selective processing. These findings suggest that the oscillatory mechanisms underlying attentional orienting to representations held in working memory are similar to those engaged when attention is oriented in the perceptual space. © 2014 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience published by Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Fluorescent humanized anti-CEA antibody specifically labels metastatic pancreatic cancer in a patient-derived orthotopic xenograft (PDOX) mouse model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lwin, Thinzar M.; Miyake, Kentaro; Murakami, Takashi; DeLong, Jonathan C.; Yazaki, Paul J.; Shivley, John E.; Clary, Bryan; Hoffman, Robert M.; Bouvet, Michael

2018-03-01

Specific tumor targeting can result in selective labeling of cancer in vivo for surgical navigation. In the present study, we show that the use of an anti-CEA antibody conjugated to the near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent dye, IRDye800CW, can selectively target and label pancreatic cancer and its metastases in a clinically relevant patient derived xenograft mouse model.
Preparatory attention in visual cortex.

PubMed

Battistoni, Elisa; Stein, Timo; Peelen, Marius V

2017-05-01

Top-down attention is the mechanism that allows us to selectively process goal-relevant aspects of a scene while ignoring irrelevant aspects. A large body of research has characterized the effects of attention on neural activity evoked by a visual stimulus. However, attention also includes a preparatory phase before stimulus onset in which the attended dimension is internally represented. Here, we review neurophysiological, functional magnetic resonance imaging, magnetoencephalography, electroencephalography, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies investigating the neural basis of preparatory attention, both when attention is directed to a location in space and when it is directed to nonspatial stimulus attributes (content-based attention) ranging from low-level features to object categories. Results show that both spatial and content-based attention lead to increased baseline activity in neural populations that selectively code for the attended attribute. TMS studies provide evidence that this preparatory activity is causally related to subsequent attentional selection and behavioral performance. Attention thus acts by preactivating selective neurons in the visual cortex before stimulus onset. This appears to be a general mechanism that can operate on multiple levels of representation. We discuss the functional relevance of this mechanism, its limitations, and its relation to working memory, imagery, and expectation. We conclude by outlining open questions and future directions. © 2017 New York Academy of Sciences.
Should Controls With Respiratory Symptoms Be Excluded From Case-Control Studies of Pneumonia Etiology? Reflections From the PERCH Study

PubMed Central

Hammitt, Laura L.; Deloria Knoll, Maria; Baggett, Henry C.; Brooks, W. Abdullah; Howie, Stephen R. C.; Kotloff, Karen L.; Levine, Orin S.; Madhi, Shabir A.; Murdoch, David R.; Scott, J. Anthony G.; Thea, Donald M.; Driscoll, Amanda J.; Karron, Ruth A.; Park, Daniel E.; Prosperi, Christine; Zeger, Scott L.; O’Brien, Katherine L.; Feikin, Daniel R.; O’Brien, Katherine L.; Levine, Orin S.; Knoll, Maria Deloria; Feikin, Daniel R.; DeLuca, Andrea N.; Driscoll, Amanda J.; Fu, Wei; Hammitt, Laura L.; Higdon, Melissa M.; Kagucia, E. Wangeci; Karron, Ruth A.; Li, Mengying; Park, Daniel E.; Prosperi, Christine; Wu, Zhenke; Zeger, Scott L.; Watson, Nora L.; Crawley, Jane; Murdoch, David R.; Brooks, W. Abdullah; Endtz, Hubert P.; Zaman, Khalequ; Goswami, Doli; Hossain, Lokman; Jahan, Yasmin; Ashraf, Hasan; Howie, Stephen R. C.; Ebruke, Bernard E.; Antonio, Martin; McLellan, Jessica; Machuka, Eunice; Shamsul, Arifin; Zaman, Syed M.A.; Mackenzie, Grant; Scott, J. Anthony G.; Awori, Juliet O.; Morpeth, Susan C.; Kamau, Alice; Kazungu, Sidi; Kotloff, Karen L.; Tapia, Milagritos D.; Sow, Samba O.; Sylla, Mamadou; Tamboura, Boubou; Onwuchekwa, Uma; Kourouma, Nana; Toure, Aliou; Madhi, Shabir A.; Moore, David P.; Adrian, Peter V.; Baillie, Vicky L.; Kuwanda, Locadiah; Mudau, Azwifarwi; Groome, Michelle J.; Baggett, Henry C.; Thamthitiwat, Somsak; Maloney, Susan A.; Bunthi, Charatdao; Rhodes, Julia; Sawatwong, Pongpun; Akarasewi, Pasakorn; Thea, Donald M.; Mwananyanda, Lawrence; Chipeta, James; Seidenberg, Phil; Mwansa, James; wa Somwe, Somwe; Kwenda, Geoffrey

2017-01-01

Abstract Many pneumonia etiology case-control studies exclude controls with respiratory illness from enrollment or analyses. Herein we argue that selecting controls regardless of respiratory symptoms provides the least biased estimates of pneumonia etiology. We review 3 reasons investigators may choose to exclude controls with respiratory symptoms in light of epidemiologic principles of control selection and present data from the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study where relevant to assess their validity. We conclude that exclusion of controls with respiratory symptoms will result in biased estimates of etiology. Randomly selected community controls, with or without respiratory symptoms, as long as they do not meet the criteria for case-defining pneumonia, are most representative of the general population from which cases arose and the least subject to selection bias. PMID:28575354
Mode of Interference, Set and Selective Attention.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hagen, John William; Zukier, Henry

This study investigated the effects of distractors on children's task-relevant (central) and task-irrelevant (incidental) recall on a short term visual memory task involving pictures of familiar animals and household articles. The effect of mode of distractor (auditory or visual) and the effect of developmental level were also studied. Subjects…
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS--A REVIEW. UTAH STUDIES IN VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

JORGENSEN, GARY Q.; RUSHLAU, PERRY J.

THIS MONOGRAPH IS A REVIEW OF SELECTED LITERATURE IN THE AREA OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS, WHICH HAS RELEVANCE TO THE CLIENT-COUNSELOR INTERACTION. THE STUDIES HAVE BEEN TREATED WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF MCGRATH'S DESCRIPTIVE MODEL FOR INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THEORETICAL APPROACHES HAS YIELDED TWO LINES OF EVIDENCE…
Palliative Sedation in Advanced Cancer Patients: Does it Shorten Survival Time? - A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Barathi, B; Chandra, Prabha S

2013-01-01

Background: Patients with advanced cancer often suffer from multiple refractory symptoms in the terminal phase of their life. Palliative sedation is one of the few ways to relieve this refractory suffering. Objectives: This systematic review investigated the effect of palliative sedation on survival time in terminally ill cancer patients. Materials and Methods: Six electronic databases were searched for both prospective and retrospective studies which evaluated the effect of palliative sedation on survival time. Only those studies which had a comparison group that did not receive palliative sedation were selected for the review. Abstracts of all retrieved studies were screened to include the most relevant studies and only studies which met inclusion criteria were selected. References of all retrieved studies were also screened for relevant studies. Selected studies were assessed for quality and data extraction was done using the structured data extraction form. Results: Eleven studies including four prospective and seven retrospective studies were identified. Mean survival time (MST) was measured as the time from last admission until death. A careful analysis of the results of all the 11 studies indicated that MST of sedated and non-sedated group was not statistically different in any of the studies. Conclusion: This systematic review supports the fact that palliative sedation does not shorten survival in terminally ill cancer patients. However, this conclusion needs to be taken with consideration of the methodology, study design, and the population studied of the included studies in this review. PMID:23766594
Palliative Sedation in Advanced Cancer Patients: Does it Shorten Survival Time? - A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Barathi, B; Chandra, Prabha S

2013-01-01

Patients with advanced cancer often suffer from multiple refractory symptoms in the terminal phase of their life. Palliative sedation is one of the few ways to relieve this refractory suffering. This systematic review investigated the effect of palliative sedation on survival time in terminally ill cancer patients. Six electronic databases were searched for both prospective and retrospective studies which evaluated the effect of palliative sedation on survival time. Only those studies which had a comparison group that did not receive palliative sedation were selected for the review. Abstracts of all retrieved studies were screened to include the most relevant studies and only studies which met inclusion criteria were selected. References of all retrieved studies were also screened for relevant studies. Selected studies were assessed for quality and data extraction was done using the structured data extraction form. Eleven studies including four prospective and seven retrospective studies were identified. Mean survival time (MST) was measured as the time from last admission until death. A careful analysis of the results of all the 11 studies indicated that MST of sedated and non-sedated group was not statistically different in any of the studies. This systematic review supports the fact that palliative sedation does not shorten survival in terminally ill cancer patients. However, this conclusion needs to be taken with consideration of the methodology, study design, and the population studied of the included studies in this review.
Identifying relevant group of miRNAs in cancer using fuzzy mutual information.

PubMed

Pal, Jayanta Kumar; Ray, Shubhra Sankar; Pal, Sankar K

2016-04-01

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) act as a major biomarker of cancer. All miRNAs in human body are not equally important for cancer identification. We propose a methodology, called FMIMS, which automatically selects the most relevant miRNAs for a particular type of cancer. In FMIMS, miRNAs are initially grouped by using a SVM-based algorithm; then the group with highest relevance is determined and the miRNAs in that group are finally ranked for selection according to their redundancy. Fuzzy mutual information is used in computing the relevance of a group and the redundancy of miRNAs within it. Superiority of the most relevant group to all others, in deciding normal or cancer, is demonstrated on breast, renal, colorectal, lung, melanoma and prostate data. The merit of FMIMS as compared to several existing methods is established. While 12 out of 15 selected miRNAs by FMIMS corroborate with those of biological investigations, three of them viz., "hsa-miR-519," "hsa-miR-431" and "hsa-miR-320c" are possible novel predictions for renal cancer, lung cancer and melanoma, respectively. The selected miRNAs are found to be involved in disease-specific pathways by targeting various genes. The method is also able to detect the responsible miRNAs even at the primary stage of cancer. The related code is available at http://www.jayanta.droppages.com/FMIMS.html .
Construction of Nutrition Literacy Indicators for College Students in Taiwan: A Delphi Consensus Study.

PubMed

Liao, Li-Ling; Lai, I-Ju

2017-10-01

To use the Delphi process to select nutrition literacy (NL) indicators for Taiwan college students. Initial formulation of 8 principal indicators and 77 subindicators, followed by a 2-round Delphi survey and final selection of indicators. A total of 28 nutrition experts selected through snowball sampling; 100% response rate. An expert panel scored and ranked NL themes and indicators for relevance, representativeness, and importance. Quantitative analysis. For principal indicators, the defined cutoff was mean (relevance and representativeness) > 4 and SD < 1. For subindicators, screening criteria were: (1) >20 experts ranked the nutrition theme's importance in the top 50% of the 12 themes; (2) mean (relevance and representativeness) > 4 and SD < 1 and >20 experts ranked the indicator's importance in the top 50% of all indicators within a domain. Consensus was reached on 8 principal indicators and 28 subindicators in 8 themes, including 10 in understand, 8 in analyze, 5 in appraise, and 5 in apply. An initial set of NL indicators was developed for Taiwan college students, serving as a basis to develop Taiwan College's Nutrition Literacy Scale and providing information on nutrition education. Copyright © 2017 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Measurement of talent in team handball: the questionable use of motor and physical tests.

PubMed

Lidor, Ronnie; Falk, Bareket; Arnon, Michal; Cohen, Yoram; Segal, Gil; Lander, Yael

2005-05-01

Testing for selection is one of the most important fundamentals in any multistep sport program. In most ball games, coaches assess motor, physical, and technical skills on a regular basis in early stages of talent identification and development. However, selection processes are complex, are often unstructured, and lack clear-cut theory-based knowledge. For example, little is known about the relevance of the testing process to the final selection of the young prospects. The purpose of this study was to identify motor, physical, and skill variables that could provide coaches with relevant information in the selection process of young team handball players. In total, 405 players (12-13 years of age at the beginning of the testing period) were recommended by their coaches to undergo a battery of tests prior to selection to the Junior National Team. This number is the sum of all players participating in the different phases of the program. However, not all of them took part in each testing phase. The battery included physical measurements (height and weight), a 4 x 10-m running test, explosive power tests (medicine ball throw and standing long jump), speed tests (a 20-m sprint from a standing position and a 20-m sprint with a flying start), and a slalom dribbling test. Comparisons between those players eventually selected to the Junior National Team 2-3 years later with those not selected demonstrated that only the skill test served as a good indicator. In all other measurements, a wide overlap could be seen between the results of the selected and nonselected players. It is suggested that future studies investigate the usefulness of tests reflecting more specific physical ability and cognitive characteristics.
Reward- and attention-related biasing of sensory selection in visual cortex.

PubMed

Buschschulte, Antje; Boehler, Carsten N; Strumpf, Hendrik; Stoppel, Christian; Heinze, Hans-Jochen; Schoenfeld, Mircea A; Hopf, Jens-Max

2014-05-01

Attention to task-relevant features leads to a biasing of sensory selection in extrastriate cortex. Features signaling reward seem to produce a similar bias, but how modulatory effects due to reward and attention relate to each other is largely unexplored. To address this issue, it is critical to separate top-down settings defining reward relevance from those defining attention. To this end, we used a visual search paradigm in which the target's definition (attention to color) was dissociated from reward relevance by delivering monetary reward on search frames where a certain task-irrelevant color was combined with the target-defining color to form the target object. We assessed the state of neural biasing for the attended and reward-relevant color by analyzing the neuromagnetic brain response to asynchronously presented irrelevant distractor probes drawn in the target-defining color, the reward-relevant color, and a completely irrelevant color as a reference. We observed that for the prospect of moderate rewards, the target-defining color but not the reward-relevant color produced a selective enhancement of the neuromagnetic response between 180 and 280 msec in ventral extrastriate visual cortex. Increasing reward prospect caused a delayed attenuation (220-250 msec) of the response to reward probes, which followed a prior (160-180 msec) response enhancement in dorsal ACC. Notably, shorter latency responses in dorsal ACC were associated with stronger attenuation in extrastriate visual cortex. Finally, an analysis of the brain response to the search frames revealed that the presence of the reward-relevant color in search distractors elicited an enhanced response that was abolished after increasing reward size. The present data together indicate that when top-down definitions of reward relevance and attention are separated, the behavioral significance of reward-associated features is still rapidly coded in higher-level cortex areas, thereby commanding effective top-down inhibitory control to counter a selection bias for those features in extrastriate visual cortex.
The influence of animal fear on attentional capture by fear-relevant animal stimuli in children.

PubMed

Waters, Allison M; Lipp, Ottmar V

2008-01-01

The present study demonstrated that pictures of fear-relevant animals, snakes and spiders, presented among backgrounds of other animal stimuli captured attention and interfered in the detection of a neutral target to the same extent in a large sample of unselected children (N=81). Moreover, detection of a neutral target animal was slowed more in the presence of a feared fear-relevant distracter, e.g., a snake for snake fearful children, than in the presence of a not feared fear-relevant distracter, e.g., a spider for snake fearful children. These results indicate attentional capture by phylogenetically fear-relevant animal stimuli in children and the selective enhancement of this effect by fear of these animals. These findings are consistent with current models of preferential processing of phylogenetically prepared threat stimuli and with cognitive models of anxiety that propose an enhancing effect of fear in the processing of fear-related stimuli.
A literature review of air medical work hazards and pregnancy.

PubMed

Van Dyke, Patricia

2010-01-01

An increased percentage of miscarriages among coworkers at one air medical transport company in 2008 prompted a literature review of selected hazards relevant to the profession of rotor wing air medical flight crew. Because of a lack of known research specific to this population, relevant studies from 1990 to 2008 were chosen to investigate pregnancy risks associated with exposure to vibration, jet fuel, noise, altitude, and fatigue in other occupations. Findings were summarized and recommendations made for future research.
The hierarchy of task decision and response selection: a task-switching event related potentials study.

PubMed

Braverman, Ami; Berger, Andrea; Meiran, Nachshon

2014-07-01

According to "hierarchical" multi-step theories, response selection is preceded by a decision regarding which task rule should be executed. Other theories assume a "flat" single-step architecture in which task information and stimulus information are simultaneously considered. Using task switching, the authors independently manipulated two kinds of conflict: task conflict (with information that potentially triggers the relevant or the competing task rule/identity) and response conflict (with information that potentially triggers the relevant or the competing response code/motor response). Event related potentials indicated that the task conflict effect began before the response conflict effect and carried on in parallel with it. These results are more in line with the hierarchical view. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Neural architecture design based on extreme learning machine.

PubMed

Bueno-Crespo, Andrés; García-Laencina, Pedro J; Sancho-Gómez, José-Luis

2013-12-01

Selection of the optimal neural architecture to solve a pattern classification problem entails to choose the relevant input units, the number of hidden neurons and its corresponding interconnection weights. This problem has been widely studied in many research works but their solutions usually involve excessive computational cost in most of the problems and they do not provide a unique solution. This paper proposes a new technique to efficiently design the MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) architecture for classification using the Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) algorithm. The proposed method provides a high generalization capability and a unique solution for the architecture design. Moreover, the selected final network only retains those input connections that are relevant for the classification task. Experimental results show these advantages. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fusion set selection with surrogate metric in multi-atlas based image segmentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Tingting; Ruan, Dan

2016-02-01

Multi-atlas based image segmentation sees unprecedented opportunities but also demanding challenges in the big data era. Relevant atlas selection before label fusion plays a crucial role in reducing potential performance loss from heterogeneous data quality and high computation cost from extensive data. This paper starts with investigating the image similarity metric (termed ‘surrogate’), an alternative to the inaccessible geometric agreement metric (termed ‘oracle’) in atlas relevance assessment, and probes into the problem of how to select the ‘most-relevant’ atlases and how many such atlases to incorporate. We propose an inference model to relate the surrogates and the oracle geometric agreement metrics. Based on this model, we quantify the behavior of the surrogates in mimicking oracle metrics for atlas relevance ordering. Finally, analytical insights on the choice of fusion set size are presented from a probabilistic perspective, with the integrated goal of including the most relevant atlases and excluding the irrelevant ones. Empirical evidence and performance assessment are provided based on prostate and corpus callosum segmentation.
Methods for Studying the Role of RAAS in the Modulation of Vascular Repair-Relevant Functions of Stem/Progenitor Cells.

PubMed

Jarajapu, Yagna P R

2017-01-01

In recent years, previously unknown functions have been conferred to the RAAS and have been explored in mechanistic studies and disease models. Implication of bone marrow stem/progenitor cells in the cardiovascular protective or detrimental effects of RAAS is a prominent advancement because of the translational significance. Selected members of RAAS are now known to modulate migration, proliferation, and mobilization of bone marrow cells in response to ischemic insult, which are sensitive indicators of vascular repair-relevant functions. In this Chapter, protocols for most frequently used, in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo assays to explore the potential of RAAS members to stimulate vascular repair-relevant functions of bone marrow stem/progenitor cells of human and murine origin.
Automatic Selection of Order Parameters in the Analysis of Large Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

PubMed

Sultan, Mohammad M; Kiss, Gert; Shukla, Diwakar; Pande, Vijay S

2014-12-09

Given the large number of crystal structures and NMR ensembles that have been solved to date, classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have become powerful tools in the atomistic study of the kinetics and thermodynamics of biomolecular systems on ever increasing time scales. By virtue of the high-dimensional conformational state space that is explored, the interpretation of large-scale simulations faces difficulties not unlike those in the big data community. We address this challenge by introducing a method called clustering based feature selection (CB-FS) that employs a posterior analysis approach. It combines supervised machine learning (SML) and feature selection with Markov state models to automatically identify the relevant degrees of freedom that separate conformational states. We highlight the utility of the method in the evaluation of large-scale simulations and show that it can be used for the rapid and automated identification of relevant order parameters involved in the functional transitions of two exemplary cell-signaling proteins central to human disease states.
The Determination of Relevant Goals and Criteria Used to Select an Automated Patient Care Information System

PubMed Central

Chocholik, Joan K.; Bouchard, Susan E.; Tan, Joseph K. H.; Ostrow, David N.

1999-01-01

Objectives: To determine the relevant weighted goals and criteria for use in the selection of an automated patient care information system (PCIS) using a modified Delphi technique to achieve consensus. Design: A three-phase, six-round modified Delphi process was implemented by a ten-member PCIS selection task force. The first phase consisted of an exploratory round. It was followed by the second phase, of two rounds, to determine the selection goals and finally the third phase, of three rounds, to finalize the selection criteria. Results: Consensus on the goals and criteria for selecting a PCIS was measured during the Delphi process by reviewing the mean and standard deviation of the previous round's responses. After the study was completed, the results were analyzed using a limits-of-agreement indicator that showed strong agreement of each individual's responses between each of the goal determination rounds. Further analysis for variability in the group's response showed a significant movement to consensus after the first goal-determination iteration, with consensus reached on all goals by the end of the second iteration. Conclusion: The results indicated that the relevant weighted goals and criteria used to make the final decision for an automated PCIS were developed as a result of strong agreement among members of the PCIS selection task force. It is therefore recognized that the use of the Delphi process was beneficial in achieving consensus among clinical and nonclinical members in a relatively short time while avoiding a decision based on political biases and the “groupthink” of traditional committee meetings. The results suggest that improvements could be made in lessening the number of rounds by having information available through side conversations, by having other statistical indicators besides the mean and standard deviation available between rounds, and by having a content expert address questions between rounds. PMID:10332655

Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention.

PubMed

Moore, Tirin; Zirnsak, Marc

2017-01-03

Selective visual attention describes the tendency of visual processing to be confined largely to stimuli that are relevant to behavior. It is among the most fundamental of cognitive functions, particularly in humans and other primates for whom vision is the dominant sense. We review recent progress in identifying the neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. We discuss evidence from studies of different varieties of selective attention and examine how these varieties alter the processing of stimuli by neurons within the visual system, current knowledge of their causal basis, and methods for assessing attentional dysfunctions. In addition, we identify some key questions that remain in identifying the neural mechanisms that give rise to the selective processing of visual information.
How do intake clinicians use patient characteristics to select treatment for patients with personality disorders?

PubMed

van Manen, Janine; Kamphuis, Jan Henk; Visbach, Geny; Ziegler, Uli; Gerritsen, Ad; Van Rossum, Bert; Rijnierse, Piet; Timman, Reinier; Verheul, Roel

2008-11-01

Treatment selection in clinical practice is a poorly understood, often largely implicit decision process, perhaps especially for patients with personality disorders. This study, therefore, investigated how intake clinicians use information about patient characteristics to select psychotherapeutic treatment for patients with personality disorder. A structured interview with a forced-choice format was administered to 27 experienced intake clinicians working in five specialist mental health care institutes in the Netherlands. Substantial consensus was evident among intake clinicians. The results revealed that none of the presented patient characteristics were deemed relevant for the selection of the suitable treatment setting. The appropriate duration and intensity are selected using severity or personal strength variables. The theoretical orientation is selected using personal strength variables.
Annual Bibliography, 2011

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Jo. B., Comp.

2012-01-01

This classified, comprehensive bibliography for Appalachian studies includes books, journal articles, government documents, and selected newspaper articles published in 2010, plus relevant titles indexed in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database. Also, a number of earlier citations not included in the previous bibliography are listed here.…
CANCER RISK ASSESSMENTS (RA.D.1D)

EPA Science Inventory

Risk assessments are based on questions that the assessor asks about scientific information that is relevant to human and/or environmental risk. The risk characterization also provides an evaluation of the assumptions, uncertainties, and selection of studies and models used in th...
Does modulation of selective attention to features reflect enhancement or suppression of neural activity?

PubMed

Daffner, Kirk R; Zhuravleva, Tatyana Y; Sun, Xue; Tarbi, Elise C; Haring, Anna E; Rentz, Dorene M; Holcomb, Phillip J

2012-02-01

Numerous studies have demonstrated that selective attention to color is associated with a larger neural response under attend than ignore conditions, but have not addressed whether this difference reflects enhanced activity under attend or suppressed activity under ignore. In this study, a color-neutral condition was included, which presented stimuli physically identical to those under attend and ignore conditions, but in which color was not task relevant. Attention to color did not modulate the early sensory-evoked P1 and N1 components. Traditional ERP markers of early selection (the anterior Selection Positivity and posterior Selection Negativity) did not differ between the attend and neutral conditions, arguing against a mechanism of enhanced activity. However, there were markedly reduced responses under the ignore relative to the neutral condition, consistent with the view that early selection mechanisms reflect suppression of neural activity under the ignore condition. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Out with the old? The role of selective attention in retaining targets in partial report.

PubMed

Lindsey, Dakota R B; Bundesen, Claus; Kyllingsbæk, Søren; Petersen, Anders; Logan, Gordon D

2017-01-01

In the partial-report task, subjects are asked to report only a portion of the items presented. Selective attention chooses which objects to represent in short-term memory (STM) on the basis of their relevance. Because STM is limited in capacity, one must sometimes choose which objects are removed from memory in light of new relevant information. We tested the hypothesis that the choices among newly presented information and old information in STM involve the same process-that both are acts of selective attention. We tested this hypothesis using a two-display partial-report procedure. In this procedure, subjects had to select and retain relevant letters (targets) from two sequentially presented displays. If selection in perception and retention in STM are the same process, then irrelevant letters (distractors) in the second display, which demanded attention because of their similarity to the targets, should have decreased target report from the first display. This effect was not obtained in any of four experiments. Thus, choosing objects to keep in STM is not the same process as choosing new objects to bring into STM.
Identifying relevant hyperspectral bands using Boruta: a temporal analysis of water hyacinth biocontrol

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Agjee, Na'eem Hoosen; Ismail, Riyad; Mutanga, Onisimo

2016-10-01

Water hyacinth plants (Eichhornia crassipes) are threatening freshwater ecosystems throughout Africa. The Neochetina spp. weevils are seen as an effective solution that can combat the proliferation of the invasive alien plant. We aimed to determine if multitemporal hyperspectral data could be utilized to detect the efficacy of the biocontrol agent. The random forest (RF) algorithm was used to classify variable infestation levels for 6 weeks using: (1) all the hyperspectral bands, (2) bands selected by the recursive feature elimination (RFE) algorithm, and (3) bands selected by the Boruta algorithm. Results showed that the RF model using all the bands successfully produced low-classification errors (12.50% to 32.29%) for all 6 weeks. However, the RF model using Boruta selected bands produced lower classification errors (8.33% to 15.62%) than the RF model using all the bands or bands selected by the RFE algorithm (11.25% to 21.25%) for all 6 weeks, highlighting the utility of Boruta as an all relevant band selection algorithm. All relevant bands selected by Boruta included: 352, 754, 770, 771, 775, 781, 782, 783, 786, and 789 nm. It was concluded that RF coupled with Boruta band-selection algorithm can be utilized to undertake multitemporal monitoring of variable infestation levels on water hyacinth plants.
Exploring the universe through Discovery Science on NIF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Remington, Bruce

2017-10-01

New regimes of science are being experimentally studied at high energy density facilities around the world, spanning drive energies from microjoules to megajoules, and time scales from femtoseconds to microseconds. The ability to shock and ramp compress samples to very high pressures and densities allows new states of matter relevant to planetary and stellar interiors to be studied. Shock driven hydrodynamic instabilities evolving into turbulent flows relevant to the dynamics of exploding stars (such as supernovae), accreting compact objects (such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes), and planetary formation dynamics (relevant to the exoplanets) are being probed. The dynamics of magnetized plasmas relevant to astrophysics, both in collisional and collisionless systems, are starting to be studied. High temperature, high velocity interacting flows are being probed for evidence of astrophysical collisionless shock formation, the turbulent magnetic dynamo effect, magnetic reconnection, and particle acceleration. And new results from thermonuclear reactions in hot dense plasmas relevant to stellar and big bang nucleosynthesis are starting to emerge. A selection of examples of frontier research through NIF Discovery Science in the coming decade will be presented. This work was performed under the auspices of U.S. DOE by LLNL under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
Protein Complex Production from the Drug Discovery Standpoint.

PubMed

Moarefi, Ismail

2016-01-01

Small molecule drug discovery critically depends on the availability of meaningful in vitro assays to guide medicinal chemistry programs that are aimed at optimizing drug potency and selectivity. As it becomes increasingly evident, most disease relevant drug targets do not act as a single protein. In the body, they are instead generally found in complex with protein cofactors that are highly relevant for their correct function and regulation. This review highlights selected examples of the increasing trend to use biologically relevant protein complexes for rational drug discovery to reduce costly late phase attritions due to lack of efficacy or toxicity.
Independent Causal Contributions of Alpha- and Beta-Band Oscillations during Movement Selection.

PubMed

Brinkman, Loek; Stolk, Arjen; Marshall, Tom R; Esterer, Sophie; Sharp, Poppy; Dijkerman, H Chris; de Lange, Floris P; Toni, Ivan

2016-08-17

To select a movement, specific neuronal populations controlling particular features of that movement need to be activated, whereas other populations are downregulated. The selective (dis)inhibition of cortical sensorimotor populations is governed by rhythmic neural activity in the alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (15-25 Hz) frequency range. However, it is unclear whether and how these rhythms contribute independently to motor behavior. Building on a recent dissociation of the sensorimotor alpha- and beta-band rhythms, we test the hypothesis that the beta-band rhythm governs the disinhibition of task-relevant neuronal populations, whereas the alpha-band rhythm suppresses neurons that may interfere with task performance. Cortical alpha- and beta-band rhythms were manipulated with transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) while human participants selected how to grasp an object. Stimulation was applied at either 10 or 20 Hz and was imposed on the sensorimotor cortex contralaterally or ipsilaterally to the grasping hand. In line with task-induced changes in endogenous spectral power, the effect of the tACS intervention depended on the frequency and site of stimulation. Whereas tACS stimulation generally increased movement selection times, 10 Hz stimulation led to relatively faster selection times when applied to the hemisphere ipsilateral to the grasping hand, compared with other stimulation conditions. These effects occurred selectively when multiple movements were considered. These observations functionally differentiate the causal contribution of alpha- and beta-band oscillations to movement selection. The findings suggest that sensorimotor beta-band rhythms disinhibit task-relevant populations, whereas alpha-band rhythms inhibit neuronal populations that could interfere with movement selection. This study shows dissociable effects of 10 Hz and 20 Hz tACS on the duration of movement selection. These observations have two elements of general relevance. First, the finding that alpha- and beta-band oscillations contribute independently to movement selection provides insight in how oscillations orchestrate motor behavior, which is key to understand movement selection deficits in neurodegenerative disorders. Second, the findings highlight the potential of 10 Hz stimulation as a neurophysiologically grounded intervention to enhance human performance. In particular, this intervention can potentially be exploited to boost rehabilitation after neural damage by targeting the unaffected hemisphere. Copyright © 2016 Brinkman et al.
Determinants of cation transport selectivity: Equilibrium binding and transport kinetics

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

The crystal structures of channels and transporters reveal the chemical nature of ion-binding sites and, thereby, constrain mechanistic models for their transport processes. However, these structures, in and of themselves, do not reveal equilibrium selectivity or transport preferences, which can be discerned only from various functional assays. In this Review, I explore the relationship between cation transport protein structures, equilibrium binding measurements, and ion transport selectivity. The primary focus is on K+-selective channels and nonselective cation channels because they have been extensively studied both functionally and structurally, but the principles discussed are relevant to other transport proteins and molecules. PMID:26078056
Perspectives on Distance Education. Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Selected Case Studies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tait, Alan, Ed.

This publication consists of a set of case studies of quality assurance practices in distance teaching universities. The case studies are particularly relevant at a time when universities in many parts of the world, both new and established distance teaching universities, are placing great emphasis on reviewing and revising what they do in…
Should Controls With Respiratory Symptoms Be Excluded From Case-Control Studies of Pneumonia Etiology? Reflections From the PERCH Study.

PubMed

Higdon, Melissa M; Hammitt, Laura L; Deloria Knoll, Maria; Baggett, Henry C; Brooks, W Abdullah; Howie, Stephen R C; Kotloff, Karen L; Levine, Orin S; Madhi, Shabir A; Murdoch, David R; Scott, J Anthony G; Thea, Donald M; Driscoll, Amanda J; Karron, Ruth A; Park, Daniel E; Prosperi, Christine; Zeger, Scott L; O'Brien, Katherine L; Feikin, Daniel R

2017-06-15

Many pneumonia etiology case-control studies exclude controls with respiratory illness from enrollment or analyses. Herein we argue that selecting controls regardless of respiratory symptoms provides the least biased estimates of pneumonia etiology. We review 3 reasons investigators may choose to exclude controls with respiratory symptoms in light of epidemiologic principles of control selection and present data from the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study where relevant to assess their validity. We conclude that exclusion of controls with respiratory symptoms will result in biased estimates of etiology. Randomly selected community controls, with or without respiratory symptoms, as long as they do not meet the criteria for case-defining pneumonia, are most representative of the general population from which cases arose and the least subject to selection bias. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Task-Relevant Information Modulates Primary Motor Cortex Activity Before Movement Onset.

PubMed

Calderon, Cristian B; Van Opstal, Filip; Peigneux, Philippe; Verguts, Tom; Gevers, Wim

2018-01-01

Monkey neurophysiology research supports the affordance competition hypothesis (ACH) proposing that cognitive information useful for action selection is integrated in sensorimotor areas. In this view, action selection would emerge from the simultaneous representation of competing action plans, in parallel biased by relevant task factors. This biased competition would take place up to primary motor cortex (M1). Although ACH is plausible in environments affording choices between actions, its relevance for human decision making is less clear. To address this issue, we designed an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment modeled after monkey neurophysiology studies in which human participants processed cues conveying predictive information about upcoming button presses. Our results demonstrate that, as predicted by the ACH, predictive information (i.e., the relevant task factor) biases activity of primary motor regions. Specifically, first, activity before movement onset in contralateral M1 increases as the competition is biased in favor of a specific button press relative to activity in ipsilateral M1. Second, motor regions were more tightly coupled with fronto-parietal regions when competition between potential actions was high, again suggesting that motor regions are also part of the biased competition network. Our findings support the idea that action planning dynamics as proposed in the ACH are valid both in human and non-human primates.
East Asia: A Bibliography for Undergraduate Libraries.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gillin, Donald; And Others

This bibliography, similar to others on Asia and Africa, contains over 2000 titles relevant to the study of East Asia. Book, journal, and a few government citations -- the majority of which have been published within the last twenty years -- emphasize the humanities and social studies. Intended as a book selection guide, entries are graded as to…
Attention and Communication in Rett Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fabio, Rosa Angela; Antonietti, Alessandro; Castelli, Ilaria; Marchetti, Antonella

2009-01-01

The study of selective attention and its influence on communication in patients with Rett Syndrome (RS), in which communication abilities are impaired is particularly relevant. The aim of this study was to analyse attention and communication abilities in RS. A sample of 20 children (10 girls with RS and 10 control girls, matched on mental age)…
Progress on core outcome sets for critical care research.

PubMed

Blackwood, Bronagh; Marshall, John; Rose, Louise

2015-10-01

Appropriate selection and definition of outcome measures are essential for clinical trials to be maximally informative. Core outcome sets (an agreed, standardized collection of outcomes measured and reported in all trials for a specific clinical area) were developed due to established inconsistencies in trial outcome selection. This review discusses the rationale for, and methods of, core outcome set development, as well as current initiatives in critical care. Recent systematic reviews of reported outcomes and measurement instruments relevant to the critically ill highlight inconsistencies in outcome selection, definition, and measurement, thus establishing the need for core outcome sets. Current critical care initiatives include development of core outcome sets for trials aimed at reducing mechanical ventilation duration; rehabilitation following critical illness; long-term outcomes in acute respiratory failure; and epidemic and pandemic studies of severe acute respiratory infection. Development and utilization of core outcome sets for studies relevant to the critically ill is in its infancy compared to other specialties. Notwithstanding, core outcome set development frameworks and guidelines are available, several sets are in various stages of development, and there is strong support from international investigator-led collaborations including the International Forum for Acute Care Trialists.
Feature-based attention and conflict monitoring in criminal offenders: interactive relations of psychopathy with anxiety and externalizing.

PubMed

Zeier, Joshua D; Newman, Joseph P

2013-08-01

As predicted by the response modulation model, psychopathic offenders are insensitive to potentially important inhibitory information when it is peripheral to their primary focus of attention. To date, the clearest tests of this hypothesis have manipulated spatial attention to cue the location of goal-relevant versus inhibitory information. However, the theory predicts a more general abnormality in selective attention. In the current study, male prisoners performed a conflict-monitoring task, which included a feature-based manipulation (i.e., color) that biased selective attention toward goal-relevant stimuli and away from inhibitory distracters on some trials but not others. Paralleling results for spatial cuing, feature-based cuing resulted in less distracter interference, particularly for participants with primary psychopathy (i.e., low anxiety). This study also investigated the moderating effect of externalizing on psychopathy. Participants high in psychopathy but low in externalizing performed similarly to primary psychopathic individuals. These results demonstrate that the abnormal selective attention associated with primary psychopathy is not limited to spatial attention but, instead, applies to diverse methods for establishing attentional focus. Furthermore, they demonstrate a novel method of investigating psychopathic subtypes using continuous analyses. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.
What do people with aphasia want to be able to say? A content analysis of words identified as personally relevant by people with aphasia.

PubMed

Palmer, Rebecca; Hughes, Helen; Chater, Tim

2017-01-01

Word finding is a common difficulty for people with aphasia. Targeting words that are relevant to the individual could maximise the usefulness and impact of word finding therapy. To provide insights into words that people with aphasia perceive to be personally relevant. 100 people with aphasia were each asked to identify 100 words that would be particularly important for them to be able to say. Two speech and language therapist researchers conducted a quantitative content analysis of the words selected. The words were coded into a framework of topics and subtopics. The frequency with which different words and topics were selected was then calculated. 100 participants representing 20 areas of the United Kingdom ranged in age from 23 to 85 years. Word finding difficulties ranged from mild to severe. The sample of 9999 words selected for practice included 3095 different words in 27 topics. The majority of words selected (79.4%) were from the topics 'food and drink' (30.6%), 'nature and gardening' (10.3%), 'entertainment' (9.4%), 'places' (7.3%), 'people' (6.7%), 'house' (6.5%), 'clothes' (5.2%) and 'travel' (3.5%). The 100 words types chosen with the greatest frequency were identified. These account for 27 percent of the 9999 words chosen by the participants. Personally relevant vocabulary is unique to each individual and is likely to contain specific or specialist words for which material needs to be individually prepared. However there is some commonality in the words chosen by people with aphasia. This could inform pre-prepared materials for use in word finding therapy from which personally relevant words could be selected for practice.
What do people with aphasia want to be able to say? A content analysis of words identified as personally relevant by people with aphasia

PubMed Central

Hughes, Helen; Chater, Tim

2017-01-01

Background Word finding is a common difficulty for people with aphasia. Targeting words that are relevant to the individual could maximise the usefulness and impact of word finding therapy. Aims To provide insights into words that people with aphasia perceive to be personally relevant. Methods and procedures 100 people with aphasia were each asked to identify 100 words that would be particularly important for them to be able to say. Two speech and language therapist researchers conducted a quantitative content analysis of the words selected. The words were coded into a framework of topics and subtopics. The frequency with which different words and topics were selected was then calculated. Outcomes and results 100 participants representing 20 areas of the United Kingdom ranged in age from 23 to 85 years. Word finding difficulties ranged from mild to severe. The sample of 9999 words selected for practice included 3095 different words in 27 topics. The majority of words selected (79.4%) were from the topics ‘food and drink’ (30.6%), ‘nature and gardening’ (10.3%), ‘entertainment’ (9.4%), ‘places’ (7.3%), ‘people’ (6.7%), ‘house’ (6.5%), ‘clothes’ (5.2%) and ‘travel’ (3.5%). The 100 words types chosen with the greatest frequency were identified. These account for 27 percent of the 9999 words chosen by the participants. Discussion Personally relevant vocabulary is unique to each individual and is likely to contain specific or specialist words for which material needs to be individually prepared. However there is some commonality in the words chosen by people with aphasia. This could inform pre-prepared materials for use in word finding therapy from which personally relevant words could be selected for practice. PMID:28346518

Thirst and the state-dependent representation of incentive stimulus value in human motive circuitry.

PubMed

Becker, Christoph A; Schmälzle, Ralf; Flaisch, Tobias; Renner, Britta; Schupp, Harald T

2015-12-01

Depletion imposes both need and desire to drink, and potentiates the response to need-relevant cues in the environment. The present fMRI study aimed to determine which neural structures selectively increase the incentive value of need-relevant stimuli in a thirst state. Towards this end, participants were scanned twice--either in a thirst or no-thirst state--while viewing pictures of beverages and chairs. As expected, thirst led to a selective increase in self-reported pleasantness and arousal by beverages. Increased responses to beverage when compared with chair stimuli were observed in the cingulate cortex, insular cortex and the amygdala in the thirst state, which were absent in the no-thirst condition. Enhancing the incentive value of need-relevant cues in a thirst state is a key mechanism for motivating drinking behavior. Overall, distributed regions of the motive circuitry, which are also implicated in salience processing, craving and interoception, provide a dynamic body-state dependent representation of stimulus value. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
The Global Evidence Mapping Initiative: scoping research in broad topic areas.

PubMed

Bragge, Peter; Clavisi, Ornella; Turner, Tari; Tavender, Emma; Collie, Alex; Gruen, Russell L

2011-06-17

Evidence mapping describes the quantity, design and characteristics of research in broad topic areas, in contrast to systematic reviews, which usually address narrowly-focused research questions. The breadth of evidence mapping helps to identify evidence gaps, and may guide future research efforts. The Global Evidence Mapping (GEM) Initiative was established in 2007 to create evidence maps providing an overview of existing research in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). The GEM evidence mapping method involved three core tasks:1. Setting the boundaries and context of the map: Definitions for the fields of TBI and SCI were clarified, the prehospital, acute inhospital and rehabilitation phases of care were delineated and relevant stakeholders (patients, carers, clinicians, researchers and policymakers) who could contribute to the mapping were identified. Researchable clinical questions were developed through consultation with key stakeholders and a broad literature search. 2. Searching for and selection of relevant studies: Evidence search and selection involved development of specific search strategies, development of inclusion and exclusion criteria, searching of relevant databases and independent screening and selection by two researchers. 3. Reporting on yield and study characteristics: Data extraction was performed at two levels - 'interventions and study design' and 'detailed study characteristics'. The evidence map and commentary reflected the depth of data extraction. One hundred and twenty-nine researchable clinical questions in TBI and SCI were identified. These questions were then prioritised into high (n = 60) and low (n = 69) importance by the stakeholders involved in question development. Since 2007, 58 263 abstracts have been screened, 3 731 full text articles have been reviewed and 1 644 relevant neurotrauma publications have been mapped, covering fifty-three high priority questions. GEM Initiative evidence maps have a broad range of potential end-users including funding agencies, researchers and clinicians. Evidence mapping is at least as resource-intensive as systematic reviewing. The GEM Initiative has made advancements in evidence mapping, most notably in the area of question development and prioritisation. Evidence mapping complements other review methods for describing existing research, informing future research efforts, and addressing evidence gaps.
The Global Evidence Mapping Initiative: Scoping research in broad topic areas

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Evidence mapping describes the quantity, design and characteristics of research in broad topic areas, in contrast to systematic reviews, which usually address narrowly-focused research questions. The breadth of evidence mapping helps to identify evidence gaps, and may guide future research efforts. The Global Evidence Mapping (GEM) Initiative was established in 2007 to create evidence maps providing an overview of existing research in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). Methods The GEM evidence mapping method involved three core tasks: 1. Setting the boundaries and context of the map: Definitions for the fields of TBI and SCI were clarified, the prehospital, acute inhospital and rehabilitation phases of care were delineated and relevant stakeholders (patients, carers, clinicians, researchers and policymakers) who could contribute to the mapping were identified. Researchable clinical questions were developed through consultation with key stakeholders and a broad literature search. 2. Searching for and selection of relevant studies: Evidence search and selection involved development of specific search strategies, development of inclusion and exclusion criteria, searching of relevant databases and independent screening and selection by two researchers. 3. Reporting on yield and study characteristics: Data extraction was performed at two levels - 'interventions and study design' and 'detailed study characteristics'. The evidence map and commentary reflected the depth of data extraction. Results One hundred and twenty-nine researchable clinical questions in TBI and SCI were identified. These questions were then prioritised into high (n = 60) and low (n = 69) importance by the stakeholders involved in question development. Since 2007, 58 263 abstracts have been screened, 3 731 full text articles have been reviewed and 1 644 relevant neurotrauma publications have been mapped, covering fifty-three high priority questions. Conclusions GEM Initiative evidence maps have a broad range of potential end-users including funding agencies, researchers and clinicians. Evidence mapping is at least as resource-intensive as systematic reviewing. The GEM Initiative has made advancements in evidence mapping, most notably in the area of question development and prioritisation. Evidence mapping complements other review methods for describing existing research, informing future research efforts, and addressing evidence gaps. PMID:21682870
A bootstrap based Neyman-Pearson test for identifying variable importance.

PubMed

Ditzler, Gregory; Polikar, Robi; Rosen, Gail

2015-04-01

Selection of most informative features that leads to a small loss on future data are arguably one of the most important steps in classification, data analysis and model selection. Several feature selection (FS) algorithms are available; however, due to noise present in any data set, FS algorithms are typically accompanied by an appropriate cross-validation scheme. In this brief, we propose a statistical hypothesis test derived from the Neyman-Pearson lemma for determining if a feature is statistically relevant. The proposed approach can be applied as a wrapper to any FS algorithm, regardless of the FS criteria used by that algorithm, to determine whether a feature belongs in the relevant set. Perhaps more importantly, this procedure efficiently determines the number of relevant features given an initial starting point. We provide freely available software implementations of the proposed methodology.
Masked Selection: A Straightforward and Flexible Approach for the Selection of Binders Against Specific Epitopes and Differentially Expressed Proteins by Phage Display*

PubMed Central

Even-Desrumeaux, Klervi; Nevoltris, Damien; Lavaut, Marie Noelle; Alim, Karima; Borg, Jean-Paul; Audebert, Stéphane; Kerfelec, Brigitte; Baty, Daniel; Chames, Patrick

2014-01-01

Phage display is a well-established procedure to isolate binders against a wide variety of antigens that can be performed on purified antigens, but also on intact cells. As selection steps are performed in vitro, it is possible to focus the outcome of the selection on relevant epitopes by performing some additional steps, such as depletion or competitive elutions. However in practice, the efficiency of these steps is often limited and can lead to inconsistent results. We have designed a new selection method named masked selection, based on the blockade of unwanted epitopes to favor the targeting of relevant ones. We demonstrate the efficiency and flexibility of this method by selecting single-domain antibodies against a specific portion of a fusion protein, by selecting binders against several members of the seven transmembrane receptor family using transfected HEK cells, or by selecting binders against unknown breast cancer markers not expressed on normal samples. The relevance of this approach for antibody-based therapies was further validated by the identification of four of these markers, Epithelial cell adhesion molecule, Transferrin receptor 1, Metastasis cell adhesion molecule, and Sushi containing domain 2, using immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry. This new phage display strategy can be applied to any type of antibody fragments or alternative scaffolds, and is especially suited for the rapid discovery and identification of cell surface markers. PMID:24361863
Space-based visual attention: a marker of immature selective attention in toddlers?

PubMed

Rivière, James; Brisson, Julie

2014-11-01

Various studies suggested that attentional difficulties cause toddlers' failure in some spatial search tasks. However, attention is not a unitary construct and this study investigated two attentional mechanisms: location selection (space-based attention) and object selection (object-based attention). We investigated how toddlers' attention is distributed in the visual field during a manual search task for objects moving out of sight, namely the moving boxes task. Results show that 2.5-year-olds who failed this task allocated more attention to the location of the relevant object than to the object itself. These findings suggest that in some manual search tasks the primacy of space-based attention over object-based attention could be a marker of immature selective attention in toddlers. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Attention in the real world: toward understanding its neural basis

PubMed Central

Peelen, Marius V.; Kastner, Sabine

2016-01-01

The efficient selection of behaviorally relevant objects from cluttered environments supports our everyday goals. Attentional selection has typically been studied in search tasks involving artificial and simplified displays. Although these studies have revealed important basic principles of attention, they do not explain how the brain efficiently selects familiar objects in complex and meaningful real-world scenes. Findings from recent neuroimaging studies indicate that real-world search is mediated by ‘what’ and ‘where’ attentional templates that are implemented in high-level visual cortex. These templates represent target-diagnostic properties and likely target locations, respectively, and are shaped by object familiarity, scene context, and memory. We propose a framework for real-world search that incorporates these recent findings and specifies directions for future study. PMID:24630872
Thinking outside the (voice) box: a case study of students' perceptions of the relevance of anatomy to speech pathology.

PubMed

Weir, Kristy A

2008-01-01

Speech pathology students readily identify the importance of a sound understanding of anatomical structures central to their intended profession. In contrast, they often do not recognize the relevance of a broader understanding of structure and function. This study aimed to explore students' perceptions of the relevance of anatomy to speech pathology. The effect of two learning activities on students' perceptions was also evaluated. First, a written assignment required students to illustrate the relevance of anatomy to speech pathology by using an example selected from one of the four alternative structures. The second approach was the introduction of brief "scenarios" with directed questions into the practical class. The effects of these activities were assessed via two surveys designed to evaluate students' perceptions of the relevance of anatomy before and during the course experience. A focus group was conducted to clarify and extend discussion of issues arising from the survey data. The results showed that the students perceived some course material as irrelevant to speech pathology. The importance of relevance to the students' "state" motivation was well supported by the data. Although the students believed that the learning activities helped their understanding of the relevance of anatomy, some structures were considered less relevant at the end of the course. It is likely that the perceived amount of content and surface approach to learning may have prevented students from "thinking outside the box" regarding which anatomical structures are relevant to the profession.
Study of on-board compression of earth resources data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Habibi, A.

1975-01-01

The current literature on image bandwidth compression was surveyed and those methods relevant to compression of multispectral imagery were selected. Typical satellite multispectral data was then analyzed statistically and the results used to select a smaller set of candidate bandwidth compression techniques particularly relevant to earth resources data. These were compared using both theoretical analysis and simulation, under various criteria of optimality such as mean square error (MSE), signal-to-noise ratio, classification accuracy, and computational complexity. By concatenating some of the most promising techniques, three multispectral data compression systems were synthesized which appear well suited to current and future NASA earth resources applications. The performance of these three recommended systems was then examined in detail by all of the above criteria. Finally, merits and deficiencies were summarized and a number of recommendations for future NASA activities in data compression proposed.
Useful pharmacodynamic endpoints in children: selection, measurement, and next steps

PubMed Central

Kelly, Lauren E; Sinha, Yashwant; Barker, Charlotte I S; Standing, Joseph F; Offringa, Martin

2018-01-01

Pharmacodynamic (PD) endpoints are essential for establishing the benefit-to-risk ratio for therapeutic interventions in children and neonates. This article discusses the selection of an appropriate measure of response, the PD endpoint, which is a critical methodological step in designing pediatric efficacy and safety studies. We provide an overview of existing guidance on the choice of PD endpoints in pediatric clinical research. We identified several considerations relevant to the selection and measurement of PD endpoints in pediatric clinical trials, including the use of biomarkers, modeling, compliance, scoring systems, and validated measurement tools. To be useful, PD endpoints in children need to be clinically relevant, responsive to both treatment and/or disease progression, reproducible, and reliable. In most pediatric disease areas, this requires significant validation efforts. We propose a minimal set of criteria for useful PD endpoint selection and measurement. We conclude that, given the current heterogeneity of pediatric PD endpoint definitions and measurements, both across and within defined disease areas, there is an acute need for internationally agreed, validated, and condition-specific pediatric PD endpoints that consider the needs of all stakeholders, including healthcare providers, policy makers, patients, and families. PMID:29667952
System Life Cycle Evaluation(SM) (SLiCE): harmonizing water treatment systems with implementers' needs.

PubMed

Goodman, Joseph; Caravati, Kevin; Foote, Andrew; Nelson, Molly; Woods, Emily

2013-06-01

One of the methods proposed to improve access to clean drinking water is the mobile packaged water treatment system (MPWTS). The lack of published system performance comparisons combined with the diversity of technology available and intended operating conditions make it difficult for stakeholders to choose the system best suited for their application. MPWTS are often deployed in emergency situations, making selection of the appropriate system crucial to avoiding wasted resources and loss of life. Measurable critical-to-quality characteristics (CTQs) and a system selection tool for MPWTS were developed by utilizing relevant literature, including field studies, and implementing and comparing seven different MPWTS. The proposed System Life Cycle Evaluation (SLiCE) method uses these CTQs to evaluate the diversity in system performance and harmonize relevant performance with stakeholder preference via a selection tool. Agencies and field workers can use SLiCE results to inform and drive decision-making. The evaluation and selection tool also serves as a catalyst for communicating system performance, common design flaws, and stakeholder needs to system manufacturers. The SLiCE framework can be adopted into other emerging system technologies to communicate system performance over the life cycle of use.
A Procedure for Extending Input Selection Algorithms to Low Quality Data in Modelling Problems with Application to the Automatic Grading of Uploaded Assignments

PubMed Central

Otero, José; Palacios, Ana; Suárez, Rosario; Junco, Luis

2014-01-01

When selecting relevant inputs in modeling problems with low quality data, the ranking of the most informative inputs is also uncertain. In this paper, this issue is addressed through a new procedure that allows the extending of different crisp feature selection algorithms to vague data. The partial knowledge about the ordinal of each feature is modelled by means of a possibility distribution, and a ranking is hereby applied to sort these distributions. It will be shown that this technique makes the most use of the available information in some vague datasets. The approach is demonstrated in a real-world application. In the context of massive online computer science courses, methods are sought for automatically providing the student with a qualification through code metrics. Feature selection methods are used to find the metrics involved in the most meaningful predictions. In this study, 800 source code files, collected and revised by the authors in classroom Computer Science lectures taught between 2013 and 2014, are analyzed with the proposed technique, and the most relevant metrics for the automatic grading task are discussed. PMID:25114967
An event-related brain potential study of visual selective attention to conjunctions of color and shape.

PubMed

Smid, H G; Jakob, A; Heinze, H J

1999-03-01

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 conjunctions of these attributes in three discriminability conditions. Attending to color and shape produced three ERP effects: frontal selection positivity (FSP), central negativity (N2b), and posterior selection negativity (SN). The results suggested that the processes underlying SN and N2b perform independent within-dimension selections, whereas the process underlying the FSP performs hierarchical between-dimension selections. At posterior electrodes, manipulation of discriminability changed the ERPs to the relevant but not to the irrelevant stimuli, suggesting that the SN does not concern the selection process itself but rather a cognitive process initiated after selection is finished. Other findings suggested that selection of multiple visual attributes occurs in parallel.
European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC): quality indicators for outpatient antibiotic use in Europe

PubMed Central

Coenen, Samuel; Ferech, Matus; Haaijer‐Ruskamp, Flora M; Butler, Chris C; Stichele, Robert H Vander; Verheij, Theo J M; Monnet, Dominique L; Little, Paul; Goossens, Herman

2007-01-01

Background and objective Indicators to measure the quality of healthcare are increasingly used by healthcare professionals and policy makers. In the context of increasing antimicrobial resistance, this study aimed to develop valid drug‐specific quality indicators for outpatient antibiotic use in Europe, derived from European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC) data. Methods 27 experts (15 countries), in a European Science Foundation workshop, built on the expertise within the European Drug Utilisation Research Group, the General Practice Respiratory Infections Network, the ESCMID Study Group on Primary Care Topics, the Belgian Antibiotic Policy Coordination Committee, the World Health Organization, ESAC, and other experts. A set of proposed indicators was developed using 1997–2003 ESAC data. Participants scored the relevance of each indicator to reducing antimicrobial resistance, patient health benefit, cost effectiveness and public health policy makers (scale: 1 (completely disagree) to 9 (completely agree)). The scores were processed according to the UCLA‐RAND appropriateness method. Indicators were judged relevant if the median score was not in the 1–6 interval and if there was consensus (number of scores within the 1–3 interval was fewer than one third of the panel). From the relevant indicators providing overlapping information, the one with the highest scores was selected for the final set of quality indicators—values were updated with 2004 ESAC data. Results 22 participants (12 countries) completed scoring of a set of 22 proposed indicators. Nine were rated as relevant antibiotic prescribing indicators on all four dimensions; five were rated as relevant if only relevance to reducing antimicrobial resistance and public health policy makers was taken into account. A final set of 12 indicators was selected. Conclusion 12 of the proposed ESAC‐based quality indicators for outpatient antibiotic use in Europe have face validity and are potentially applicable. These indicators could be used to better describe antibiotic use in ambulatory care and assess the quality of national antibiotic prescribing patterns in Europe. PMID:18055888
Strategies to Improve Activity Recognition Based on Skeletal Tracking: Applying Restrictions Regarding Body Parts and Similarity Boundaries †

PubMed Central

Gutiérrez-López-Franca, Carlos; Hervás, Ramón; Johnson, Esperanza

2018-01-01

This paper aims to improve activity recognition systems based on skeletal tracking through the study of two different strategies (and its combination): (a) specialized body parts analysis and (b) stricter restrictions for the most easily detectable activities. The study was performed using the Extended Body-Angles Algorithm, which is able to analyze activities using only a single key sample. This system allows to select, for each considered activity, which are its relevant joints, which makes it possible to monitor the body of the user selecting only a subset of the same. But this feature of the system has both advantages and disadvantages. As a consequence, in the past we had some difficulties with the recognition of activities that only have a small subset of the joints of the body as relevant. The goal of this work, therefore, is to analyze the effect produced by the application of several strategies on the results of an activity recognition system based on skeletal tracking joint oriented devices. Strategies that we applied with the purpose of improve the recognition rates of the activities with a small subset of relevant joints. Through the results of this work, we aim to give the scientific community some first indications about which considered strategy is better. PMID:29789478
A novel built-up spectral index developed by using multiobjective particle-swarm-optimization technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sameen, Maher Ibrahim; Pradhan, Biswajeet

2016-06-01

In this study, we propose a novel built-up spectral index which was developed by using particle-swarm-optimization (PSO) technique for Worldview-2 images. PSO was used to select the relevant bands from the eight (8) spectral bands of Worldview-2 image and then were used for index development. Multiobiective optimization was used to minimize the number of selected spectral bands and to maximize the classification accuracy. The results showed that the most important and relevant spectral bands among the eight (8) bands for built-up area extraction are band4 (yellow) and band7 (NIR1). Using those relevant spectral bands, the final spectral index was form ulated by developing a normalized band ratio. The validation of the classification result using the proposed spectral index showed that our novel spectral index performs well compared to the existing WV -BI index. The accuracy assessment showed that the new proposed spectral index could extract built-up areas from Worldview-2 image with an area under curve (AUC) of (0.76) indicating the effectiveness of the developed spectral index. Further improvement could be done by using several datasets during the index development process to ensure the transferability of the index to other datasets and study areas.
Evolutionary perspectives on learning: conceptual and methodological issues in the study of adaptive specializations.

PubMed

Krause, Mark A

2015-07-01

Inquiry into evolutionary adaptations has flourished since the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology. Comparative methods, genetic techniques, and various experimental and modeling approaches are used to test adaptive hypotheses. In psychology, the concept of adaptation is broadly applied and is central to comparative psychology and cognition. The concept of an adaptive specialization of learning is a proposed account for exceptions to general learning processes, as seen in studies of Pavlovian conditioning of taste aversions, sexual responses, and fear. The evidence generally consists of selective associations forming between biologically relevant conditioned and unconditioned stimuli, with conditioned responses differing in magnitude, persistence, or other measures relative to non-biologically relevant stimuli. Selective associations for biologically relevant stimuli may suggest adaptive specializations of learning, but do not necessarily confirm adaptive hypotheses as conceived of in evolutionary biology. Exceptions to general learning processes do not necessarily default to an adaptive specialization explanation, even if experimental results "make biological sense". This paper examines the degree to which hypotheses of adaptive specializations of learning in sexual and fear response systems have been tested using methodologies developed in evolutionary biology (e.g., comparative methods, quantitative and molecular genetics, survival experiments). A broader aim is to offer perspectives from evolutionary biology for testing adaptive hypotheses in psychological science.
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhao, T; Ruan, D

Purpose: The growing size and heterogeneity in training atlas necessitates sophisticated schemes to identify only the most relevant atlases for the specific multi-atlas-based image segmentation problem. This study aims to develop a model to infer the inaccessible oracle geometric relevance metric from surrogate image similarity metrics, and based on such model, provide guidance to atlas selection in multi-atlas-based image segmentation. Methods: We relate the oracle geometric relevance metric in label space to the surrogate metric in image space, by a monotonically non-decreasing function with additive random perturbations. Subsequently, a surrogate’s ability to prognosticate the oracle order for atlas subset selectionmore » is quantified probabilistically. Finally, important insights and guidance are provided for the design of fusion set size, balancing the competing demands to include the most relevant atlases and to exclude the most irrelevant ones. A systematic solution is derived based on an optimization framework. Model verification and performance assessment is performed based on clinical prostate MR images. Results: The proposed surrogate model was exemplified by a linear map with normally distributed perturbation, and verified with several commonly-used surrogates, including MSD, NCC and (N)MI. The derived behaviors of different surrogates in atlas selection and their corresponding performance in ultimate label estimate were validated. The performance of NCC and (N)MI was similarly superior to MSD, with a 10% higher atlas selection probability and a segmentation performance increase in DSC by 0.10 with the first and third quartiles of (0.83, 0.89), compared to (0.81, 0.89). The derived optimal fusion set size, valued at 7/8/8/7 for MSD/NCC/MI/NMI, agreed well with the appropriate range [4, 9] from empirical observation. Conclusion: This work has developed an efficacious probabilistic model to characterize the image-based surrogate metric on atlas selection. Analytical insights lead to valid guiding principles on fusion set size design.« less
Genome-wide patterns of differentiation and spatially varying selection between postglacial recolonization lineages of Populus alba (Salicaceae), a widespread forest tree.

PubMed

Stölting, Kai N; Paris, Margot; Meier, Cécile; Heinze, Berthold; Castiglione, Stefano; Bartha, Denes; Lexer, Christian

2015-08-01

Studying the divergence continuum in plants is relevant to fundamental and applied biology because of the potential to reveal functionally important genetic variation. In this context, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) provides the necessary rigour for uncovering footprints of selection. We resequenced populations of two divergent phylogeographic lineages of Populus alba (n = 48), thoroughly characterized by microsatellites (n = 317), and scanned their genomes for regions of unusually high allelic differentiation and reduced diversity using > 1.7 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from WGS. Results were confirmed by Sanger sequencing. On average, 9134 high-differentiation (≥ 4 standard deviations) outlier SNPs were uncovered between populations, 848 of which were shared by ≥ three replicate comparisons. Annotation revealed that 545 of these were located in 437 predicted genes. Twelve percent of differentiation outlier genome regions exhibited significantly reduced genetic diversity. Gene ontology (GO) searches were successful for 327 high-differentiation genes, and these were enriched for 63 GO terms. Our results provide a snapshot of the roles of 'hard selective sweeps' vs divergent selection of standing genetic variation in distinct postglacial recolonization lineages of P. alba. Thus, this study adds to our understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the origin of functionally relevant variation in temperate trees. © 2015 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2015 New Phytologist Trust.
Sequence-Based Prediction of RNA-Binding Proteins Using Random Forest with Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance Feature Selection.

PubMed

Ma, Xin; Guo, Jing; Sun, Xiao

2015-01-01

The prediction of RNA-binding proteins is one of the most challenging problems in computation biology. Although some studies have investigated this problem, the accuracy of prediction is still not sufficient. In this study, a highly accurate method was developed to predict RNA-binding proteins from amino acid sequences using random forests with the minimum redundancy maximum relevance (mRMR) method, followed by incremental feature selection (IFS). We incorporated features of conjoint triad features and three novel features: binding propensity (BP), nonbinding propensity (NBP), and evolutionary information combined with physicochemical properties (EIPP). The results showed that these novel features have important roles in improving the performance of the predictor. Using the mRMR-IFS method, our predictor achieved the best performance (86.62% accuracy and 0.737 Matthews correlation coefficient). High prediction accuracy and successful prediction performance suggested that our method can be a useful approach to identify RNA-binding proteins from sequence information.

Analysis of queries sent to PubMed at the point of care: Observation of search behaviour in a medical teaching hospital

PubMed Central

Hoogendam, Arjen; Stalenhoef, Anton FH; Robbé, Pieter F de Vries; Overbeke, A John PM

2008-01-01

Background The use of PubMed to answer daily medical care questions is limited because it is challenging to retrieve a small set of relevant articles and time is restricted. Knowing what aspects of queries are likely to retrieve relevant articles can increase the effectiveness of PubMed searches. The objectives of our study were to identify queries that are likely to retrieve relevant articles by relating PubMed search techniques and tools to the number of articles retrieved and the selection of articles for further reading. Methods This was a prospective observational study of queries regarding patient-related problems sent to PubMed by residents and internists in internal medicine working in an Academic Medical Centre. We analyzed queries, search results, query tools (Mesh, Limits, wildcards, operators), selection of abstract and full-text for further reading, using a portal that mimics PubMed. Results PubMed was used to solve 1121 patient-related problems, resulting in 3205 distinct queries. Abstracts were viewed in 999 (31%) of these queries, and in 126 (39%) of 321 queries using query tools. The average term count per query was 2.5. Abstracts were selected in more than 40% of queries using four or five terms, increasing to 63% if the use of four or five terms yielded 2–161 articles. Conclusion Queries sent to PubMed by physicians at our hospital during daily medical care contain fewer than three terms. Queries using four to five terms, retrieving less than 161 article titles, are most likely to result in abstract viewing. PubMed search tools are used infrequently by our population and are less effective than the use of four or five terms. Methods to facilitate the formulation of precise queries, using more relevant terms, should be the focus of education and research. PMID:18816391
ERP correlates of anticipatory attention: spatial and non-spatial specificity and relation to subsequent selective attention.

PubMed

Dale, Corby L; Simpson, Gregory V; Foxe, John J; Luks, Tracy L; Worden, Michael S

2008-06-01

Brain-based models of visual attention hypothesize that attention-related benefits afforded to imperative stimuli occur via enhancement of neural activity associated with relevant spatial and non-spatial features. When relevant information is available in advance of a stimulus, anticipatory deployment processes are likely to facilitate allocation of attention to stimulus properties prior to its arrival. The current study recorded EEG from humans during a centrally-cued covert attention task. Cues indicated relevance of left or right visual field locations for an upcoming motion or orientation discrimination. During a 1 s delay between cue and S2, multiple attention-related events occurred at frontal, parietal and occipital electrode sites. Differences in anticipatory activity associated with the non-spatial task properties were found late in the delay, while spatially-specific modulation of activity occurred during both early and late periods and continued during S2 processing. The magnitude of anticipatory activity preceding the S2 at frontal scalp sites (and not occipital) was predictive of the magnitude of subsequent selective attention effects on the S2 event-related potentials observed at occipital electrodes. Results support the existence of multiple anticipatory attention-related processes, some with differing specificity for spatial and non-spatial task properties, and the hypothesis that levels of activity in anterior areas are important for effective control of subsequent S2 selective attention.
Some legal, jurisdictional, and operational implications of a congressional technology assessment component

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mayo, L. H.

1975-01-01

An analysis is presented for the Congress of the relationships between an institutionalized assessment function and legislative information gathering and decisionmaking needs. The study was directed to the following topics: (1) the positing of a hypothetical technology assessment component for legislative support; (2) the posing of a number of questions relating to the operational context of this assessment component including the organization/operational framework, general operational problems, access to relevant information, and the utilization of assessment data and analyses; and (3) some selected comments relevant to the questions posed.
A Review of Lung Cancer Research in Malaysia.

PubMed

Kan, C S; Chan, K M J

2016-06-01

Lung cancer is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in Malaysia and worldwide. This paper reviews all research and publications on lung cancer in Malaysia published between 2000-2015. 89 papers were identified, of which 64 papers were selected and reviewed on the basis of their relevance to the review. The epidemiology, risk factors, cell types, clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, outcomes, prevention, and the social impact of lung cancer in the country are reviewed and summarized. The clinical relevance of the studies done in the country are discussed along with recommendations for future research.
A Review of Coronary Artery Disease Research in Malaysia.

PubMed

Ang, C S; Chan, K M J

2016-06-01

Coronary artery disease is the major cause of mortality and morbidity in Malaysia and worldwide. This paper reviews all research and publications on coronary artery disease in Malaysia published between 2000-2015. 508 papers were identified of which 146 papers were selected and reviewed on the basis of their relevance. The epidemiology, etiology, risk factors, prevention, assessment, treatment, and outcomes of coronary artery disease in the country are reviewed and summarized. The clinical relevance of the studies done in the country are discussed along with recommendations for future research.
Individual differences in the balance of GABA to glutamate in pFC predict the ability to select among competing options.

PubMed

de la Vega, Alejandro; Brown, Mark S; Snyder, Hannah R; Singel, Debra; Munakata, Yuko; Banich, Marie T

2014-11-01

Individuals vary greatly in their ability to select one item or response when presented with a multitude of options. Here we investigate the neural underpinnings of these individual differences. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we found that the balance of inhibitory versus excitatory neurotransmitters in pFC predicts the ability to select among task-relevant options in two language production tasks. The greater an individual's concentration of GABA relative to glutamate in the lateral pFC, the more quickly he or she could select a relevant word from among competing options. This outcome is consistent with our computational modeling of this task [Snyder, H. R., Hutchison, N., Nyhus, E., Curran, T., Banich, M. T., O'Reilly, R. C., et al. Neural inhibition enables selection during language processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 107, 16483-16488, 2010], which predicts that greater net inhibition in pFC increases the efficiency of resolving competition among task-relevant options. Moreover, the association with the GABA/glutamate ratio was specific to selection and was not observed for executive function ability in general. These findings are the first to link the balance of excitatory and inhibitory neural transmission in pFC to specific aspects of executive function.
Development of echolocation calls and neural selectivity for echolocation calls in the pallid bat.

PubMed

Razak, Khaleel A; Fuzessery, Zoltan M

2015-10-01

Studies of birdsongs and neural selectivity for songs have provided important insights into principles of concurrent behavioral and auditory system development. Relatively little is known about mammalian auditory system development in terms of vocalizations or other behaviorally relevant sounds. This review suggests echolocating bats are suitable mammalian model systems to understand development of auditory behaviors. The simplicity of echolocation calls with known behavioral relevance and strong neural selectivity provides a platform to address how natural experience shapes cortical receptive field (RF) mechanisms. We summarize recent studies in the pallid bat that followed development of echolocation calls and cortical processing of such calls. We also discuss similar studies in the mustached bat for comparison. These studies suggest: (1) there are different developmental sensitive periods for different acoustic features of the same vocalization. The underlying basis is the capacity for some components of the RF to be modified independent of others. Some RF computations and maps involved in call processing are present even before the cochlea is mature and well before use of echolocation in flight. Others develop over a much longer time course. (2) Normal experience is required not just for refinement, but also for maintenance, of response properties that develop in an experience independent manner. (3) Experience utilizes millisecond range changes in timing of inhibitory and excitatory RF components as substrates to shape vocalization selectivity. We suggest that bat species and call diversity provide a unique opportunity to address developmental constraints in the evolution of neural mechanisms of vocalization processing. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Development of echolocation calls and neural selectivity for echolocation calls in the pallid bat

PubMed Central

Razak, Khaleel A.; Fuzessery, Zoltan M.

2014-01-01

Studies of birdsongs and neural selectivity for songs have provided important insights into principles of concurrent behavioral and auditory system development. Relatively little is known about mammalian auditory system development in terms of vocalizations, or other behaviorally relevant sounds. This review suggests echolocating bats are suitable mammalian model systems to understand development of auditory behaviors. The simplicity of echolocation calls with known behavioral relevance and strong neural selectivity provides a platform to address how natural experience shapes cortical receptive field (RF) mechanisms. We summarize recent studies in the pallid bat that followed development of echolocation calls and cortical processing of such calls. We also discuss similar studies in the mustached bat for comparison. These studies suggest: (1) there are different developmental sensitive periods for different acoustic features of the same vocalization. The underlying basis is the capacity for some components of the RF to be modified independent of others. Some RF computations and maps involved in call processing are present even before the cochlea is mature and well before use of echolocation in flight. Others develop over a much longer time course. (2) Normal experience is required not just for refinement, but also for maintenance, of response properties that develop in an experience independent manner. (3) Experience utilizes millisecond range changes in timing of inhibitory and excitatory RF components as substrates to shape vocalization selectivity. We suggest that bat species and call diversity provide a unique opportunity to address developmental constraints in the evolution of neural mechanisms of vocalization processing. PMID:25142131
Communicating risk and promoting disease mitigation measures in epidemics and emerging disease settings

PubMed Central

Schiavo, Renata; Leung, May May; Brown, Mason

2014-01-01

Objective This review aims to identify and assess evidence on interventions to communicate risk and promote disease mitigation measures in epidemics and emerging disease outbreak settings. The study focuses on data that are relevant to low and middle-income country (LMIC) settings. Methods We conducted a comprehensive literature search using five major electronic databases (Pubmed Medline, Biomed Central, EMBASE, Science of Citation Index, and Cochrane Library) and other sources to identify relevant studies published from January 2002 to July 2013. The review was guided by the socio-ecological model/perspective of public health and the ideation theory and focused on interventions at the community, healthcare, and multi-sectoral settings, which also reflect key intervention levels of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. Eligible quantitative studies were selected according to specific study criteria and assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) framework. Conversely, qualitative studies, reviews, case studies, and editorials were not included. Studies were selected by two independent reviewers. Results Twenty-nine relevant studies from 16 countries were included. Most studies focused on a single intervention or intervention level, rather than multi-sectoral interventions. The majority of the evidence relates to programs aimed at behavioral and social results (or relevant intermediate steps) within a specific population group. Two studies included implications for improvements in health service delivery, two studies examined the intervention’s impact on health systems-related outcomes, and three had also implications for environmental health outcomes. Cost- and health equity-related implications for select evidence were also discussed. Conclusions The paucity of well-designed quantitative evaluations of interventions to communicate health risk and promote disease control measures in LMICs does not allow for any definitive conclusions. Yet, the review identified several promising interventions and areas for future investigation. Among them, community-based and participatory interventions seemed to be central within epidemic and emerging disease settings, particularly in low-resource settings. Yet, evidence on their effectiveness is not conclusive and needs to be explored by future studies. Other promising areas for future investigation include multi-component and multi-sectoral approaches to intervention design. Major research gaps referred to any evaluation of the impact of these kinds of interventions on health policy adoption and/or implementation, and social determinants of health. Research on cost-effectiveness also needs to be strengthened. This review identified several research gaps and questions, and discusses potential future directions for increasing capacity for future and more rigorous assessments. PMID:24649867
Communicating risk and promoting disease mitigation measures in epidemics and emerging disease settings.

PubMed

Schiavo, Renata; May Leung, May; Brown, Mason

2014-03-01

This review aims to identify and assess evidence on interventions to communicate risk and promote disease mitigation measures in epidemics and emerging disease outbreak settings. The study focuses on data that are relevant to low and middle-income country (LMIC) settings. We conducted a comprehensive literature search using five major electronic databases (Pubmed Medline, Biomed Central, EMBASE, Science of Citation Index, and Cochrane Library) and other sources to identify relevant studies published from January 2002 to July 2013. The review was guided by the socio-ecological model/perspective of public health and the ideation theory and focused on interventions at the community, healthcare, and multi-sectoral settings, which also reflect key intervention levels of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. Eligible quantitative studies were selected according to specific study criteria and assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) framework. Conversely, qualitative studies, reviews, case studies, and editorials were not included. Studies were selected by two independent reviewers. Twenty-nine relevant studies from 16 countries were included. Most studies focused on a single intervention or intervention level, rather than multi-sectoral interventions. The majority of the evidence relates to programs aimed at behavioral and social results (or relevant intermediate steps) within a specific population group. Two studies included implications for improvements in health service delivery, two studies examined the intervention's impact on health systems-related outcomes, and three had also implications for environmental health outcomes. Cost- and health equity-related implications for select evidence were also discussed. The paucity of well-designed quantitative evaluations of interventions to communicate health risk and promote disease control measures in LMICs does not allow for any definitive conclusions. Yet, the review identified several promising interventions and areas for future investigation. Among them, community-based and participatory interventions seemed to be central within epidemic and emerging disease settings, particularly in low-resource settings. Yet, evidence on their effectiveness is not conclusive and needs to be explored by future studies. Other promising areas for future investigation include multi-component and multi-sectoral approaches to intervention design. Major research gaps referred to any evaluation of the impact of these kinds of interventions on health policy adoption and/or implementation, and social determinants of health. Research on cost-effectiveness also needs to be strengthened. This review identified several research gaps and questions, and discusses potential future directions for increasing capacity for future and more rigorous assessments.
An exploration into study design for biomarker identification: issues and recommendations.

PubMed

Hall, Jacqueline A; Brown, Robert; Paul, Jim

2007-01-01

Genomic profiling produces large amounts of data and a challenge remains in identifying relevant biological processes associated with clinical outcome. Many candidate biomarkers have been identified but few have been successfully validated and make an impact clinically. This review focuses on some of the study design issues encountered in data mining for biomarker identification with illustrations of how study design may influence the final results. This includes issues of clinical endpoint use and selection, power, statistical, biological and clinical significance. We give particular attention to study design for the application of supervised clustering methods for identification of gene networks associated with clinical outcome and provide recommendations for future work to increase the success of identification of clinically relevant biomarkers.
Interaction of Students' Academic Background and Support Levels in a Resource-Based Learning Environment on Earth's Movement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

So, Wing Mui Winnie; Kong, Siu Cheung

2010-01-01

This research aims to study how a resource-based learning environment (RBLE) helps primary students develop better understanding of the Earth's movement. One objective of the study is to establish an RBLE by creating authentic contexts, selecting appropriate resources, designing relevant tools and adopting necessary scaffolds. The other objective…
Future Viability of Title IV Revenue: A Descriptive Study of Perceptions of Select ABHE Institutional Leadership

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Palmer, Kris Russell

2017-01-01

There is a looming threat to the economic vitality of the organizational community of intentionally Christian colleges and universities, relevant to the use of Title IV funds. Within the framework of organizational ecology, this qualitative descriptive study investigated and summarized perceptions of the leadership from sample ABHE Bible colleges…
Stochastic model search with binary outcomes for genome-wide association studies.

PubMed

Russu, Alberto; Malovini, Alberto; Puca, Annibale A; Bellazzi, Riccardo

2012-06-01

The spread of case-control genome-wide association studies (GWASs) has stimulated the development of new variable selection methods and predictive models. We introduce a novel Bayesian model search algorithm, Binary Outcome Stochastic Search (BOSS), which addresses the model selection problem when the number of predictors far exceeds the number of binary responses. Our method is based on a latent variable model that links the observed outcomes to the underlying genetic variables. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach is used for model search and to evaluate the posterior probability of each predictor. BOSS is compared with three established methods (stepwise regression, logistic lasso, and elastic net) in a simulated benchmark. Two real case studies are also investigated: a GWAS on the genetic bases of longevity, and the type 2 diabetes study from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. Simulations show that BOSS achieves higher precisions than the reference methods while preserving good recall rates. In both experimental studies, BOSS successfully detects genetic polymorphisms previously reported to be associated with the analyzed phenotypes. BOSS outperforms the other methods in terms of F-measure on simulated data. In the two real studies, BOSS successfully detects biologically relevant features, some of which are missed by univariate analysis and the three reference techniques. The proposed algorithm is an advance in the methodology for model selection with a large number of features. Our simulated and experimental results showed that BOSS proves effective in detecting relevant markers while providing a parsimonious model.
A dissociation between attention and selection

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Remington, R. W.; Folk, C. L.

2001-01-01

It is widely assumed that the allocatian of spatial attention results in the "selection" of attended objects or regions of space. That is, once a stimulus is attended, all its feature dimensions are processed irrespective of their relevance to behavioral goals. This assumption is based in part on experiments showing significant interference for attended stimuli when the response to an irrelevant dimension conflicts with the response to the relevant dimension (e.g., the Stroop effect). Here we show that such interference is not due to attending per se. In two spatial cuing experiments, we found that it was possible to restrict processing of attended stimuli to task-relevant dimensions. This new evidence supports two novel conclusions: (a) Selection involves more than the focusing of attention per se: and (b) task expectations play a key role in detertnining the depth of processing of the elementary feature dimensions of attended stimuli.
Control of Auditory Attention in Children with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Victorino, Kristen R.; Schwartz, Richard G.

2015-01-01

Purpose: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) appear to demonstrate deficits in attention and its control. Selective attention involves the cognitive control of attention directed toward a relevant stimulus and simultaneous inhibition of attention toward irrelevant stimuli. The current study examined attention control during a…
Attention and Cognitive Styles.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, John C.; Vlietstra, Alice G.

This study investigated two methods for establishing a systematic, selective, attending strategy in a memory task for children. One method was direct training of a specific strategy, employing instructions, fading, modeling, and prompts to direct the child's attention to the relevant features and to organize systematic looking behavior. The second…
Doctoral Education and Transformative Consumer Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mari, Carlo

2008-01-01

This article examines why and how transformative consumer research (TCR) can become a relevant perspective in doctoral programs. The article draws selectively from studies published in consumer behavior, marketing, and marketing education that theoretically or empirically address this topic. It discusses the meaning and background of TCR together…
COMPARATIVE MICROARRAY EXPRESSION ANALYSIS OF SELECTED CANCER RELEVANT GENES IN HYPERTENSIVE RESISTANT VERSUS SUSCEPTIBLE RODENT STRAINS

EPA Science Inventory

Hypertension and cancer are prevalent diseases. Epidemiological studies suggest that hypertension may increase the long term risk of cancer. Identification of resistance and/or susceptibility genes using rodent models could provide important insights into the management and treat...
Persons with rheumatoid arthritis challenge the relevance of the health assessment questionnaire: a qualitative study of patient perception.

PubMed

Ebbevi, David; Essén, Anna; Forsberg, Helena Hvitfeldt

2017-05-12

The Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index (HAQ) is widely used to measure functional ability in persons with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). The instrument was developed with limited involvement from persons with RA, and their perception of the instrument has not been studied in depth. The aim of this study was to explore how persons with RA experience the use of the HAQ in care. The study used secondary data analysis. Persons with RA participated in semi-structured interviews in previous research projects. Thirty-nine interviews were included based on data fit, and thematic analysis applied. The participants questioned the relevance of the HAQ but nevertheless experienced that the instrument had a profound effect on their understanding of health and how care is delivered. The analysis resulted in three themes: Problems with individual items, meaning of the summative score, and effects on care and health perceptions. To make the HAQ relevant to persons with RA, it needs to be revised or to include an option to select items most meaningful to the respondent. To ensure relevance, the HAQ update should preferably be co-created by researchers, clinicians and persons with RA.

Human medial temporal lobe neurons respond preferentially to personally relevant images

PubMed Central

Viskontas, Indre V.; Quiroga, Rodrigo Quian; Fried, Itzhak

2009-01-01

People with whom one is personally acquainted tend to elicit richer and more vivid memories than people with whom one does not have a personal connection. Recent findings from neurons in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) have shown that individual cells respond selectively and invariantly to representations of famous people [Quian Quiroga R, Reddy L, Kreiman G, Koch C, Fried I (2005) Nature 435(7045):1102–1107]. Observing these cells, we wondered whether photographs of personally relevant individuals, such as family members, might be more likely to generate such responses. To address this issue, we recorded the activity of 2,330 neurons in the human MTL while patients viewed photographs of varying personal relevance: previously unknown faces and landscapes, familiar but not necessarily personally relevant faces and landscapes, and finally, photographs of the patients themselves, their families, and the experimenters. Our findings indicate that personally relevant photographs are indeed more likely to elicit selective responses in MTL neurons than photographs of individuals with whom the patients have had no personal contact. These findings further suggest that relevant stimuli are encoded by a larger proportion of neurons than less relevant stimuli, given that familiar or personally relevant items are linked to a larger variety of experiences and memories of these experiences. PMID:19955441
HTA and its legal issues: a framework for identifying legal issues in health technology assessment.

PubMed

Widrig, Daniel; Tag, Brigitte

2014-12-01

Legal analysis can highlight important issues that are relevant when deciding whether a medical technology should be implemented or reimbursed. Literature and studies show that even though the law is an acknowledged part of health technology assessment (HTA), legal issues are rarely considered in practice. One reason for this may be the lack of knowledge about the diversity of legal issues that are relevant for HTA. Therefore, this contribution aims primarily to identify and then explain the relevant legal issues in HTA. This study offers a framework for identifying the legal issues in HTAs in different jurisdictions and provides a basis for further research. After extensive literature search, the authors review Swiss health law to identify legal issues that are relevant to HTA. The authors then categorize these legal issues using a framework with an inside and outside perspective. Finally, they explain a selection of these legal issues with several examples. This study reveals numerous legal issues that are relevant for HTA and underlines the necessity of incorporating legal analysis in HTAs. The suggested perspectival framework in this study provides a basis to structure the legal analysis. The identified legal issues are relevant in other countries and the perspectival framework is transferable to other jurisdictions. The article underlines the importance of in-depth discussion about the role of law in HTA. It provides a structured overview of the legal issues in HTA and suggests a development of more concrete instruments toward a standardized legal technology assessment.
Fuzzy mutual information based grouping and new fitness function for PSO in selection of miRNAs in cancer.

PubMed

Pal, Jayanta Kumar; Ray, Shubhra Sankar; Pal, Sankar K

2017-10-01

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are one of the important regulators of cell division and also responsible for cancer development. Among the discovered miRNAs, not all are important for cancer detection. In this regard a fuzzy mutual information (FMI) based grouping and miRNA selection method (FMIGS) is developed to identify the miRNAs responsible for a particular cancer. First, the miRNAs are ranked and divided into several groups. Then the most important group is selected among the generated groups. Both the steps viz., ranking of miRNAs and selection of the most relevant group of miRNAs, are performed using FMI. Here the number of groups is automatically determined by the grouping method. After the selection process, redundant miRNAs are removed from the selected set of miRNAs as per user's necessity. In a part of the investigation we proposed a FMI based particle swarm optimization (PSO) method for selecting relevant miRNAs, where FMI is used as a fitness function to determine the fitness of the particles. The effectiveness of FMIGS and FMI based PSO is tested on five data sets and their efficiency in selecting relevant miRNAs are demonstrated. The superior performance of FMIGS to some existing methods are established and the biological significance of the selected miRNAs is observed by the findings of the biological investigation and publicly available pathway analysis tools. The source code related to our investigation is available at http://www.jayanta.droppages.com/FMIGS.html. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Brain mechanisms underlying the effects of aging on different aspects of selective attention.

PubMed

Geerligs, Linda; Saliasi, Emi; Maurits, Natasha M; Renken, Remco J; Lorist, Monicque M

2014-05-01

The ability to suppress irrelevant information declines with age, while the ability to enhance relevant information remains largely intact. We examined mechanisms behind this dissociation in an fMRI study, using a selective attention task in which relevant and irrelevant information appeared simultaneously. Slowing of response times due to distraction by irrelevant targets was larger in older than younger participants. Increased distraction was related to larger increases in activity and connectivity in areas of the dorsal attention network, indicating a more pronounced (re-)orientation of attention. The decreases in accuracy in target compared to nontarget trials were smaller in older compared to younger participants. In older adults we found increased recruitment of areas in the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN) during target detection. Moreover, older adults showed increased connectivity between the FPCN, supporting cognitive control, and somatomotor areas implicated in response selection and execution. This connectivity increase was related to improved target detection, suggesting that older adults engage additional cognitive control, which might enable the observed intact performance in detecting and responding to target stimuli. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Do polymorphisms of 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene affect the risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia?

PubMed

Pereira, Tiago Veiga; Rudnicki, Martina; Pereira, Alexandre Costa; Pombo-de-Oliveira, Maria S; Franco, Rendrik França

2006-01-01

Meta-analysis has become an important statistical tool in genetic association studies, since it may provide more powerful and precise estimates. However, meta-analytic studies are prone to several potential biases not only because the preferential publication of "positive'' studies but also due to difficulties in obtaining all relevant information during the study selection process. In this letter, we point out major problems in meta-analysis that may lead to biased conclusions, illustrating an empirical example of two recent meta-analyses on the relation between MTHFR polymorphisms and risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia that, despite the similarity in statistical methods and period of study selection, provided partially conflicting results.
Mammogram classification scheme using 2D-discrete wavelet and local binary pattern for detection of breast cancer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adi Putra, Januar

2018-04-01

In this paper, we propose a new mammogram classification scheme to classify the breast tissues as normal or abnormal. Feature matrix is generated using Local Binary Pattern to all the detailed coefficients from 2D-DWT of the region of interest (ROI) of a mammogram. Feature selection is done by selecting the relevant features that affect the classification. Feature selection is used to reduce the dimensionality of data and features that are not relevant, in this paper the F-test and Ttest will be performed to the results of the feature extraction dataset to reduce and select the relevant feature. The best features are used in a Neural Network classifier for classification. In this research we use MIAS and DDSM database. In addition to the suggested scheme, the competent schemes are also simulated for comparative analysis. It is observed that the proposed scheme has a better say with respect to accuracy, specificity and sensitivity. Based on experiments, the performance of the proposed scheme can produce high accuracy that is 92.71%, while the lowest accuracy obtained is 77.08%.
Coding of spatial attention priorities and object features in the macaque lateral intraparietal cortex.

PubMed

Levichkina, Ekaterina; Saalmann, Yuri B; Vidyasagar, Trichur R

2017-03-01

Primate posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is known to be involved in controlling spatial attention. Neurons in one part of the PPC, the lateral intraparietal area (LIP), show enhanced responses to objects at attended locations. Although many are selective for object features, such as the orientation of a visual stimulus, it is not clear how LIP circuits integrate feature-selective information when providing attentional feedback about behaviorally relevant locations to the visual cortex. We studied the relationship between object feature and spatial attention properties of LIP cells in two macaques by measuring the cells' orientation selectivity and the degree of attentional enhancement while performing a delayed match-to-sample task. Monkeys had to match both the location and orientation of two visual gratings presented separately in time. We found a wide range in orientation selectivity and degree of attentional enhancement among LIP neurons. However, cells with significant attentional enhancement had much less orientation selectivity in their response than cells which showed no significant modulation by attention. Additionally, orientation-selective cells showed working memory activity for their preferred orientation, whereas cells showing attentional enhancement also synchronized with local neuronal activity. These results are consistent with models of selective attention incorporating two stages, where an initial feature-selective process guides a second stage of focal spatial attention. We suggest that LIP contributes to both stages, where the first stage involves orientation-selective LIP cells that support working memory of the relevant feature, and the second stage involves attention-enhanced LIP cells that synchronize to provide feedback on spatial priorities. © 2017 The Authors. Physiological Reports published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Physiological Society and the American Physiological Society.
Expectations about Memory Change Across the Life Span Are Impacted By Aging Stereotypes

PubMed Central

Lineweaver, Tara T.; Berger, Andrea K.; Hertzog, Christopher

2008-01-01

This study examined whether expectations about memory change with age vary for different personality types. Four adjectives from each of Hummert’s age-stereotype trait sets were selected to create 11 adjective clusters varying in both valence (positive versus negative) and relevance to memory functioning. Three hundred and seventy three participants in three age groups rated the memory abilities of target adults, defined by the adjective clusters, across the adult life span. Consistent with past studies, participants believed in age-related memory decline. However, participants rated target adults with positive personality traits as having better memory ability and less age-related memory decline than target adults with negative personality traits. This effect was larger when the traits were relevant to memory than when they were not. Finally, older participants were more strongly influenced by both the valence and the relevance of the personality descriptions than younger participants. PMID:19290748
Configural Representations in Spatial Working Memory: Modulation by Perceptual Segregation and Voluntary Attention

PubMed Central

Gmeindl, Leon; Nelson, James K.; Wiggin, Timothy; Reuter-Lorenz, Patricia A.

2011-01-01

In what form are multiple spatial locations represented in working memory? The current study revealed that people often maintain the configural properties (inter-item relationships) of visuospatial stimuli even when this information is explicitly task-irrelevant. However, results also indicate that the voluntary allocation of selective attention prior to stimulus presentation, as well as feature-based perceptual segregation of relevant from irrelevant stimuli, can eliminate the influences of stimulus configuration on location change detection performance. In contrast, voluntary attention cued to the relevant target location following presentation of the stimulus array failed to attenuate these influences. Thus, whereas voluntary selective attention can isolate or prevent the encoding of irrelevant stimulus locations and configural properties, people, perhaps due to limitations in attentional resources, reliably fail to isolate or suppress configural representations that have been encoded into working memory. PMID:21761373
Selective attention in young women awakened from nocturnal sleep.

PubMed

Matchock, Robert L; Mordkoff, J Toby

2005-10-01

Selective attention, the ability to focus on relevant stimuli for information processing while ignoring irrelevant stimuli, is pertinent to many human activities. However, there have been few attempts to measure circadian influences on selective attention. As part of a larger protocol, 14 female subjects spent 3 nights at a General Clinical Research Center. On a given night, subjects were awakened at either 24:00, 03:00, or 06:00 hours and administered a computerized flankers task using two levels of spacing for the flankers ("near", 0.75 degrees; and "far", 1.5 degrees) and three types of flanker trials (compatible, incompatible, and neutral). Before sleeping on the first or second night, subjects were also administered the flankers task at 21:00. Neutral flanker trials resulted in faster reaction times (RTs) at 21:00 than the three nighttime conditions. The flanker effect (i.e., the difference between compatible and incompatible trials) was also significantly smaller in the 21:00 condition, but did not differ among the other three conditions. An effect component analysis indicated significantly more interference than facilitation. For incompatible/far trials, there was a trend toward a slowing down of RT across the four time conditions. The present study demonstrated that the flankers task, which measures selective attention, may be a relevant measure of performance in circadian studies. The analyses suggest increases in RT if subjects are awakened from a bout of sleep, and if these results are confirmed, failures of selective attention mechanisms to inhibit stimuli that require a competing response when subjects are awakened from sleep.
Measuring food intake in studies of obesity.

PubMed

Lissner, Lauren

2002-12-01

The problem of how to measure habitual food intake in studies of obesity remains an enigma in nutritional research. The existence of obesity-specific underreporting was rather controversial until the advent of the doubly labelled water technique gave credence to previously anecdotal evidence that such a bias does in fact exist. This paper reviews a number of issues relevant to interpreting dietary data in studies involving obesity. Topics covered include: participation biases, normative biases,importance of matching method to study, selective underreporting, and a brief discussion of the potential implications of generalised and selective underreporting in analytical epidemiology. It is concluded that selective underreporting of certain food types by obese individuals would produce consequences in analytical epidemiological studies that are both unpredictable and complex. Since it is becoming increasingly acknowledged that selective reporting error does occur, it is important to emphasise that correction for energy intake is not sufficient to eliminate the biases from this type of error. This is true both for obesity-related selective reporting errors and more universal types of selective underreporting, e.g. foods of low social desirability. Additional research is urgently required to examine the consequences of this type of error.
How to select outcome measurement instruments for outcomes included in a "Core Outcome Set" - a practical guideline.

PubMed

Prinsen, Cecilia A C; Vohra, Sunita; Rose, Michael R; Boers, Maarten; Tugwell, Peter; Clarke, Mike; Williamson, Paula R; Terwee, Caroline B

2016-09-13

In cooperation with the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) initiative, the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) initiative aimed to develop a guideline on how to select outcome measurement instruments for outcomes (i.e., constructs or domains) included in a "Core Outcome Set" (COS). A COS is an agreed minimum set of outcomes that should be measured and reported in all clinical trials of a specific disease or trial population. Informed by a literature review to identify potentially relevant tasks on outcome measurement instrument selection, a Delphi study was performed among a panel of international experts, representing diverse stakeholders. In three consecutive rounds, panelists were asked to rate the importance of different tasks in the selection of outcome measurement instruments, to justify their choices, and to add other relevant tasks. Consensus was defined as being achieved when 70 % or more of the panelists agreed and when fewer than 15 % of the panelists disagreed. Of the 481 invited experts, 120 agreed to participate of whom 95 (79 %) completed the first Delphi questionnaire. We reached consensus on four main steps in the selection of outcome measurement instruments for COS: Step 1, conceptual considerations; Step 2, finding existing outcome measurement instruments, by means of a systematic review and/or a literature search; Step 3, quality assessment of outcome measurement instruments, by means of the evaluation of the measurement properties and feasibility aspects of outcome measurement instruments; and Step 4, generic recommendations on the selection of outcome measurement instruments for outcomes included in a COS (consensus ranged from 70 to 99 %). This study resulted in a consensus-based guideline on the methods for selecting outcome measurement instruments for outcomes included in a COS. This guideline can be used by COS developers in defining how to measure core outcomes.
The Black Community Perspective: Recruiting Blacks into Combat Arms

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-03-01

relevant data and discusses reasons for the racial imbalance in Combat Arms branches. It also summarizes a qualitative research study involving interviews...racial imbalance in Combat Arms branches. It also summarizes a qualitative research study involving interviews of ten African-American leaders in...representation among general officers, as more than 59% of the Army’s generals are selected from the combat arms. This research study reviews
Violent Crime in Post-Civil War Guatemala: Causes and Policy Implications

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-03-01

on field research and case studies in Honduras, Bolivia, and Argentina. Bailey’s Security Trap theory is comprehensive in nature and derived from... research question. The second phase uses empirical data and comparative case studies to validate or challenge selected arguments that potentially...Contextual relevancy, historical inference, Tools: Empirics and case conclusions empirical data studies Figme2. Sample Research Methodology E
Variable screening via quantile partial correlation

PubMed Central

Ma, Shujie; Tsai, Chih-Ling

2016-01-01

In quantile linear regression with ultra-high dimensional data, we propose an algorithm for screening all candidate variables and subsequently selecting relevant predictors. Specifically, we first employ quantile partial correlation for screening, and then we apply the extended Bayesian information criterion (EBIC) for best subset selection. Our proposed method can successfully select predictors when the variables are highly correlated, and it can also identify variables that make a contribution to the conditional quantiles but are marginally uncorrelated or weakly correlated with the response. Theoretical results show that the proposed algorithm can yield the sure screening set. By controlling the false selection rate, model selection consistency can be achieved theoretically. In practice, we proposed using EBIC for best subset selection so that the resulting model is screening consistent. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs well, and an empirical example is presented. PMID:28943683
Philosophies of Reading Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ediger, Marlow

2013-01-01

There are selected philosophies of reading instruction which are relevant in providing for individual differences among learners. These need to be studied in-depth by reading teachers in order to best provide for each pupil in the classroom. Pupils differ from each other in reading achievement, interests, and purposes, and it is a challenge to…
Neuronal Effects of Auditory Distraction on Visual Attention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smucny, Jason; Rojas, Donald C.; Eichman, Lindsay C.; Tregellas, Jason R.

2013-01-01

Selective attention in the presence of distraction is a key aspect of healthy cognition. The underlying neurobiological processes, have not, however, been functionally well characterized. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine how ecologically relevant distracting noise affects cortical activity in 27…
Leadership Qualities Desired for College Presidents as Perceived by College Trustees

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Para, Diane J.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to identify presidential leadership styles and behaviors that selected college trustee chairs (private institutions) and college council chairs (state-operated institutions) perceived to be most relevant and important for presidential effectiveness and success in leading higher education institutions. Second, it was…
A Thematic Analysis regarding Education Goals in Nigeria and Select UNESCO Education for All Priorities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scripter, Cheri

2010-01-01

This study explores the relevancy and implementation of specific United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) "Education for All" recommendations and policies using key documents from the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Education (FME), the Nigerian Teachers Union (NUT), UNESCO reports, academic scholars, and…
Current Trends in Distance Education: An Administrative Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Compora, Daniel P.

2003-01-01

Current practices and procedures of distance education programs at selected institutions in higher education in Ohio were studied. Relevant data was found in the areas of: (1) content of the distance education program's mission statement; (2) needs assessment procedures; (3) student demographics; (4) course acquisition, development, and evaluation…

A National Policy for Workplace Training. Lessons from State and Local Experiments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Batt, Rosemary; Osterman, Paul

Selected state and local experiments in developing/supporting workplace-centered training programs were analyzed to identify issues relevant to developing a national policy for workplace training. Intensive case studies of state economic development/training programs in California and Illinois and the employment and training programs provided by…
Intersubjectivity in Primary and Secondary Education: A Review Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beraldo, Rossana Mary Fujarra; Ligorio, M. Beatrice; Barbato, Silviane

2018-01-01

In this literature review on the dynamics of intersubjectivity in primary and secondary education, we summarise and examine articles published in the last 10 years. This concept is considered relevant in education, in particular to enhance different types of collaborative learning situations. The articles were selected from several databases, all…
The Quest for Relevance: Effective College Teaching. Volume I. The Humanities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

American Association for Higher Education, Washington, DC.

Responding to a widely expressed discontent about college teaching shared by students, faculty and administrators, representatives of national professional and higher educational associations formed a committee to study means of revitalizing and reorienting instruction. Each contributor in Volume I, selected for his outstanding teaching skills in…
Satisfaction with Rural Services: The Policy Preferences of Leaders and Community Residents.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Molnar, Joseph J.; Smith, John P.

To examine ratings of satisfaction with selected community services in relation to spending preferences and to ascertain policy-relevant implications of citizen evaluations in planning and delivering rural services), a study focused on perceptions of community leaders and household respondents in eight rural Alabama counties. Research literature…
Reactor technology assessment and selection utilizing systems engineering approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zolkaffly, Muhammed Zulfakar; Han, Ki-In

2014-02-01

The first Nuclear power plant (NPP) deployment in a country is a complex process that needs to consider technical, economic and financial aspects along with other aspects like public acceptance. Increased interest in the deployment of new NPPs, both among newcomer countries and those with expanding programs, necessitates the selection of reactor technology among commercially available technologies. This paper reviews the Systems Decision Process (SDP) of Systems Engineering and applies it in selecting the most appropriate reactor technology for the deployment in Malaysia. The integrated qualitative and quantitative analyses employed in the SDP are explored to perform reactor technology assessment and to select the most feasible technology whose design has also to comply with the IAEA standard requirements and other relevant requirements that have been established in this study. A quick Malaysian case study result suggests that the country reside with PWR (pressurized water reactor) technologies with more detailed study to be performed in the future for the selection of the most appropriate reactor technology for Malaysia. The demonstrated technology assessment also proposes an alternative method to systematically and quantitatively select the most appropriate reactor technology.
[Enduring relevance. An introduction to the clinical contributions of K. R. Eissler].

PubMed

Garcia, Emanuel E

2007-01-01

The author offers a personal selection and discussion of papers that epitomize the enduring relevance of Eissler's contributions to psychoanalytic therapy. The innovations of technique embodied by these works (on parameters, schizophrenia, adolescence, cure, fees, and the treatment of the dying patient) reveal a therapeutic approach that is a natural extension of psychoanalytic science: patient-centered, maximally comprehensive and appropriately flexible. Firsthand observations of Eissler's clinical manner and a selected bibliography are also presented.
The role of NGOs' service delivery experience in developing relevant research agendas: experience and challenges among NGOs in Malawi.

PubMed

Gooding, Kate

2017-05-04

There has been growing interest in the contribution of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to international health research. One strength that NGOs may bring to research involves the potential value of service delivery experience for indicating relevant research questions, namely through their involvement in service delivery, NGO staff may be aware of frontline knowledge gaps, allowing these staff to identify questions that lead to research with immediate relevance. However, there is little empirical evidence on research agendas within NGOs to assess whether their service delivery experience does lead to relevant research or conditions that affect this. This article examines the identification and selection of research questions within NGOs to explore the role of their service delivery experience in generating relevant research agendas. The article reports comparative case study research on four NGOs in Malawi, including two international and two Malawian organisations. Each NGO conducts research and undertakes service delivery and advocacy. Data collection included interviews, focus groups, observation and document review. Analysis involved thematic coding and use of diagrams. The case NGOs' experiences suggest that using service delivery to identify research questions does not always match NGOs' aims or capacities, and does not guarantee relevance. First, NGOs do not want to rely only on service delivery when developing research agendas; they consider other criteria and additional sources of ideas when selecting questions they see as relevant. Second, service delivery staff are not always well-placed to identify research topics; indeed, involvement in hectic, target-driven service delivery can hinder input to research agendas. Third, NGOs' ability to pursue questions inspired by service delivery depends on control over their research agendas; relationships with external actors and financial autonomy affect NGOs' capacity to undertake the research they see as relevant. Finally, the perceived relevance of research findings varies between audiences and depends on more than the research question. The findings suggest limits to the value and feasibility of a research agenda based on service delivery experience. Based on the analysis, the conclusion outlines strategies to support an effective role for NGOs' service delivery experience in development of research agendas.
Children's selective trust decisions: rational competence and limiting performance factors.

PubMed

Hermes, Jonas; Behne, Tanya; Bich, Anna Elisa; Thielert, Christa; Rakoczy, Hannes

2018-03-01

Recent research has amply documented that even preschoolers learn selectively from others, preferring, for example, reliable over unreliable and competent over incompetent models. It remains unclear, however, what the cognitive foundations of such selective learning are, in particular, whether it builds on rational inferences or on less sophisticated processes. The current study, therefore, was designed to test directly the possibility that children are in principle capable of selective learning based on rational inference, yet revert to simpler strategies such as global impression formation under certain circumstances. Preschoolers (N = 75) were shown pairs of models that either differed in their degree of competence within one domain (strong vs. weak or knowledgeable vs. ignorant) or were both highly competent, but in different domains (e.g., strong vs. knowledgeable model). In the test trials, children chose between the models for strength- or knowledge-related tasks. The results suggest that, in fact, children are capable of rational inference-based selective trust: when both models were highly competent, children preferred the model with the competence most predictive and relevant for a given task. However, when choosing between two models that differed in competence on one dimension, children reverted to halo-style wide generalizations and preferred the competent models for both relevant and irrelevant tasks. These findings suggest that the rational strategies for selective learning, that children master in principle, can get masked by various performance factors. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
EFS: an ensemble feature selection tool implemented as R-package and web-application.

PubMed

Neumann, Ursula; Genze, Nikita; Heider, Dominik

2017-01-01

Feature selection methods aim at identifying a subset of features that improve the prediction performance of subsequent classification models and thereby also simplify their interpretability. Preceding studies demonstrated that single feature selection methods can have specific biases, whereas an ensemble feature selection has the advantage to alleviate and compensate for these biases. The software EFS (Ensemble Feature Selection) makes use of multiple feature selection methods and combines their normalized outputs to a quantitative ensemble importance. Currently, eight different feature selection methods have been integrated in EFS, which can be used separately or combined in an ensemble. EFS identifies relevant features while compensating specific biases of single methods due to an ensemble approach. Thereby, EFS can improve the prediction accuracy and interpretability in subsequent binary classification models. EFS can be downloaded as an R-package from CRAN or used via a web application at http://EFS.heiderlab.de.
[Prioritization and Consentation of Criteria for the Appraisal, Funding and Evaluation of Projects from the German Innovationsfonds: A multi-perspective Delphi study].

PubMed

Schmitt, J; Petzold, T; Nellessen-Martens, G; Pfaff, H

2015-09-01

The German Innovationsfonds provides the chance for evidence-based developments of the German healthcare system. Prioritization of recommendations for an effective, efficient, fair, transparent, and sustainable granting of funds through a transparent, evidence-driven consensus-process involving all relevant stakeholder groups. Representatives from health and research policy, payers, patient representatives, healthcare providers, and scientists were invited to nominate participants for an electronic 3 round iterative Delphi-study to prioritize the thematic focus, requirements concerning study methods, the team of applicants, evaluation, utilization of study results, and for the selection of reviewers. Criteria considered as relevant by at least 60% of the panel (consensus definition) in the first 2 Delphi rounds were rated as facultative, preferable, or obligatory criteria for project funding. Data were analyzed descriptively. ( Datenbank Versorgungsforschung Deutschland VfD_15_003561). All invited stakeholder groups except payers participated. 34 (85%) of 40 nominated representatives participated in the Delphi-study. A total of 64 criteria were consented as relevant for project review and funding concerning the thematic focus (n=28), methodological requirements (n=13), requirements for applicants (n=4), for the evaluation (n=4), utilization (n=6), and selection of peer reviewers (n=9). It is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders to spend the designated funds as efficient and sustainable as possible. The consented recommendations shall serve decision makers as a resource for the granting of funds and the evaluation of the Innovationsfonds. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.
A regularized variable selection procedure in additive hazards model with stratified case-cohort design.

PubMed

Ni, Ai; Cai, Jianwen

2018-07-01

Case-cohort designs are commonly used in large epidemiological studies to reduce the cost associated with covariate measurement. In many such studies the number of covariates is very large. An efficient variable selection method is needed for case-cohort studies where the covariates are only observed in a subset of the sample. Current literature on this topic has been focused on the proportional hazards model. However, in many studies the additive hazards model is preferred over the proportional hazards model either because the proportional hazards assumption is violated or the additive hazards model provides more relevent information to the research question. Motivated by one such study, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, we investigate the properties of a regularized variable selection procedure in stratified case-cohort design under an additive hazards model with a diverging number of parameters. We establish the consistency and asymptotic normality of the penalized estimator and prove its oracle property. Simulation studies are conducted to assess the finite sample performance of the proposed method with a modified cross-validation tuning parameter selection methods. We apply the variable selection procedure to the ARIC study to demonstrate its practical use.
Detection of genomic signatures of recent selection in commercial broiler chickens.

PubMed

Fu, Weixuan; Lee, William R; Abasht, Behnam

2016-08-26

Identification of the genomic signatures of recent selection may help uncover causal polymorphisms controlling traits relevant to recent decades of selective breeding in livestock. In this study, we aimed at detecting signatures of recent selection in commercial broiler chickens using genotype information from single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A total of 565 chickens from five commercial purebred lines, including three broiler sire (male) lines and two broiler dam (female) lines, were genotyped using the 60K SNP Illumina iSelect chicken array. To detect genomic signatures of recent selection, we applied two methods based on population comparison, cross-population extended haplotype homozygosity (XP-EHH) and cross-population composite likelihood ratio (XP-CLR), and further analyzed the results to find genomic regions under recent selection in multiple purebred lines. A total of 321 candidate selection regions spanning approximately 1.45 % of the chicken genome in each line were detected by consensus of results of both XP-EHH and XP-CLR methods. To minimize false discovery due to genetic drift, only 42 of the candidate selection regions that were shared by 2 or more purebred lines were considered as high-confidence selection regions in the study. Of these 42 regions, 20 were 50 kb or less while 4 regions were larger than 0.5 Mb. In total, 91 genes could be found in the 42 regions, among which 19 regions contained only 1 or 2 genes, and 9 regions were located at gene deserts. Our results provide a genome-wide scan of recent selection signatures in five purebred lines of commercial broiler chickens. We found several candidate genes for recent selection in multiple lines, such as SOX6 (Sex Determining Region Y-Box 6) and cTR (Thyroid hormone receptor beta). These genes may have been under recent selection due to their essential roles in growth, development and reproduction in chickens. Furthermore, our results suggest that in some candidate regions, the same or opposite alleles have been under recent selection in multiple lines. Most of the candidate genes in the selection regions are novel, and as such they should be of great interest for future research into the genetic architecture of traits relevant to modern broiler breeding.
Acoustic and higher-level representations of naturalistic auditory scenes in human auditory and frontal cortex.

PubMed

Hausfeld, Lars; Riecke, Lars; Formisano, Elia

2018-06-01

Often, in everyday life, we encounter auditory scenes comprising multiple simultaneous sounds and succeed to selectively attend to only one sound, typically the most relevant for ongoing behavior. Studies using basic sounds and two-talker stimuli have shown that auditory selective attention aids this by enhancing the neural representations of the attended sound in auditory cortex. It remains unknown, however, whether and how this selective attention mechanism operates on representations of auditory scenes containing natural sounds of different categories. In this high-field fMRI study we presented participants with simultaneous voices and musical instruments while manipulating their focus of attention. We found an attentional enhancement of neural sound representations in temporal cortex - as defined by spatial activation patterns - at locations that depended on the attended category (i.e., voices or instruments). In contrast, we found that in frontal cortex the site of enhancement was independent of the attended category and the same regions could flexibly represent any attended sound regardless of its category. These results are relevant to elucidate the interacting mechanisms of bottom-up and top-down processing when listening to real-life scenes comprised of multiple sound categories. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Integrative analysis of transcriptomic and metabolomic data via sparse canonical correlation analysis with incorporation of biological information.

PubMed

Safo, Sandra E; Li, Shuzhao; Long, Qi

2018-03-01

Integrative analysis of high dimensional omics data is becoming increasingly popular. At the same time, incorporating known functional relationships among variables in analysis of omics data has been shown to help elucidate underlying mechanisms for complex diseases. In this article, our goal is to assess association between transcriptomic and metabolomic data from a Predictive Health Institute (PHI) study that includes healthy adults at a high risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. Adopting a strategy that is both data-driven and knowledge-based, we develop statistical methods for sparse canonical correlation analysis (CCA) with incorporation of known biological information. Our proposed methods use prior network structural information among genes and among metabolites to guide selection of relevant genes and metabolites in sparse CCA, providing insight on the molecular underpinning of cardiovascular disease. Our simulations demonstrate that the structured sparse CCA methods outperform several existing sparse CCA methods in selecting relevant genes and metabolites when structural information is informative and are robust to mis-specified structural information. Our analysis of the PHI study reveals that a number of gene and metabolic pathways including some known to be associated with cardiovascular diseases are enriched in the set of genes and metabolites selected by our proposed approach. © 2017, The International Biometric Society.
Thermal adaptation and clinal mitochondrial DNA variation of European anchovy

PubMed Central

Silva, Gonçalo; Lima, Fernando P.; Martel, Paulo; Castilho, Rita

2014-01-01

Natural populations of widely distributed organisms often exhibit genetic clinal variation over their geographical ranges. The European anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus, illustrates this by displaying a two-clade mitochondrial structure clinally arranged along the eastern Atlantic. One clade has low frequencies at higher latitudes, whereas the other has an anti-tropical distribution, with frequencies decreasing towards the tropics. The distribution pattern of these clades has been explained as a consequence of secondary contact after an ancient geographical isolation. However, it is not unlikely that selection acts on mitochondria whose genes are involved in relevant oxidative phosphorylation processes. In this study, we performed selection tests on a fragment of 1044 bp of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene using 455 individuals from 18 locations. We also tested correlations of six environmental features: temperature, salinity, apparent oxygen utilization and nutrient concentrations of phosphate, nitrate and silicate, on a compilation of mitochondrial clade frequencies from 66 sampling sites comprising 2776 specimens from previously published studies. Positive selection in a single codon was detected predominantly (99%) in the anti-tropical clade and temperature was the most relevant environmental predictor, contributing with 59% of the variance in the geographical distribution of clade frequencies. These findings strongly suggest that temperature is shaping the contemporary distribution of mitochondrial DNA clade frequencies in the European anchovy. PMID:25143035
Adaptive Memory: Is There a Reproduction-Processing Effect?

PubMed

Seitz, Benjamin M; Polack, Cody W; Miller, Ralph R

2017-12-14

Like all biological systems, human memory is likely to have been influenced by evolutionary processes, and its abilities have been subjected to selective mechanisms. Consequently, human memory should be primed to better remember information relevant to one's evolutionary fitness. Supporting this view, participants asked to rate words based on their relevance to an imaginary survival situation better recall those words (even the words rated low in relevancy) than the same words rated with respect to non-survival situations. This mnemonic advantage is called the "survival-processing effect," and presumably it was selected for because it contributed to evolutionary fitness. The same reasoning suggests that there should be an advantage for recall of information that has been rated for relevancy to reproduction and/or mate seeking, although little evidence has existed to assess this proposition. We used an experimental design similar to that in the original survival-processing effect study (Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007) and across 3 experiments tested several newly designed scenarios to determine whether a reproduction-processing effect could be found in an ancestral environment, a modern mating environment, and an ancestral environment in which the emphasis was on raising offspring as opposed to finding a mate. Our results replicated the survival-processing effect but provided no evidence of a reproduction-processing effect when the scenario emphasized finding a mate. However, when rating items on their relevancy to raising one's offspring in an ancestral environment, a mnemonic advantage comparable to that of the survival-processing effect was found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
Costs on the Mind: the Influence of the Financial Burden of College on Academic Performance and Cognitive Functioning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Destin, Mesmin; Svoboda, Ryan C.

2018-01-01

The current studies test the hypothesis that the financial burden of college can initiate a psychological process that has a negative influence on academic performance for students at selective colleges and universities. Prior studies linking high college costs and student loans to academic outcomes have not been grounded within relevant social…
A Study of West Virginia Elementary Special Education Teachers' Roles, Responsibilities, and Practices within a Multi-Tiered Instructional System: Implications for Policy and Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Palenchar, Linda M.

2012-01-01

The purpose of the study was to provide a data-based description of West Virginia special education teachers' roles, responsibilities, and practices relevant to their participation in selected components of the Response to Intervention (RTI) process. Special educators' practices related to assessment, tiered instruction, decision making, and…
Collaboration, Reflection and Selective Neglect: Campus-Based Marketing Students' Experiences of Using a Virtual Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Molesworth, Mike

2004-01-01

Previous studies have suggested significant benefits to using computer-mediated communication in higher education and the development of the relevant skills may also be important for preparing students for their working careers. This study is a review of the introduction of a virtual learning environment to support a group of 60 campus-based,…
Parallel Selection Revealed by Population Sequencing in Chicken.

PubMed

Qanbari, Saber; Seidel, Michael; Strom, Tim-Mathias; Mayer, Klaus F X; Preisinger, Ruedi; Simianer, Henner

2015-11-13

Human-driven selection during domestication and subsequent breed formation has likely left detectable signatures within the genome of modern chicken. The elucidation of these signatures of selection is of interest from the perspective of evolutionary biology, and for identifying genes relevant to domestication and improvement that ultimately may help to further genetically improve this economically important animal. We used whole genome sequence data from 50 hens of commercial white (WL) and brown (BL) egg-laying chicken along with pool sequences of three meat-type chicken to perform a systematic screening of past selection in modern chicken. Evidence of positive selection was investigated in two steps. First, we explored evidence of parallel fixation in regions with overlapping elevated allele frequencies in replicated populations of layers and broilers, suggestive of selection during domestication or preimprovement ages. We confirmed parallel fixation in BCDO2 and TSHR genes and found four candidates including AGTR2, a gene heavily involved in "Ascites" in commercial birds. Next, we explored differentiated loci between layers and broilers suggestive of selection during improvement in chicken. This analysis revealed evidence of parallel differentiation in genes relevant to appearance and production traits exemplified with the candidate gene OPG, implicated in Osteoporosis, a disorder related to overconsumption of calcium in egg-laying hens. Our results illustrate the potential for population genetic techniques to identify genomic regions relevant to the phenotypes of importance to breeders. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Neural mechanisms of selective attention in the somatosensory system.

PubMed

Gomez-Ramirez, Manuel; Hysaj, Kristjana; Niebur, Ernst

2016-09-01

Selective attention allows organisms to extract behaviorally relevant information while ignoring distracting stimuli that compete for the limited resources of their central nervous systems. Attention is highly flexible, and it can be harnessed to select information based on sensory modality, within-modality feature(s), spatial location, object identity, and/or temporal properties. In this review, we discuss the body of work devoted to understanding mechanisms of selective attention in the somatosensory system. In particular, we describe the effects of attention on tactile behavior and corresponding neural activity in somatosensory cortex. Our focus is on neural mechanisms that select tactile stimuli based on their location on the body (somatotopic-based attention) or their sensory feature (feature-based attention). We highlight parallels between selection mechanisms in touch and other sensory systems and discuss several putative neural coding schemes employed by cortical populations to signal the behavioral relevance of sensory inputs. Specifically, we contrast the advantages and disadvantages of using a gain vs. spike-spike correlation code for representing attended sensory stimuli. We favor a neural network model of tactile attention that is composed of frontal, parietal, and subcortical areas that controls somatosensory cells encoding the relevant stimulus features to enable preferential processing throughout the somatosensory hierarchy. Our review is based on data from noninvasive electrophysiological and imaging data in humans as well as single-unit recordings in nonhuman primates. Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.
Neural mechanisms of selective attention in the somatosensory system

PubMed Central

Hysaj, Kristjana; Niebur, Ernst

2016-01-01

Selective attention allows organisms to extract behaviorally relevant information while ignoring distracting stimuli that compete for the limited resources of their central nervous systems. Attention is highly flexible, and it can be harnessed to select information based on sensory modality, within-modality feature(s), spatial location, object identity, and/or temporal properties. In this review, we discuss the body of work devoted to understanding mechanisms of selective attention in the somatosensory system. In particular, we describe the effects of attention on tactile behavior and corresponding neural activity in somatosensory cortex. Our focus is on neural mechanisms that select tactile stimuli based on their location on the body (somatotopic-based attention) or their sensory feature (feature-based attention). We highlight parallels between selection mechanisms in touch and other sensory systems and discuss several putative neural coding schemes employed by cortical populations to signal the behavioral relevance of sensory inputs. Specifically, we contrast the advantages and disadvantages of using a gain vs. spike-spike correlation code for representing attended sensory stimuli. We favor a neural network model of tactile attention that is composed of frontal, parietal, and subcortical areas that controls somatosensory cells encoding the relevant stimulus features to enable preferential processing throughout the somatosensory hierarchy. Our review is based on data from noninvasive electrophysiological and imaging data in humans as well as single-unit recordings in nonhuman primates. PMID:27334956
Attention modulates maintenance of representations in visual short-term memory.

PubMed

Kuo, Bo-Cheng; Stokes, Mark G; Nobre, Anna Christina

2012-01-01

Recent studies have shown that selective attention is of considerable importance for encoding task-relevant items into visual short-term memory (VSTM) according to our behavioral goals. However, it is not known whether top-down attentional biases can continue to operate during the maintenance period of VSTM. We used ERPs to investigate this question across two experiments. Specifically, we tested whether orienting attention to a given spatial location within a VSTM representation resulted in modulation of the contralateral delay activity (CDA), a lateralized ERP marker of VSTM maintenance generated when participants selectively encode memory items from one hemifield. In both experiments, retrospective cues during the maintenance period could predict a specific item (spatial retrocue) or multiple items (neutral retrocue) that would be probed at the end of the memory delay. Our results revealed that VSTM performance is significantly improved by orienting attention to the location of a task-relevant item. The behavioral benefit was accompanied by modulation of neural activity involved in VSTM maintenance. Spatial retrocues reduced the magnitude of the CDA, consistent with a reduction in memory load. Our results provide direct evidence that top-down control modulates neural activity associated with maintenance in VSTM, biasing competition in favor of the task-relevant information.
A curated database of cyanobacterial strains relevant for modern taxonomy and phylogenetic studies.

PubMed

Ramos, Vitor; Morais, João; Vasconcelos, Vitor M

2017-04-25

The dataset herein described lays the groundwork for an online database of relevant cyanobacterial strains, named CyanoType (http://lege.ciimar.up.pt/cyanotype). It is a database that includes categorized cyanobacterial strains useful for taxonomic, phylogenetic or genomic purposes, with associated information obtained by means of a literature-based curation. The dataset lists 371 strains and represents the first version of the database (CyanoType v.1). Information for each strain includes strain synonymy and/or co-identity, strain categorization, habitat, accession numbers for molecular data, taxonomy and nomenclature notes according to three different classification schemes, hierarchical automatic classification, phylogenetic placement according to a selection of relevant studies (including this), and important bibliographic references. The database will be updated periodically, namely by adding new strains meeting the criteria for inclusion and by revising and adding up-to-date metadata for strains already listed. A global 16S rDNA-based phylogeny is provided in order to assist users when choosing the appropriate strains for their studies.
A curated database of cyanobacterial strains relevant for modern taxonomy and phylogenetic studies

PubMed Central

Ramos, Vitor; Morais, João; Vasconcelos, Vitor M.

2017-01-01

The dataset herein described lays the groundwork for an online database of relevant cyanobacterial strains, named CyanoType (http://lege.ciimar.up.pt/cyanotype). It is a database that includes categorized cyanobacterial strains useful for taxonomic, phylogenetic or genomic purposes, with associated information obtained by means of a literature-based curation. The dataset lists 371 strains and represents the first version of the database (CyanoType v.1). Information for each strain includes strain synonymy and/or co-identity, strain categorization, habitat, accession numbers for molecular data, taxonomy and nomenclature notes according to three different classification schemes, hierarchical automatic classification, phylogenetic placement according to a selection of relevant studies (including this), and important bibliographic references. The database will be updated periodically, namely by adding new strains meeting the criteria for inclusion and by revising and adding up-to-date metadata for strains already listed. A global 16S rDNA-based phylogeny is provided in order to assist users when choosing the appropriate strains for their studies. PMID:28440791
Pharmacogenetic Selection of Volunteers Increases Stringency of Bioequivalence Studies; The Case of Clopidogrel

PubMed Central

Garcés-Eisele, J.; Ruiz-Argüelles, A.; Estrada-Marín, Larisa; Reyes-Núñez, Virginia; Vázquez-Pérez, R.; Guzmán-García, Olga; Coutiño-Medina, R.; Acosta-Sandria, Leticia; Cedillo-Carvallo, Beatriz

2014-01-01

Clinical response to clopidogrel varies widely due to under-dosing, drug interactions and intrinsic interindividual differences resulting from genetic polymorphisms. Cytochrome P450-2C19 is the principal enzyme involved in the activation of the prodrug and loss-of-function alleles have been described. Upon expiration of the pharmaceutical patent of clopidogrel, generic manufacturers have started to subject interchangeable formulations to bioequivalence studies. The purpose of the current investigation was to study the effect of selection of volunteers homozygous for the CYP2C19*1 haplotype on the bioavailability of clopidogrel. A regular 2×2 bioequivalence study between two formulations of clopidogrel was performed in volunteers selected and unselected for relevant CYP2C19 haplotypes for the Mexican population. It was found that selection of volunteers homozygous for the CYP2C19*1 haplotype, increased the stringency of bioequivalence statistics and resulted in bioinequivalence of a generic clopidogrel compound that otherwise proved equivalent when tested in an open unselected population. Augmentation of bioequivalence strictness is expected to result from pharmacogenetic selection of volunteers. PMID:25284925
[The system of control over the use of dyes in the manufacture of food products in Russia. The order of selecting objects of research].

PubMed

Bessonov, V V

2010-01-01

This review is carried out information in order to assess food dyes, used in the manufacture of food products in Russia. Based on electronic registries, an analysis of the major sources of dyes in food. The author carried out a frequency analysis of various types of dyes. Based on the research, concluded that the relevance of studying the content of carotenoids in the consumer basket of Russia population, as well as create recommendations for the principles of food fortification in the substance. The author identified the most relevant factors control the safe use of food dyes in the study of food.
Cholesterol and Prostate Cancer

PubMed Central

Pelton, Kristine; Freeman, Michael R.; Solomon, Keith R.

2012-01-01

Summary Prostate cancer risk can be modified by environmental factors, however the molecular mechanisms affecting susceptibility to this disease are not well understood. As a result of a series of recently published studies, the steroidal lipid, cholesterol, has emerged as a clinically relevant therapeutic target in prostate cancer. This review summarizes the findings from human studies as well as animal and cell biology models which suggest that high circulating cholesterol increases risk of aggressive prostate cancer, while cholesterol lowering strategies may confer protective benefit. Relevant molecular processes that have been experimentally tested and might explain these associations are described. We suggest that these promising results now could be applied prospectively to attempt to lower risk of prostate cancer in select populations. PMID:22824430
Selection-for-action in visual search.

PubMed

Hannus, Aave; Cornelissen, Frans W; Lindemann, Oliver; Bekkering, Harold

2005-01-01

Grasping an object rather than pointing to it enhances processing of its orientation but not its color. Apparently, visual discrimination is selectively enhanced for a behaviorally relevant feature. In two experiments we investigated the limitations and targets of this bias. Specifically, in Experiment 1 we were interested to find out whether the effect is capacity demanding, therefore we manipulated the set-size of the display. The results indicated a clear cognitive processing capacity requirement, i.e. the magnitude of the effect decreased for a larger set size. Consequently, in Experiment 2, we investigated if the enhancement effect occurs only at the level of behaviorally relevant feature or at a level common to different features. Therefore we manipulated the discriminability of the behaviorally neutral feature (color). Again, results showed that this manipulation influenced the action enhancement of the behaviorally relevant feature. Particularly, the effect of the color manipulation on the action enhancement suggests that the action effect is more likely to bias the competition between different visual features rather than to enhance the processing of the relevant feature. We offer a theoretical account that integrates the action-intention effect within the biased competition model of visual selective attention.
Active Learning with Irrelevant Examples

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mazzoni, Dominic; Wagstaff, Kiri L.; Burl, Michael

2006-01-01

Active learning algorithms attempt to accelerate the learning process by requesting labels for the most informative items first. In real-world problems, however, there may exist unlabeled items that are irrelevant to the user's classification goals. Queries about these points slow down learning because they provide no information about the problem of interest. We have observed that when irrelevant items are present, active learning can perform worse than random selection, requiring more time (queries) to achieve the same level of accuracy. Therefore, we propose a novel approach, Relevance Bias, in which the active learner combines its default selection heuristic with the output of a simultaneously trained relevance classifier to favor items that are likely to be both informative and relevant. In our experiments on a real-world problem and two benchmark datasets, the Relevance Bias approach significantly improved the learning rate of three different active learning approaches.
Clinical Decision Support Tools for Selecting Interventions for Patients with Disabling Musculoskeletal Disorders: A Scoping Review.

PubMed

Gross, Douglas P; Armijo-Olivo, Susan; Shaw, William S; Williams-Whitt, Kelly; Shaw, Nicola T; Hartvigsen, Jan; Qin, Ziling; Ha, Christine; Woodhouse, Linda J; Steenstra, Ivan A

2016-09-01

Purpose We aimed to identify and inventory clinical decision support (CDS) tools for helping front-line staff select interventions for patients with musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders. Methods We used Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review framework which progresses through five stages: (1) identifying the research question; (2) identifying relevant studies; (3) selecting studies for analysis; (4) charting the data; and (5) collating, summarizing and reporting results. We considered computer-based, and other available tools, such as algorithms, care pathways, rules and models. Since this research crosses multiple disciplines, we searched health care, computing science and business databases. Results Our search resulted in 4605 manuscripts. Titles and abstracts were screened for relevance. The reliability of the screening process was high with an average percentage of agreement of 92.3 %. Of the located articles, 123 were considered relevant. Within this literature, there were 43 CDS tools located. These were classified into 3 main areas: computer-based tools/questionnaires (n = 8, 19 %), treatment algorithms/models (n = 14, 33 %), and clinical prediction rules/classification systems (n = 21, 49 %). Each of these areas and the associated evidence are described. The state of evidentiary support for CDS tools is still preliminary and lacks external validation, head-to-head comparisons, or evidence of generalizability across different populations and settings. Conclusions CDS tools, especially those employing rapidly advancing computer technologies, are under development and of potential interest to health care providers, case management organizations and funders of care. Based on the results of this scoping review, we conclude that these tools, models and systems should be subjected to further validation before they can be recommended for large-scale implementation for managing patients with MSK disorders.
Gene features selection for three-class disease classification via multiple orthogonal partial least square discriminant analysis and S-plot using microarray data.

PubMed

Yang, Mingxing; Li, Xiumin; Li, Zhibin; Ou, Zhimin; Liu, Ming; Liu, Suhuan; Li, Xuejun; Yang, Shuyu

2013-01-01

DNA microarray analysis is characterized by obtaining a large number of gene variables from a small number of observations. Cluster analysis is widely used to analyze DNA microarray data to make classification and diagnosis of disease. Because there are so many irrelevant and insignificant genes in a dataset, a feature selection approach must be employed in data analysis. The performance of cluster analysis of this high-throughput data depends on whether the feature selection approach chooses the most relevant genes associated with disease classes. Here we proposed a new method using multiple Orthogonal Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (mOPLS-DA) models and S-plots to select the most relevant genes to conduct three-class disease classification and prediction. We tested our method using Golub's leukemia microarray data. For three classes with subtypes, we proposed hierarchical orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) models and S-plots to select features for two main classes and their subtypes. For three classes in parallel, we employed three OPLS-DA models and S-plots to choose marker genes for each class. The power of feature selection to classify and predict three-class disease was evaluated using cluster analysis. Further, the general performance of our method was tested using four public datasets and compared with those of four other feature selection methods. The results revealed that our method effectively selected the most relevant features for disease classification and prediction, and its performance was better than that of the other methods.
Online drug databases: a new method to assess and compare inclusion of clinically relevant information.

PubMed

Silva, Cristina; Fresco, Paula; Monteiro, Joaquim; Rama, Ana Cristina Ribeiro

2013-08-01

Evidence-Based Practice requires health care decisions to be based on the best available evidence. The model "Information Mastery" proposes that clinicians should use sources of information that have previously evaluated relevance and validity, provided at the point of care. Drug databases (DB) allow easy and fast access to information and have the benefit of more frequent content updates. Relevant information, in the context of drug therapy, is that which supports safe and effective use of medicines. Accordingly, the European Guideline on the Summary of Product Characteristics (EG-SmPC) was used as a standard to evaluate the inclusion of relevant information contents in DB. To develop and test a method to evaluate relevancy of DB contents, by assessing the inclusion of information items deemed relevant for effective and safe drug use. Hierarchical organisation and selection of the principles defined in the EGSmPC; definition of criteria to assess inclusion of selected information items; creation of a categorisation and quantification system that allows score calculation; calculation of relative differences (RD) of scores for comparison with an "ideal" database, defined as the one that achieves the best quantification possible for each of the information items; pilot test on a sample of 9 drug databases, using 10 drugs frequently associated in literature with morbidity-mortality and also being widely consumed in Portugal. Main outcome measure Calculate individual and global scores for clinically relevant information items of drug monographs in databases, using the categorisation and quantification system created. A--Method development: selection of sections, subsections, relevant information items and corresponding requisites; system to categorise and quantify their inclusion; score and RD calculation procedure. B--Pilot test: calculated scores for the 9 databases; globally, all databases evaluated significantly differed from the "ideal" database; some DB performed better but performance was inconsistent at subsections level, within the same DB. The method developed allows quantification of the inclusion of relevant information items in DB and comparison with an "ideal database". It is necessary to consult diverse DB in order to find all the relevant information needed to support clinical drug use.
[Tissue engineering of urinary bladder using acellular matrix].

PubMed

Glybochko, P V; Olefir, Yu V; Alyaev, Yu G; Butnaru, D V; Bezrukov, E A; Chaplenko, A A; Zharikova, T M

2017-04-01

Tissue engineering has become a new promising strategy for repairing damaged organs of the urinary system, including the bladder. The basic idea of tissue engineering is to integrate cellular technology and advanced bio-compatible materials to replace or repair tissues and organs. of the study is the objective reflection of the current trends and advances in tissue engineering of the bladder using acellular matrix through a systematic search of preclinical and clinical studies of interest. Relevant studies, including those on methods of tissue engineering of urinary bladder, was retrieved from multiple databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, Embase. The reference lists of the retrieved review articles were analyzed for the presence of the missing relevant publications. In addition, a manual search for registered clinical trials was conducted in clinicaltrials.gov. Following the above search strategy, a total of 77 eligible studies were selected for further analysis. Studies differed in the types of animal models, supporting structures, cells and growth factors. Among those, studies using cell-free matrix were selected for a more detailed analysis. Partial restoration of urothelium layer was observed in most studies where acellular grafts were used for cystoplasty, but no the growth of the muscle layer was observed. This is the main reason why cellular structures are more commonly used in clinical practice.
Response terminated displays unload selective attention

PubMed Central

Roper, Zachary J. J.; Vecera, Shaun P.

2013-01-01

Perceptual load theory successfully replaced the early vs. late selection debate by appealing to adaptive control over the efficiency of selective attention. Early selection is observed unless perceptual load (p-Load) is sufficiently low to grant attentional “spill-over” to task-irrelevant stimuli. Many studies exploring load theory have used limited display durations that perhaps impose artificial limits on encoding processes. We extended the exposure duration in a classic p-Load task to alleviate temporal encoding demands that may otherwise tax mnemonic consolidation processes. If the load effect arises from perceptual demands alone, then freeing-up available mnemonic resources by extending the exposure duration should have little effect. The results of Experiment 1 falsify this prediction. We observed a reliable flanker effect under high p-Load, response-terminated displays. Next, we orthogonally manipulated exposure duration and task-relevance. Counter-intuitively, we found that the likelihood of observing the flanker effect under high p-Load resides with the duration of the task-relevant array, not the flanker itself. We propose that stimulus and encoding demands interact to produce the load effect. Our account clarifies how task parameters differentially impinge upon cognitive processes to produce attentional “spill-over” by appealing to visual short-term memory as an additional processing bottleneck when stimuli are briefly presented. PMID:24399983
Response terminated displays unload selective attention.

PubMed

Roper, Zachary J J; Vecera, Shaun P

2013-01-01

Perceptual load theory successfully replaced the early vs. late selection debate by appealing to adaptive control over the efficiency of selective attention. Early selection is observed unless perceptual load (p-Load) is sufficiently low to grant attentional "spill-over" to task-irrelevant stimuli. Many studies exploring load theory have used limited display durations that perhaps impose artificial limits on encoding processes. We extended the exposure duration in a classic p-Load task to alleviate temporal encoding demands that may otherwise tax mnemonic consolidation processes. If the load effect arises from perceptual demands alone, then freeing-up available mnemonic resources by extending the exposure duration should have little effect. The results of Experiment 1 falsify this prediction. We observed a reliable flanker effect under high p-Load, response-terminated displays. Next, we orthogonally manipulated exposure duration and task-relevance. Counter-intuitively, we found that the likelihood of observing the flanker effect under high p-Load resides with the duration of the task-relevant array, not the flanker itself. We propose that stimulus and encoding demands interact to produce the load effect. Our account clarifies how task parameters differentially impinge upon cognitive processes to produce attentional "spill-over" by appealing to visual short-term memory as an additional processing bottleneck when stimuli are briefly presented.
For the General Internist: A Summary of Key Innovations in Medical Education.

PubMed

Roy, Brita; Chheda, Shobhina G; Bates, Carol; Dunn, Kathel; Karani, Reena; Willett, Lisa L

2016-08-01

We conducted a review of published medical education articles to identify high-quality research and innovation relevant to educators in general medicine. Our review team consisted of six general internists with expertise in medical education and a professional medical librarian. We manually searched 15 journals in pairs (a total of 3062 citations) for original research articles in medical education published in 2014. Each pair of reviewers independently rated the relevance, importance, and generalizability of articles on medical education in their assigned journals using a 27-point scale (maximum of 9 points for each characteristic). From this list, each team member independently reviewed the 22 articles that received a score of 20 or higher from both initial reviewers, and for each selected article rated the quality and global relevance for the generalist educator. We included the seven top-rated articles for presentation in this review, and categorized the studies into four general themes: continuity clinic scheduling, remediation, interprofessional education, and quality improvement and patient safety. We summarized key findings and identified significant limitations of each study. Further studies assessing patient outcomes are needed to strengthen the literature in medical education. This summary of relevant medical education articles can inform future research, teaching, and practice.
Exploring the universe through discovery science on NIF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Remington, Bruce

2016-10-01

New regimes of science are being experimentally studied at high energy density facilities around the world, spanning drive energies from microjoules to megajoules, and time scales from femtoseconds to microseconds. The ability to shock and ramp compress samples to very high pressures and densities allows new states of matter relevant to planetary and stellar interiors to be studied. Shock driven hydrodynamic instabilities evolving into turbulent flows relevant to the dynamics of exploding stars (such as supernovae), accreting compact objects (such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes), and planetary formation dynamics are being probed. The dynamics of magnetized plasmas relevant to astrophysics, both in collisional and collisionless systems, are starting to be studied. High temperature, high velocity interacting flows are being probed for evidence of astrophysical collisionless shock formation, the turbulent magnetic dynamo effect, magnetic reconnection, and particle acceleration. And new results from thermonuclear reactions in hot dense plasmas relevant to stellar and big bang nucleosynthesis are starting to emerge. A selection of examples providing a compelling vision for frontier science on NIF in the coming decade will be presented. This work was performed under the auspices of U.S. DOE by LLNL under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
Reporting studies on time to diagnosis: proposal of a guideline by an international panel (REST).

PubMed

Launay, Elise; Cohen, Jérémie F; Bossuyt, Patrick M; Buekens, Pierre; Deeks, Jonathan; Dye, Timothy; Feltbower, Richard; Ferrari, Andrea; Kramer, Michael; Leeflang, Mariska; Moher, David; Moons, Karel G; von Elm, Erik; Ravaud, Philippe; Chalumeau, Martin

2016-09-27

Studies on time to diagnosis are an increasing field of clinical research that may help to plan corrective actions and identify inequities in access to healthcare. Specific features of time to diagnosis studies, such as how participants were selected and how time to diagnosis was defined and measured, are poorly reported. The present study aims to derive a reporting guideline for studies on time to diagnosis. Each item of a list previously used to evaluate the completeness of reporting of studies on time to diagnosis was independently evaluated by a core panel of international experts (n = 11) for relevance and readability before an open electronic discussion allowed consensus to be reached on a refined list. The list was then submitted with an explanatory document to first, last and/or corresponding authors (n = 98) of published systematic reviews on time to diagnosis (n = 45) for relevance and readability, and finally approved by the core expert panel. The refined reporting guideline consists of a 19-item checklist: six items are about the process of participant selection (with a suggested flowchart), six about the definition and measurement of time to diagnosis, and three about optional analyses of associations between time to diagnosis and participant characteristics and health outcomes. Of 24 responding authors of systematic reviews, more than 21 (≥88 %) rated the items as relevant, and more than 17 (≥70 %) as readable; 19 of 22 (86 %) authors stated that they would potentially use the reporting guideline in the future. We propose a reporting guideline (REST) that could help authors, reviewers, and editors of time to diagnosis study reports to improve the completeness and the accuracy of their reporting.
The significance of transferrin receptors in oncology: the development of functional nano-based drug delivery systems.

PubMed

Tortorella, Stephanie; Karagiannis, Tom C

2014-01-01

Anticancer therapeutic research aims to improve clinical management of the disease through the development of strategies that involve currently-relevant treatment options and targeted delivery. Tumour-specific and -targeted delivery of compounds to the site of malignancy allows for enhanced cellular uptake, increased therapeutic benefit with high intratumoural drug concentrations, and decreased systemic exposure. Due to the upregulation of transferrin receptor expression in a wide variety of cancers, its function and its highly efficient recycling pathway, strategies involving the selective targeting of the receptor are well documented. Direct conjugation and immunotoxin studies using the transferrin peptide or anti-transferrin receptor antibodies as the targeting moiety have established the capacity to enhance cellular uptake, cross the blood brain barrier, limit systemic toxicity and reverse multi-drug resistance. Limitations in direct conjugation, including the difficulty in linking an adequate amount of therapeutic compound to the ligand or antibody have identified the requirement to develop novel delivery methods. The application of nanoparticulate theory in the development of functional drug delivery systems has proven to be most promising, with the ability to selectively modify size-dependent properties and surface chemistry. The transferrin modification on a range of nanoparticle formulations enhances selective cellular uptake through transferrin-mediated processes, and increases therapeutic benefit through the ability to encapsulate high concentrations of relevant drug to the tumour site. Although ineffective in crossing the blood brain barrier in its free form, chemotherapeutic compounds including doxorubicin, may be loaded into transferrin-conjugated nanocarriers and impart cytotoxic effects in glioma cells in vitro and in vivo. Additionally, transferrin-targeted nanoparticles may be used in selective diagnostic applications with enhanced selectivity and sensitivity. Four transferrin-modified nano-based drug delivery systems are currently in early phases of human clinical trials. Despite the collective promise, inconsistencies in some studies have exposed some limitations in current formulations and the difficulty in translating preliminary studies into clinically-relevant therapeutic options. The main objective of this review is to investigate the development of transferrin targeted nano-based drug delivery systems in order to establish the use of transferrin as a cancer-targeted moiety, and to ultimately evaluate the progression of cancer therapeutic strategies for future research.

Development and Validation of the Conceptual Assessment of Natural Selection (CANS)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kalinowski, Steven T.; Leonard, Mary J.; Taper, Mark L.

2016-01-01

We developed and validated the Conceptual Assessment of Natural Selection (CANS), a multiple-choice test designed to assess how well college students understand the central principles of natural selection. The expert panel that reviewed the CANS concluded its questions were relevant to natural selection and generally did a good job sampling the…
Adaptation to recent conflict in the classical color-word Stroop-task mainly involves facilitation of processing of task-relevant information.

PubMed

Purmann, Sascha; Pollmann, Stefan

2015-01-01

To process information selectively and to continuously fine-tune selectivity of information processing are important abilities for successful goal-directed behavior. One phenomenon thought to represent this fine-tuning are conflict adaptation effects in interference tasks, i.e., reduction of interference after an incompatible trial and when incompatible trials are frequent. The neurocognitive mechanisms of these effects are currently only partly understood and results from brainimaging studies so far are mixed. In our study we validate and extend recent findings by examining adaption to recent conflict in the classical Stroop task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Consistent with previous research we found increased activity in a fronto-parietal network comprising the medial prefrontal cortex, ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex, and posterior parietal cortex when contrasting incompatible with compatible trials. These areas have been associated with attentional processes and might reflect increased cognitive conflict and resolution thereof during incompatible trials. While carefully controlling for non-attentional sequential effects we found smaller Stroop interference after an incompatible trial (conflict adaptation effect). These behavioral conflict adaptation effects were accompanied by changes in activity in visual color-selective areas (V4, V4α), while there was no modulation by previous trial compatibility in a visual word-selective area (VWFA). Our results provide further evidence for the notion, that adaptation to recent conflict seems to be based mainly on enhancement of processing of the task-relevant information.
Cue Reliability Represented in the Shape of Tuning Curves in the Owl's Sound Localization System

PubMed Central

Fischer, Brian J.; Peña, Jose L.

2016-01-01

Optimal use of sensory information requires that the brain estimates the reliability of sensory cues, but the neural correlate of cue reliability relevant for behavior is not well defined. Here, we addressed this issue by examining how the reliability of spatial cue influences neuronal responses and behavior in the owl's auditory system. We show that the firing rate and spatial selectivity changed with cue reliability due to the mechanisms generating the tuning to the sound localization cue. We found that the correlated variability among neurons strongly depended on the shape of the tuning curves. Finally, we demonstrated that the change in the neurons' selectivity was necessary and sufficient for a network of stochastic neurons to predict behavior when sensory cues were corrupted with noise. This study demonstrates that the shape of tuning curves can stand alone as a coding dimension of environmental statistics. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In natural environments, sensory cues are often corrupted by noise and are therefore unreliable. To make the best decisions, the brain must estimate the degree to which a cue can be trusted. The behaviorally relevant neural correlates of cue reliability are debated. In this study, we used the barn owl's sound localization system to address this question. We demonstrated that the mechanisms that account for spatial selectivity also explained how neural responses changed with degraded signals. This allowed for the neurons' selectivity to capture cue reliability, influencing the population readout commanding the owl's sound-orienting behavior. PMID:26888922
Syringolin A selectively labels the 20 S proteasome in murine EL4 and wild-type and bortezomib-adapted leukaemic cell lines.

PubMed

Clerc, Jérôme; Florea, Bogdan I; Kraus, Marianne; Groll, Michael; Huber, Robert; Bachmann, André S; Dudler, Robert; Driessen, Christoph; Overkleeft, Herman S; Kaiser, Markus

2009-11-02

The natural product syringolin A (SylA) is a potent proteasome inhibitor with promising anticancer activities. To further investigate its potential as a lead structure, selectivity profiling with cell lysates was performed. At therapeutic concentrations, a rhodamine-tagged SylA derivative selectively bound to the 20 S proteasome active sites without detectable off-target labelling. Additional profiling with lysates of wild-type and bortezomib-adapted leukaemic cell lines demonstrated the retention of this proteasome target and subsite selectivity as well as potency even in clinically relevant cell lines. Our studies, therefore, propose that further development of SylA might indeed result in an improved small molecule for the treatment of leukaemia.
Entropy-Based Search Algorithm for Experimental Design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malakar, N. K.; Knuth, K. H.

2011-03-01

The scientific method relies on the iterated processes of inference and inquiry. The inference phase consists of selecting the most probable models based on the available data; whereas the inquiry phase consists of using what is known about the models to select the most relevant experiment. Optimizing inquiry involves searching the parameterized space of experiments to select the experiment that promises, on average, to be maximally informative. In the case where it is important to learn about each of the model parameters, the relevance of an experiment is quantified by Shannon entropy of the distribution of experimental outcomes predicted by a probable set of models. If the set of potential experiments is described by many parameters, we must search this high-dimensional entropy space. Brute force search methods will be slow and computationally expensive. We present an entropy-based search algorithm, called nested entropy sampling, to select the most informative experiment for efficient experimental design. This algorithm is inspired by Skilling's nested sampling algorithm used in inference and borrows the concept of a rising threshold while a set of experiment samples are maintained. We demonstrate that this algorithm not only selects highly relevant experiments, but also is more efficient than brute force search. Such entropic search techniques promise to greatly benefit autonomous experimental design.
Learning a New Selection Rule in Visual and Frontal Cortex.

PubMed

van der Togt, Chris; Stănişor, Liviu; Pooresmaeili, Arezoo; Albantakis, Larissa; Deco, Gustavo; Roelfsema, Pieter R

2016-08-01

How do you make a decision if you do not know the rules of the game? Models of sensory decision-making suggest that choices are slow if evidence is weak, but they may only apply if the subject knows the task rules. Here, we asked how the learning of a new rule influences neuronal activity in the visual (area V1) and frontal cortex (area FEF) of monkeys. We devised a new icon-selection task. On each day, the monkeys saw 2 new icons (small pictures) and learned which one was relevant. We rewarded eye movements to a saccade target connected to the relevant icon with a curve. Neurons in visual and frontal cortex coded the monkey's choice, because the representation of the selected curve was enhanced. Learning delayed the neuronal selection signals and we uncovered the cause of this delay in V1, where learning to select the relevant icon caused an early suppression of surrounding image elements. These results demonstrate that the learning of a new rule causes a transition from fast and random decisions to a more considerate strategy that takes additional time and they reveal the contribution of visual and frontal cortex to the learning process. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.
Unraveling the sub-processes of selective attention: insights from dynamic modeling and continuous behavior.

PubMed

Frisch, Simon; Dshemuchadse, Maja; Görner, Max; Goschke, Thomas; Scherbaum, Stefan

2015-11-01

Selective attention biases information processing toward stimuli that are relevant for achieving our goals. However, the nature of this bias is under debate: Does it solely rely on the amplification of goal-relevant information or is there a need for additional inhibitory processes that selectively suppress currently distracting information? Here, we explored the processes underlying selective attention with a dynamic, modeling-based approach that focuses on the continuous evolution of behavior over time. We present two dynamic neural field models incorporating the diverging theoretical assumptions. Simulations with both models showed that they make similar predictions with regard to response times but differ markedly with regard to their continuous behavior. Human data observed via mouse tracking as a continuous measure of performance revealed evidence for the model solely based on amplification but no indication of persisting selective distracter inhibition.
The relationship between visual working memory and attention: retention of precise colour information in the absence of effects on perceptual selection.

PubMed

Hollingworth, Andrew; Hwang, Seongmin

2013-10-19

We examined the conditions under which a feature value in visual working memory (VWM) recruits visual attention to matching stimuli. Previous work has suggested that VWM supports two qualitatively different states of representation: an active state that interacts with perceptual selection and a passive (or accessory) state that does not. An alternative hypothesis is that VWM supports a single form of representation, with the precision of feature memory controlling whether or not the representation interacts with perceptual selection. The results of three experiments supported the dual-state hypothesis. We established conditions under which participants retained a relatively precise representation of a parcticular colour. If the colour was immediately task relevant, it reliably recruited attention to matching stimuli. However, if the colour was not immediately task relevant, it failed to interact with perceptual selection. Feature maintenance in VWM is not necessarily equivalent with feature-based attentional selection.
Listeners modulate temporally selective attention during natural speech processing

PubMed Central

Astheimer, Lori B.; Sanders, Lisa D.

2009-01-01

Spatially selective attention allows for the preferential processing of relevant stimuli when more information than can be processed in detail is presented simultaneously at distinct locations. Temporally selective attention may serve a similar function during speech perception by allowing listeners to allocate attentional resources to time windows that contain highly relevant acoustic information. To test this hypothesis, event-related potentials were compared in response to attention probes presented in six conditions during a narrative: concurrently with word onsets, beginning 50 and 100 ms before and after word onsets, and at random control intervals. Times for probe presentation were selected such that the acoustic environments of the narrative were matched for all conditions. Linguistic attention probes presented at and immediately following word onsets elicited larger amplitude N1s than control probes over medial and anterior regions. These results indicate that native speakers selectively process sounds presented at specific times during normal speech perception. PMID:18395316
Online Modulation of Selective Attention is not Impaired in Healthy Aging.

PubMed

Sekuler, Robert; Huang, Jie; Sekuler, Allison B; Bennett, Patrick J

2017-01-01

Background/Study Context: Reduced processing speed pervades a great many aspects of human aging and cognition. However, little is known about one aspect of cognitive aging in which speed is of the essence, namely, the speed with which older adults can deploy attention in response to a cue. The authors compared rapid temporal modulation of cued visual attention in younger (M age = 22.3 years) and older (M age = 68.9 years) adults. On each trial of a short-term memory task, a cue identified which of two briefly presented stimuli was task relevant and which one should be ignored. After a short delay, subjects demonstrated recall by reproducing from memory the task-relevant stimulus. This produced estimates of (i) accuracy with which the task-relevant stimulus was recalled, (ii) the influence of stimuli encountered on previous trials (a prototype effect), and (iii) the influence of the trial's task-irrelevant stimulus. For both groups, errors in recall were considerably smaller when selective attention was cued before rather than after presentation of the stimuli. Both groups showed serial position effects to the same degree, and both seemed equally adept at exploiting the stimuli encountered on previous trials as a means of supplementing recall accuracy on the current trial. Younger and older subjects may not differ reliably in capacity for cue-directed temporal modulation of selective attention, or in ability to draw on previously seen stimuli as memory support.
Expert vs. novice differences in the detection of relevant information during a chess game: evidence from eye movements

PubMed Central

Sheridan, Heather; Reingold, Eyal M.

2014-01-01

The present study explored the ability of expert and novice chess players to rapidly distinguish between regions of a chessboard that were relevant to the best move on the board, and regions of the board that were irrelevant. Accordingly, we monitored the eye movements of expert and novice chess players, while they selected white's best move for a variety of chess problems. To manipulate relevancy, we constructed two different versions of each chess problem in the experiment, and we counterbalanced these versions across participants. These two versions of each problem were identical except that a single piece was changed from a bishop to a knight. This subtle change reversed the relevancy map of the board, such that regions that were relevant in one version of the board were now irrelevant (and vice versa). Using this paradigm, we demonstrated that both the experts and novices spent more time fixating the relevant relative to the irrelevant regions of the board. However, the experts were faster at detecting relevant information than the novices, as shown by the finding that experts (but not novices) were able to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information during the early part of the trial. These findings further demonstrate the domain-related perceptual processing advantage of chess experts, using an experimental paradigm that allowed us to manipulate relevancy under tightly controlled conditions. PMID:25202298
Expert vs. novice differences in the detection of relevant information during a chess game: evidence from eye movements.

PubMed

Sheridan, Heather; Reingold, Eyal M

2014-01-01

The present study explored the ability of expert and novice chess players to rapidly distinguish between regions of a chessboard that were relevant to the best move on the board, and regions of the board that were irrelevant. Accordingly, we monitored the eye movements of expert and novice chess players, while they selected white's best move for a variety of chess problems. To manipulate relevancy, we constructed two different versions of each chess problem in the experiment, and we counterbalanced these versions across participants. These two versions of each problem were identical except that a single piece was changed from a bishop to a knight. This subtle change reversed the relevancy map of the board, such that regions that were relevant in one version of the board were now irrelevant (and vice versa). Using this paradigm, we demonstrated that both the experts and novices spent more time fixating the relevant relative to the irrelevant regions of the board. However, the experts were faster at detecting relevant information than the novices, as shown by the finding that experts (but not novices) were able to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information during the early part of the trial. These findings further demonstrate the domain-related perceptual processing advantage of chess experts, using an experimental paradigm that allowed us to manipulate relevancy under tightly controlled conditions.
Mobile Eye Tracking Reveals Little Evidence for Age Differences in Attentional Selection for Mood Regulation

PubMed Central

Isaacowitz, Derek M.; Livingstone, Kimberly M.; Harris, Julia A.; Marcotte, Stacy L.

2014-01-01

We report two studies representing the first use of mobile eye tracking to study emotion regulation across adulthood. Past research on age differences in attentional deployment using stationary eye tracking has found older adults show relatively more positive looking, and seem to benefit more mood-wise from this looking pattern, compared to younger adults. However, these past studies have greatly constrained the stimuli participants can look at, despite real-world settings providing numerous possibilities for what to choose to look at. We therefore used mobile eye tracking to study age differences in attentional selection, as indicated by fixation patterns to stimuli of different valence freely chosen by the participant. In contrast to stationary eye tracking studies of attentional deployment, Study 1 showed that younger and older individuals generally selected similar proportions of valenced stimuli, and attentional selection had similar effects on mood across age groups. Study 2 replicated this pattern with an adult lifespan sample including middle-aged individuals. Emotion regulation-relevant attention may thus differ depending on whether stimuli are freely chosen or not. PMID:25527965
Combining Relevance Vector Machines and exponential regression for bearing residual life estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Di Maio, Francesco; Tsui, Kwok Leung; Zio, Enrico

2012-08-01

In this paper we present a new procedure for estimating the bearing Residual Useful Life (RUL) by combining data-driven and model-based techniques. Respectively, we resort to (i) Relevance Vector Machines (RVMs) for selecting a low number of significant basis functions, called Relevant Vectors (RVs), and (ii) exponential regression to compute and continuously update residual life estimations. The combination of these techniques is developed with reference to partially degraded thrust ball bearings and tested on real world vibration-based degradation data. On the case study considered, the proposed procedure outperforms other model-based methods, with the added value of an adequate representation of the uncertainty associated to the estimates of the quantification of the credibility of the results by the Prognostic Horizon (PH) metric.
Genotoxicity assessment of a selected cytostatic drug mixture in human lymphocytes: A study based on concentrations relevant for occupational exposure.

PubMed

Gajski, Goran; Ladeira, Carina; Gerić, Marko; Garaj-Vrhovac, Vera; Viegas, Susana

2018-02-01

Cytostatic drugs are highly cytotoxic agents used in cancer treatment and although their benefit is unquestionable, they have been recognized as hazardous to healthcare professionals in occupational settings. In a working environment, simultaneous exposure to cytostatics may occur creating a higher risk than that of a single substance. Hence, the present study evaluated the combined cyto/genotoxicity of a mixture of selected cytostatics with different mechanisms of action (MoA; 5-fluorouracil, cyclophosphamide and paclitaxel) towards human lymphocytes in vitro at a concentration range relevant for occupational as well as environmental exposure. The results suggest that the selected cytostatic drug mixture is potentially cyto/genotoxic and that it can induce cell and genome damage even at low concentrations. This indicates not only that such mixture may pose a risk to cell and genome integrity, but also that single compound toxicity data are not sufficient for the prediction of toxicity in a complex working environment. The presence of drugs in different amounts and with different MoA suggests the need to study the relationship between the presence of genotoxic components in the mixture and the resulting effects, taking into account the MoA of each component by itself. Therefore, this study provides new data sets necessary for scientifically-based risk assessments of cytostatic drug mixtures in occupational as well as environmental settings. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
7 CFR 3430.33 - Selection of reviewers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) COOPERATIVE STATE RESEARCH, EDUCATION... and experience in relevant scientific, extension, or education fields taking into account the following factors: (1) Level of relevant formal scientific, technical education, and extension experience of...
Systematic study of source mask optimization and verification flows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ben, Yu; Latypov, Azat; Chua, Gek Soon; Zou, Yi

2012-06-01

Source mask optimization (SMO) emerged as powerful resolution enhancement technique (RET) for advanced technology nodes. However, there is a plethora of flow and verification metrics in the field, confounding the end user of the technique. Systemic study of different flows and the possible unification thereof is missing. This contribution is intended to reveal the pros and cons of different SMO approaches and verification metrics, understand the commonality and difference, and provide a generic guideline for RET selection via SMO. The paper discusses 3 different type of variations commonly arise in SMO, namely pattern preparation & selection, availability of relevant OPC recipe for freeform source and finally the metrics used in source verification. Several pattern selection algorithms are compared and advantages of systematic pattern selection algorithms are discussed. In the absence of a full resist model for SMO, alternative SMO flow without full resist model is reviewed. Preferred verification flow with quality metrics of DOF and MEEF is examined.
Sex Bias in Research Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grady, Kathleen E.

1981-01-01

Presents feminist criticisms of selected aspects of research methods in psychology. Reviews data relevant to sex bias in topic selection, subject selection and single-sex designs, operationalization of variables, testing for sex differences, and interpretation of results. Suggestions for achieving more "sex fair" research methods are discussed.…
Stochastic model search with binary outcomes for genome-wide association studies

PubMed Central

Malovini, Alberto; Puca, Annibale A; Bellazzi, Riccardo

2012-01-01

Objective The spread of case–control genome-wide association studies (GWASs) has stimulated the development of new variable selection methods and predictive models. We introduce a novel Bayesian model search algorithm, Binary Outcome Stochastic Search (BOSS), which addresses the model selection problem when the number of predictors far exceeds the number of binary responses. Materials and methods Our method is based on a latent variable model that links the observed outcomes to the underlying genetic variables. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach is used for model search and to evaluate the posterior probability of each predictor. Results BOSS is compared with three established methods (stepwise regression, logistic lasso, and elastic net) in a simulated benchmark. Two real case studies are also investigated: a GWAS on the genetic bases of longevity, and the type 2 diabetes study from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. Simulations show that BOSS achieves higher precisions than the reference methods while preserving good recall rates. In both experimental studies, BOSS successfully detects genetic polymorphisms previously reported to be associated with the analyzed phenotypes. Discussion BOSS outperforms the other methods in terms of F-measure on simulated data. In the two real studies, BOSS successfully detects biologically relevant features, some of which are missed by univariate analysis and the three reference techniques. Conclusion The proposed algorithm is an advance in the methodology for model selection with a large number of features. Our simulated and experimental results showed that BOSS proves effective in detecting relevant markers while providing a parsimonious model. PMID:22534080
Development of estimates of dietary nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines for use with the Short Willet Food Frequency Questionnaire.

PubMed

Griesenbeck, John S; Steck, Michelle D; Huber, John C; Sharkey, Joseph R; Rene, Antonio A; Brender, Jean D

2009-04-06

Studies have suggested that nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines have an etiologic role in adverse pregnancy outcomes and chronic diseases such as cancer. Although an extensive body of literature exists on estimates of these compounds in foods, the extant data varies in quality, quantified estimates, and relevance. We developed estimates of nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines for food items listed in the Short Willet Food Frequency Questionnaire (WFFQ) as adapted for use in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study. Multiple reference databases were searched for published literature reflecting nitrate, nitrite, and nitrosamine values in foods. Relevant published literature was reviewed; only publications reporting results for items listed on the WFFQ were selected for inclusion. The references selected were prioritized according to relevance to the U.S. population. Based on our estimates, vegetable products contain the highest levels of nitrate, contributing as much as 189 mg/serving. Meat and bean products contain the highest levels of nitrites with values up to 1.84 mg/serving. Alcohol, meat and dairy products contain the highest values of nitrosamines with a maximum value of 0.531 microg/serving. The estimates of dietary nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines generated in this study are based on the published values currently available. To our knowledge, these are the only estimates specifically designed for use with the adapted WFFQ and generated to represent food items available to the U.S. population. The estimates provided may be useful in other research studies, specifically in those exploring the relation between exposure to these compounds in foods and adverse health outcomes.

Do adult focused anti-smoking campaigns have an impact on adolescents? The case of the Australian National Tobacco Campaign.

PubMed

White, V; Tan, N; Wakefield, M; Hill, D

2003-09-01

To examine adolescents' awareness of and response to an adult focused anti-smoking advertising campaign. Data were obtained from two cross sectional surveys of adolescents. The first study, a national evaluation study, involved a telephone survey of a randomly selected sample of 400 14-17 year olds across Australia in 1998. The second study involved a survey of 3714 students aged 12-17 years, randomly selected from a probability sample of secondary schools in the Australian State of Victoria. In both surveys, adolescents answered questions on their awareness of the advertising campaign and actions taken in response to the campaign. Adolescents in the national evaluation study also answered questions assessing knowledge of health effects of smoking, impact of the campaign on adolescents, and relevance of the campaign for adolescents and other groups. Responses for smokers and nonsmokers were examined. Among the national evaluation sample, 85% of adolescent smokers thought the campaign was relevant to them. Fifty three per cent indicated that the campaign had led some teenagers to at least try to quit and 85% thought it made smoking seem less cool and desirable. Among students who were established smokers the campaign generated quitting activity, with 27% cutting down the number of cigarettes they smoked and 26% having thought about quitting. Results indicate that adolescents were very aware of this adult focused anti-smoking campaign and thought it relevant to them. The findings suggest that a graphic health effects cessation focused campaign may have been successful in promoting anti-smoking attitudes among adolescents.
A Vietnamese man with selective mutism: the relevance of multiple interacting 'cultures' in clinical psychiatry.

PubMed

Hollifield, Michael; Geppert, Cynthia; Johnson, Yuam; Fryer, Carol

2003-09-01

Multiple cultural variables have effects on the psychobiology and behavioral manifestations of illness, as do patient and physician perceptions of illness. The interaction among these variables is at the heart of clinical psychiatry. This case of a Vietnamese man with selective mutism underscores the relevance of the 'cultures' of medicine, psychiatry, and war and trauma on the manifestations of illness and illness perceptions by patient and physician. The discussion focuses on how these cultures interact and play a crucial role in formulating diagnosis and treatment planning. Suggestions are given for shifts in medical education that will encourage relevant cultural paradigms to make their way into educational and clinical systems, which in turn should improve cultural competence in clinical psychiatry.
Clerkship in primary care: a cross-sectional study about expectations and experiences of undergraduates in medicine.

PubMed

Fuchs, Stephan; Klement, Andreas; Lichte, Thomas; Abendroth, Jens

2014-01-01

With the amendment of the medical licensure act (Approbationsordnung) in 2012, a four-week clerkship in primary care (FHV) became mandatory. We investigated the expectations with which students begin the FHV, which criteria are relevant in selecting the location for the FHV, and the experiences the students had during the FHV. In a cross-sectional study, all third-year students at both medical schools in Saxony-Anhalt were surveyed in 2013 about their expectations and experiences regarding the FHV. This is the last cohort for which the FHV is optional. Questions were asked about 29 items addressing six topics (personal information, selection of FHV location, selection of FHV medical practice, expectations, experiences, and specialty selection). Out of a student body of 446, responses were received from N=424 (response rate 95.1%; of which 61.8% female). Of these students, 71 (16.7%) had completed the FHV and 70 (16.5%) were planning to; another 267 students (63%) had not (yet) planned to participate in an FHV. Where a student's parents lived, personal recommendations of a particular medical practice and the attractiveness of the region were the most important criteria for selecting the clerkship site. After completing the FHV, the learning objectives reflected themselves in the experiences of the students in a similar order and significance as in the expectations of students who planned or had not (as of yet) planned to complete the FHV. A relevant influence of the FHV confirming the choice to specialize in general practice or outpatient care was not indicated by those who had completed the FHV. After location and practice, the FHV is selected according to personal criteria and in connection with prioritized learning objectives. From the students' perspective, the most frequently named learning objectives are also identified as acquired experience after completing the FHV. However, the FHV does not have a reinforcing effect on the selection of general practice as a specialty.
Synchronous beta rhythms of frontoparietal networks support only behaviorally relevant representations

PubMed Central

Antzoulatos, Evan G; Miller, Earl K

2016-01-01

Categorization has been associated with distributed networks of the primate brain, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Although category-selective spiking in PFC and PPC has been established, the frequency-dependent dynamic interactions of frontoparietal networks are largely unexplored. We trained monkeys to perform a delayed-match-to-spatial-category task while recording spikes and local field potentials from the PFC and PPC with multiple electrodes. We found category-selective beta- and delta-band synchrony between and within the areas. However, in addition to the categories, delta synchrony and spiking activity also reflected irrelevant stimulus dimensions. By contrast, beta synchrony only conveyed information about the task-relevant categories. Further, category-selective PFC neurons were synchronized with PPC beta oscillations, while neurons that carried irrelevant information were not. These results suggest that long-range beta-band synchrony could act as a filter that only supports neural representations of the variables relevant to the task at hand. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17822.001 PMID:27841747
DETERMINATION OF ECOLOGICALLY RELEVANT PHARMACEUTICALS AND THEIR SELECTED METABOLITES IN EFFLUENT AND SURFACE WATER USING UPLC/MS/MS

EPA Science Inventory

Objective is to develop analytical methods including SPE and UPLC/MS/MS needed to analyze over 60 human prescription pharamceuticals and metabolites belonging to a multitude of different classes in surface waters and wastewater effluent. The methods will be used in future studies...
Development of Attentional Control of Verbal Auditory Perception from Middle to Late Childhood: Comparisons to Healthy Aging

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Passow, Susanne; Müller, Maike; Westerhausen, René; Hugdahl, Kenneth; Wartenburger, Isabell; Heekeren, Hauke R.; Lindenberger, Ulman; Li, Shu-Chen

2013-01-01

Multitalker situations confront listeners with a plethora of competing auditory inputs, and hence require selective attention to relevant information, especially when the perceptual saliency of distracting inputs is high. This study augmented the classical forced-attention dichotic listening paradigm by adding an interaural intensity manipulation…
A Community Survey of the "Disadvantaged."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schaumburg, Gary F.; Spriggs, Ted

The specific goals of this study were: (1) to develop a survey instrument for both the English and Spanish speaking that would be understood easily and be nonthreatening; (2) through the use of community representatives, select "items" to be included in the questionnaire that would be particularly relevant to the needs and problems of…
The Politics of Implementing Local Cultures in Music Education in Taiwan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ho, Wai-Chung

2006-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to investigate how the national development of Taiwan has shaped the context of music learning through the development of local cultures in current education reform. Through the examination of relevant literature, official documents, websites and a selection of music education publications that are commonly…
Building Systems Information Clearinghouse Special Report Number One: Manufacturers Compatibility Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boice, John R., Ed.

BSIC has selected data for inclusion, and a method of presentation that-- (1) provides preliminary data, in comparable form, about all relevant systems building products, (2) surveys within the limits imposed, the problems of compatibility between subsystem components and to identify components which are compatible with one another, (3) identifies…
Selected Papers in School Finance: 1975.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tron, Esther O.; And Others

The three papers in this volume describe exploratory efforts to adjust state aid to local school districts so as to reflect differences in local costs unrelated to school program content. Each study is limited to an analysis of relevant data for one of the three states considered--Michigan, California, and Florida. The underlying assumption is…
Knowledge and Processes That Predict Proficiency in Digital Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bulger, Monica E.; Mayer, Richard E.; Metzger, Miriam J.

2014-01-01

Proficiency in digital literacy refers to the ability to read and write using online sources, and includes the ability to select sources relevant to the task, synthesize information into a coherent message, and communicate the message with an audience. The present study examines the determinants of digital literacy proficiency by asking 150…
Salient Predictors of School Dropout among Secondary Students with Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doren, Bonnie; Murray, Christopher; Gau, Jeff M.

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to identify the unique contributions of a comprehensive set of predictors and the most salient predictors of school dropout among a nationally representative sample of students with learning disabilities (LD). A comprehensive set of theoretically and empirically relevant factors was selected for examination. Analyses…
ISSUES IN THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

CRISP, RAYMOND E., ED.

TEXTS OF SELECTED ADDRESSES PRESENTED BY REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ILLINOIS STATE-WIDE CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER IN THE PREPARATION OF SECONDARY SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHERS (ISCPET) AT THE 1967 CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH EDUCATION AND TWO PAPERS RELEVANT TO ISSUES IN THE PREPARATION OF ENGLISH TEACHERS ARE REPRINTED IN THIS COLLECTION. THE CONFERENCE ADDRESSES,…
Behold the Voice of Wrath: Cross-Modal Modulation of Visual Attention by Anger Prosody

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brosch, Tobias; Grandjean, Didier; Sander, David; Scherer, Klaus R.

2008-01-01

Emotionally relevant stimuli are prioritized in human information processing. It has repeatedly been shown that selective spatial attention is modulated by the emotional content of a stimulus. Until now, studies investigating this phenomenon have only examined "within-modality" effects, most frequently using pictures of emotional stimuli to…
Reliability, Sensitivity to Measuring Change, and Construct Validity of a Measure of Counselor Adaptability.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gabbard, Clinton E.; And Others

1986-01-01

Adaptive Counseling and Therapy (ACT) is an integrative, metatheoretical model for selecting an appropriate therapeutic style based on the task-relevant development maturity of the client. The Counselor Behavior Analysis (CBA) Scale measures the central explanatory construct of ACT theory: counselor adaptability. Three studies designed to assess…
Introductory Minicourse, Career Oriented Pre-Technical Physics. Preliminary Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bullock, Bob; And Others

This minicourse was prepared for use with secondary physics students in the Dallas Independent School District. This is an introductory minicourse aimed at acquainting the student with the realm of physics so that the student can pursue further study by selecting those minicourses most relevant to his career needs and interests. The minicourse was…
Differential Experience and Degree of Selection: A Comment on "Schooling and Sex Roles: The Case of GCE 'O' Level Mathematics."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooper, Barry

1982-01-01

Presents an alternative hypothetical explanation of the results obtained in Sharma and Meighan's research. The study did not control for intelligence, social class, and other relevant variables which might explain the difference between the sexes in mathematical attainment in secondary schools. (AM)
Investigating the Development of Chinese Oral Explanation and Justification in Singapore Primary Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yan, Jing

2016-01-01

Explanation and justification require cognitive ability which selects and organises relevant information in a logical way, and linguistic ability which enables speakers to encode the information with linguistic knowledge. This study aims to investigate the development of Chinese oral explanation and justification in Singapore primary students. The…
Self Confrontation Counseling: A Selective Review With Implications for Teacher Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fuller, Frances F.; And Others

This report reviews relevant educational literature and current practices to discover the relationship between personal change and self confrontation. Five areas of study include a) outcomes, b) help for whom, c) the helpful situation, d) the helpful treatment, and e) the helpful helper. The first section briefly describes the outcomes of self…
Is that a belt or a snake? object attentional selection affects the early stages of visual sensory processing

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background There is at present crescent empirical evidence deriving from different lines of ERPs research that, unlike previously observed, the earliest sensory visual response, known as C1 component or P/N80, generated within the striate cortex, might be modulated by selective attention to visual stimulus features. Up to now, evidence of this modulation has been related to space location, and simple features such as spatial frequency, luminance, and texture. Additionally, neurophysiological conditions, such as emotion, vigilance, the reflexive or voluntary nature of input attentional selection, and workload have also been related to C1 modulations, although at least the workload status has received controversial indications. No information is instead available, at present, for objects attentional selection. Methods In this study object- and space-based attention mechanisms were conjointly investigated by presenting complex, familiar shapes of artefacts and animals, intermixed with distracters, in different tasks requiring the selection of a relevant target-category within a relevant spatial location, while ignoring the other shape categories within this location, and, overall, all the categories at an irrelevant location. EEG was recorded from 30 scalp electrode sites in 21 right-handed participants. Results and Conclusions ERP findings showed that visual processing was modulated by both shape- and location-relevance per se, beginning separately at the latency of the early phase of a precocious negativity (60-80 ms) at mesial scalp sites consistent with the C1 component, and a positivity at more lateral sites. The data also showed that the attentional modulation progressed conjointly at the latency of the subsequent P1 (100-120 ms) and N1 (120-180 ms), as well as later-latency components. These findings support the views that (1) V1 may be precociously modulated by direct top-down influences, and participates to object, besides simple features, attentional selection; (2) object spatial and non-spatial features selection might begin with an early, parallel detection of a target object in the visual field, followed by the progressive focusing of spatial attention onto the location of an actual target for its identification, somehow in line with neural mechanisms reported in the literature as "object-based space selection", or with those proposed for visual search. PMID:22300540

Molecular evolution of bovine Toll-like receptor 2 suggests substitutions of functional relevance.

PubMed

Jann, Oliver C; Werling, Dirk; Chang, Jung-Su; Haig, David; Glass, Elizabeth J

2008-10-20

There is accumulating evidence that polymorphism in Toll-like receptor (TLR) genes might be associated with disease resistance or susceptibility traits in livestock. Polymorphic sites affecting TLR function should exhibit signatures of positive selection, identified as a high ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous nucleotide substitutions (omega). Phylogeny based models of codon substitution based on estimates of omega for each amino acid position can therefore offer a valuable tool to predict sites of functional relevance. We have used this approach to identify such polymorphic sites within the bovine TLR2 genes from ten Bos indicus and Bos taurus cattle breeds. By analysing TLR2 gene phylogeny in a set of mammalian species and a subset of ruminant species we have estimated the selective pressure on individual sites and domains and identified polymorphisms at sites of putative functional importance. The omega were highest in the mammalian TLR2 domains thought to be responsible for ligand binding and lowest in regions responsible for heterodimerisation with other TLR-related molecules. Several positively-selected sites were detected in or around ligand-binding domains. However a comparison of the ruminant subset of TLR2 sequences with the whole mammalian set of sequences revealed that there has been less selective pressure among ruminants than in mammals as a whole. This suggests that there have been functional changes during ruminant evolution. Twenty newly-discovered non-synonymous polymorphic sites were identified in cattle. Three of them were localised at positions shaped by positive selection in the ruminant dataset (Leu227Phe, His305Pro, His326Gln) and in domains involved in the recognition of ligands. His326Gln is of particular interest as it consists of an exchange of differentially-charged amino acids at a position which has previously been shown to be crucial for ligand binding in human TLR2. Within bovine TLR2, polymorphisms at amino acid positions 227, 305 and 326 map to functionally important sites of TLR2 and should be considered as candidate SNPs for immune related traits in cattle. A final proof of their functional relevance requires further studies to determine their functional effect on the immune response after stimulation with relevant ligands and/or their association with immune related traits in animals.
The Neural Dynamics of Attentional Selection in Natural Scenes.

PubMed

Kaiser, Daniel; Oosterhof, Nikolaas N; Peelen, Marius V

2016-10-12

The human visual system can only represent a small subset of the many objects present in cluttered scenes at any given time, such that objects compete for representation. Despite these processing limitations, the detection of object categories in cluttered natural scenes is remarkably rapid. How does the brain efficiently select goal-relevant objects from cluttered scenes? In the present study, we used multivariate decoding of magneto-encephalography (MEG) data to track the neural representation of within-scene objects as a function of top-down attentional set. Participants detected categorical targets (cars or people) in natural scenes. The presence of these categories within a scene was decoded from MEG sensor patterns by training linear classifiers on differentiating cars and people in isolation and testing these classifiers on scenes containing one of the two categories. The presence of a specific category in a scene could be reliably decoded from MEG response patterns as early as 160 ms, despite substantial scene clutter and variation in the visual appearance of each category. Strikingly, we find that these early categorical representations fully depend on the match between visual input and top-down attentional set: only objects that matched the current attentional set were processed to the category level within the first 200 ms after scene onset. A sensor-space searchlight analysis revealed that this early attention bias was localized to lateral occipitotemporal cortex, reflecting top-down modulation of visual processing. These results show that attention quickly resolves competition between objects in cluttered natural scenes, allowing for the rapid neural representation of goal-relevant objects. Efficient attentional selection is crucial in many everyday situations. For example, when driving a car, we need to quickly detect obstacles, such as pedestrians crossing the street, while ignoring irrelevant objects. How can humans efficiently perform such tasks, given the multitude of objects contained in real-world scenes? Here we used multivariate decoding of magnetoencephalogaphy data to characterize the neural underpinnings of attentional selection in natural scenes with high temporal precision. We show that brain activity quickly tracks the presence of objects in scenes, but crucially only for those objects that were immediately relevant for the participant. These results provide evidence for fast and efficient attentional selection that mediates the rapid detection of goal-relevant objects in real-world environments. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/3610522-07$15.00/0.
Relevance and speed of message delivery trade-offs in augmentative and alternative communication.

PubMed

Bedrosian, Jan L; Hoag, Linda A; McCoy, Kathleen F

2003-08-01

This report is the first in a series of investigations designed to test a theory identifying the effects of conversational trade-offs between selected maxims on public attitudes toward augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system users and their communication. In the current study, the trade-offs between the relevance of a prestored message and its speed of delivery were examined. Participating were 96 sales clerks. Twelve scripted videotaped conversational conditions, involving an AAC customer and a clerk at a checkout counter, were used to manipulate message relevance, speed of message delivery, and participant/AAC user gender. Following each assigned viewing, participants completed a questionnaire designed to assess their attitudes toward the AAC user and his or her communication. Significantly higher mean ratings were found for the conditions involving the slowly delivered relevant messages (both preceded by a conversational floorholder and without a floorholder) when compared to the quickly delivered partly relevant message condition. In addition, the condition involving the slowly delivered relevant message with a floorholder yielded significantly higher mean ratings than that without the floorholder. There was no effect for participant/user gender. Modifications of the theory and technological implications are discussed.
Perceptual Decisions in the Presence of Relevant and Irrelevant Sensory Evidence

PubMed Central

Anders, Ursula M.; McLean, Charlotte S.; Ouyang, Bowen; Ditterich, Jochen

2017-01-01

Perceptual decisions in the presence of decision-irrelevant sensory information require a selection of decision-relevant sensory evidence. To characterize the mechanism that is responsible for separating decision-relevant from irrelevant sensory information we asked human subjects to make judgments about one of two simultaneously present motion components in a random dot stimulus. Subjects were able to ignore the decision-irrelevant component to a large degree, but their decisions were still influenced by the irrelevant sensory information. Computational modeling revealed that this influence was not simply the consequence of subjects forgetting at times which stimulus component they had been instructed to base their decision on. Instead, residual irrelevant information always seems to be leaking through, and the decision process is captured by a net sensory evidence signal being accumulated to a decision threshold. This net sensory evidence is a linear combination of decision-relevant and irrelevant sensory information. The selection process is therefore well-described by a strong linear gain modulation, which, in our experiment, resulted in the relevant sensory evidence having at least 10 times more impact on the decision than the irrelevant evidence. PMID:29176941
Perceptual Decisions in the Presence of Relevant and Irrelevant Sensory Evidence.

PubMed

Anders, Ursula M; McLean, Charlotte S; Ouyang, Bowen; Ditterich, Jochen

2017-01-01

Perceptual decisions in the presence of decision-irrelevant sensory information require a selection of decision-relevant sensory evidence. To characterize the mechanism that is responsible for separating decision-relevant from irrelevant sensory information we asked human subjects to make judgments about one of two simultaneously present motion components in a random dot stimulus. Subjects were able to ignore the decision-irrelevant component to a large degree, but their decisions were still influenced by the irrelevant sensory information. Computational modeling revealed that this influence was not simply the consequence of subjects forgetting at times which stimulus component they had been instructed to base their decision on. Instead, residual irrelevant information always seems to be leaking through, and the decision process is captured by a net sensory evidence signal being accumulated to a decision threshold. This net sensory evidence is a linear combination of decision-relevant and irrelevant sensory information. The selection process is therefore well-described by a strong linear gain modulation, which, in our experiment, resulted in the relevant sensory evidence having at least 10 times more impact on the decision than the irrelevant evidence.
Addressing Stereotype Threat is Critical to Diversity and Inclusion in Organizational Psychology.

PubMed

Casad, Bettina J; Bryant, William J

2016-01-01

Recently researchers have debated the relevance of stereotype threat to the workplace. Critics have argued that stereotype threat is not relevant in high stakes testing such as in personnel selection. We and others argue that stereotype threat is highly relevant in personnel selection, but our review focused on underexplored areas including effects of stereotype threat beyond test performance and the application of brief, low-cost interventions in the workplace. Relevant to the workplace, stereotype threat can reduce domain identification, job engagement, career aspirations, and receptivity to feedback. Stereotype threat has consequences in other relevant domains including leadership, entrepreneurship, negotiations, and competitiveness. Several institutional and individual level intervention strategies that have been field-tested and are easy to implement show promise for practitioners including: addressing environmental cues, valuing diversity, wise feedback, organizational mindsets, reattribution training, reframing the task, values-affirmation, utility-value, belonging, communal goal affordances, interdependent worldviews, and teaching about stereotype threat. This review integrates criticisms and evidence into one accessible source for practitioners and provides recommendations for implementing effective, low-cost interventions in the workplace.
Addressing Stereotype Threat is Critical to Diversity and Inclusion in Organizational Psychology

PubMed Central

Casad, Bettina J.; Bryant, William J.

2016-01-01

Recently researchers have debated the relevance of stereotype threat to the workplace. Critics have argued that stereotype threat is not relevant in high stakes testing such as in personnel selection. We and others argue that stereotype threat is highly relevant in personnel selection, but our review focused on underexplored areas including effects of stereotype threat beyond test performance and the application of brief, low-cost interventions in the workplace. Relevant to the workplace, stereotype threat can reduce domain identification, job engagement, career aspirations, and receptivity to feedback. Stereotype threat has consequences in other relevant domains including leadership, entrepreneurship, negotiations, and competitiveness. Several institutional and individual level intervention strategies that have been field-tested and are easy to implement show promise for practitioners including: addressing environmental cues, valuing diversity, wise feedback, organizational mindsets, reattribution training, reframing the task, values-affirmation, utility-value, belonging, communal goal affordances, interdependent worldviews, and teaching about stereotype threat. This review integrates criticisms and evidence into one accessible source for practitioners and provides recommendations for implementing effective, low-cost interventions in the workplace. PMID:26834681
Mining functionally relevant gene sets for analyzing physiologically novel clinical expression data.

PubMed

Turcan, Sevin; Vetter, Douglas E; Maron, Jill L; Wei, Xintao; Slonim, Donna K

2011-01-01

Gene set analyses have become a standard approach for increasing the sensitivity of transcriptomic studies. However, analytical methods incorporating gene sets require the availability of pre-defined gene sets relevant to the underlying physiology being studied. For novel physiological problems, relevant gene sets may be unavailable or existing gene set databases may bias the results towards only the best-studied of the relevant biological processes. We describe a successful attempt to mine novel functional gene sets for translational projects where the underlying physiology is not necessarily well characterized in existing annotation databases. We choose targeted training data from public expression data repositories and define new criteria for selecting biclusters to serve as candidate gene sets. Many of the discovered gene sets show little or no enrichment for informative Gene Ontology terms or other functional annotation. However, we observe that such gene sets show coherent differential expression in new clinical test data sets, even if derived from different species, tissues, and disease states. We demonstrate the efficacy of this method on a human metabolic data set, where we discover novel, uncharacterized gene sets that are diagnostic of diabetes, and on additional data sets related to neuronal processes and human development. Our results suggest that our approach may be an efficient way to generate a collection of gene sets relevant to the analysis of data for novel clinical applications where existing functional annotation is relatively incomplete.
Integrated configurable equipment selection and line balancing for mass production with serial-parallel machining systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Battaïa, Olga; Dolgui, Alexandre; Guschinsky, Nikolai; Levin, Genrikh

2014-10-01

Solving equipment selection and line balancing problems together allows better line configurations to be reached and avoids local optimal solutions. This article considers jointly these two decision problems for mass production lines with serial-parallel workplaces. This study was motivated by the design of production lines based on machines with rotary or mobile tables. Nevertheless, the results are more general and can be applied to assembly and production lines with similar structures. The designers' objectives and the constraints are studied in order to suggest a relevant mathematical model and an efficient optimization approach to solve it. A real case study is used to validate the model and the developed approach.
Selecting relevant 3D image features of margin sharpness and texture for lung nodule retrieval.

PubMed

Ferreira, José Raniery; de Azevedo-Marques, Paulo Mazzoncini; Oliveira, Marcelo Costa

2017-03-01

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the world. Its diagnosis is a challenge task to specialists due to several aspects on the classification of lung nodules. Therefore, it is important to integrate content-based image retrieval methods on the lung nodule classification process, since they are capable of retrieving similar cases from databases that were previously diagnosed. However, this mechanism depends on extracting relevant image features in order to obtain high efficiency. The goal of this paper is to perform the selection of 3D image features of margin sharpness and texture that can be relevant on the retrieval of similar cancerous and benign lung nodules. A total of 48 3D image attributes were extracted from the nodule volume. Border sharpness features were extracted from perpendicular lines drawn over the lesion boundary. Second-order texture features were extracted from a cooccurrence matrix. Relevant features were selected by a correlation-based method and a statistical significance analysis. Retrieval performance was assessed according to the nodule's potential malignancy on the 10 most similar cases and by the parameters of precision and recall. Statistical significant features reduced retrieval performance. Correlation-based method selected 2 margin sharpness attributes and 6 texture attributes and obtained higher precision compared to all 48 extracted features on similar nodule retrieval. Feature space dimensionality reduction of 83 % obtained higher retrieval performance and presented to be a computationaly low cost method of retrieving similar nodules for the diagnosis of lung cancer.
Student Self-Selection for Specializations in Engineering.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Izraeli, Dafna; And Others

1979-01-01

Tests the hypothesis that students self-selecting themselves for different occupational fields differ in relevant values and interests. Industrial engineers have different work values and images of their subfield than other engineering specialists. In terms of type of student selecting engineering, the profession cannot be treated as an…
Biologics in pediatric psoriasis - efficacy and safety.

PubMed

Dogra, Sunil; Mahajan, Rahul

2018-01-01

Childhood psoriasis is a special situation that is a management challenge for the treating dermatologist. As is the situation with traditional systemic agents, which are commonly used in managing severe psoriasis in children, the biologics are being increasingly used in the recalcitrant disease despite limited data on long term safety. Areas covered: We performed an extensive literature search to collect evidence-based data on the use of biologics in pediatric psoriasis. The relevant literature published from 2000 to September 2017 was obtained from PubMed, using the MeSH words 'biologics', 'biologic response modifiers' and 'treatment of pediatric/childhood psoriasis'. All clinical trials, randomized double-blind or single-blind controlled trials, open-label studies, retrospective studies, reviews, case reports and letters concerning the use of biologics in pediatric psoriasis were screened. Articles covering the use of biologics in pediatric psoriasis were screened and reference lists in the selected articles were scrutinized to identify other relevant articles that had not been found in the initial search. Articles without relevant information about biologics in general (e.g. its mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics and adverse effects) and its use in psoriasis in particular were excluded. We screened 427 articles and finally selected 41 relevant articles. Expert opinion: The available literature on the use of biologics such as anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α agents, and anti-IL-12/23 agents like ustekinumab suggests that these are effective and safe in managing severe pediatric psoriasis although there is an urgent need to generate more safety data. Dermatologists must be careful about the potential adverse effects of the biologics before administering them to children with psoriasis. It is likely that with rapidly evolving scenario of biologics in psoriasis, these will prove to be very useful molecules particularly in managing severe and recalcitrant psoriasis in pediatric age group.
Colloid Science of Metal Nanoparticle Catalysts in 2D and 3D Structures. Challenges of Nucleation, Growth, Composition, Particle Shape, Size Control and their Influence on Activity and Selectivity

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Somorjai, Gabor A.; Park, Jeong Y.

2008-02-13

Recent breakthroughs in synthesis in nanosciences have achieved control of size and shapes of nanoparticles that are relevant for catalyst design. In this article, we review the advance of synthesis of nanoparticles, fabrication of two and three dimensional model catalyst system, characterization, and studies of activity and selectivity. The ability to synthesize monodispersed platinum and rhodium nanoparticles in the 1-10 nm range permitted us to study the influence of composition, structure, and dynamic properties of monodispersed metal nanoparticle on chemical reactivity and selectivity. We review the importance of size and shape of nanoparticles to determine the reaction selectivity in multi-pathmore » reactions. The influence of metal-support interaction has been studied by probing the hot electron flows through the metal-oxide interface in catalytic nanodiodes. Novel designs of nanoparticle catalytic systems are discussed.« less
Selection for Surgical Training: An Evidence-Based Review.

PubMed

Schaverien, Mark V

2016-01-01

The predictive relationship between candidate selection criteria for surgical training programs and future performance during and at the completion of training has been investigated for several surgical specialties, however there is no interspecialty agreement regarding which selection criteria should be used. Better understanding the predictive reliability between factors at selection and future performance may help to optimize the process and lead to greater standardization of the surgical selection process. PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE databases were searched. Over 560 potentially relevant publications were identified using the search strategy and screened using the Cochrane Collaboration Data Extraction and Assessment Template. 57 studies met the inclusion criteria. Several selection criteria used in the traditional selection demonstrated inconsistent correlation with subsequent performance during and at the end of surgical training. The following selection criteria, however, demonstrated good predictive relationships with subsequent resident performance: USMLE examination scores, Letters of Recommendation (LOR) including the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), academic performance during clinical clerkships, the interview process, displaying excellence in extracurricular activities, and the use of unadjusted rank lists. This systematic review supports that the current selection process needs to be further evaluated and improved. Multicenter studies using standardized outcome measures of success are now required to improve the reliability of the selection process to select the best trainees. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Spatial and temporal demographic variation drives within-season fluctuations in sexual selection.

PubMed

Kasumovic, Michael M; Bruce, Matthew J; Andrade, Maydianne C B; Herberstein, Marie E

2008-09-01

Our understanding of selection in nature stems mainly from whole-season and cross-sectional estimates of selection gradients. These estimates suggest that selection is relatively constant within, but fluctuates between seasons. However, the strength of selection depends on demographics, and because demographics can vary within seasons, there is a gap in our understanding regarding the extent to which seasonal fluctuations in demographics may cause variation in selection. Here we use two populations of the golden orb-web spider (Nephila plumipes) that differ in density to examine how demographics change within a season and whether there are correlated shifts in selection. We demonstrate that there is within-season variation in sex ratio and density at multiple spatial and temporal scales. This variation led to changes in the competitive challenges that males encountered at different times of the season and was correlated with significant variation in selection gradients on male size and weight between sampling periods. We highlight the importance of understanding the biology of the organism under study to correctly determine the relevant scale in which to examine selection. We also argue that studies may underestimate the true variation in selection by averaging values, leading to misinterpretation of the effect of selection on phenotypic evolution.
ReliefSeq: A Gene-Wise Adaptive-K Nearest-Neighbor Feature Selection Tool for Finding Gene-Gene Interactions and Main Effects in mRNA-Seq Gene Expression Data

PubMed Central

McKinney, Brett A.; White, Bill C.; Grill, Diane E.; Li, Peter W.; Kennedy, Richard B.; Poland, Gregory A.; Oberg, Ann L.

2013-01-01

Relief-F is a nonparametric, nearest-neighbor machine learning method that has been successfully used to identify relevant variables that may interact in complex multivariate models to explain phenotypic variation. While several tools have been developed for assessing differential expression in sequence-based transcriptomics, the detection of statistical interactions between transcripts has received less attention in the area of RNA-seq analysis. We describe a new extension and assessment of Relief-F for feature selection in RNA-seq data. The ReliefSeq implementation adapts the number of nearest neighbors (k) for each gene to optimize the Relief-F test statistics (importance scores) for finding both main effects and interactions. We compare this gene-wise adaptive-k (gwak) Relief-F method with standard RNA-seq feature selection tools, such as DESeq and edgeR, and with the popular machine learning method Random Forests. We demonstrate performance on a panel of simulated data that have a range of distributional properties reflected in real mRNA-seq data including multiple transcripts with varying sizes of main effects and interaction effects. For simulated main effects, gwak-Relief-F feature selection performs comparably to standard tools DESeq and edgeR for ranking relevant transcripts. For gene-gene interactions, gwak-Relief-F outperforms all comparison methods at ranking relevant genes in all but the highest fold change/highest signal situations where it performs similarly. The gwak-Relief-F algorithm outperforms Random Forests for detecting relevant genes in all simulation experiments. In addition, Relief-F is comparable to the other methods based on computational time. We also apply ReliefSeq to an RNA-Seq study of smallpox vaccine to identify gene expression changes between vaccinia virus-stimulated and unstimulated samples. ReliefSeq is an attractive tool for inclusion in the suite of tools used for analysis of mRNA-Seq data; it has power to detect both main effects and interaction effects. Software Availability: http://insilico.utulsa.edu/ReliefSeq.php. PMID:24339943
(abstract) A Brief, Selective Review of Thermal Cycling Fatigue in Eutectic Tin-Lead Solder

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Winslow, J. W.; Silveira, C. de

1993-01-01

This paper reviews selected parts of the current literature relevant to thermo-mechanical fatigue mechanisms in eutectic tin-lead solder, and suggests a general outline to account for some observed failures. The field is found to be complex. One recent experimental study finds some failure modes to be sensitive to joint geometry. Attempts to extrapolate from test environments to service environments have had only limited success. Much work remains to be done before fatigue failures in this material can be considered as under practical control.
NASA/ESA CV-990 spacelab simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reller, J. O., Jr.

1976-01-01

Simplified techniques were applied to conduct an extensive spacelab simulation using the airborne laboratory. The scientific payload was selected to perform studies in upper atmospheric physics and infrared astronomy. The mission was successful and provided extensive data relevant to spacelab objectives on overall management of a complex international payload; experiment preparation, testing, and integration; training for proxy operation in space; data handling; multiexperimenter use of common experimenter facilities (telescopes); multiexperiment operation by experiment operators; selection criteria for spacelab experiment operators; and schedule requirements to prepare for such a spacelab mission.
The Washington experience (evaluation and selection of hardware for automated geo-based information systems)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Harding, R. A.

1981-01-01

A Washington geographic information system is described. The system has thrust from two different angles: the proprietary need for information to support the management of five million acres of thrust lands by the Department of Natural Resources, and the need for data over the entire state because of statewide governmental responsibilities. The data base includes information relevant to agricultural, forest, industrial, business, and community growth with emphasis on assembling information useful in setting intermediate and long-range goals. System selection procedures and system feasibility studies are discussed.
Supervisors' experiences of workplace supervision of nursing and paramedic students in rural settings: a scoping review.

PubMed

Trede, Franziska; McEwen, Celina; Kenny, Amanda; O'Meara, Peter

2014-05-01

We present our findings from a scoping review that sought to identify what is known about nursing and paramedic clinical supervisors' experiences of their supervision practices in rural settings. Our interest in these two groups is based on the central role that nurses and paramedics play in rural health care. Scoping reviews support identification of a broad range of literature, including all types of study designs. We adopted Arksey and O'Malley's five-stage approach: identifying the research question; identifying relevant studies; study selection; charting the data; and collating, summarising and reporting results. Databases searched included Academic Search Complete, Springer, Factiva, ProQuest, Ebsco, Informit, VOCEDplus and Scopus. Based on our research question and inclusion and exclusion criteria we selected relevant literature and summarised and reported it using Arksey and O'Malley's framework. The review yielded five articles from four countries: Sweden, Belgium, Malaysia and Australia. From this scoping review, we identified key themes related to supervisors' experiences, including clarification of expectations, support from managers and colleagues, the need for shared understanding between university, students and supervisors and required skills and competence in supervising students. © 2013.

Information Retrieval in Telemedicine: a Comparative Study on Bibliographic Databases

PubMed Central

Ahmadi, Maryam; Sarabi, Roghayeh Ershad; Orak, Roohangiz Jamshidi; Bahaadinbeigy, Kambiz

2015-01-01

Background and Aims: The first step in each systematic review is selection of the most valid database that can provide the highest number of relevant references. This study was carried out to determine the most suitable database for information retrieval in telemedicine field. Methods: Cinhal, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases were searched for telemedicine matched with Education, cost benefit and patient satisfaction. After analysis of the obtained results, the accuracy coefficient, sensitivity, uniqueness and overlap of databases were calculated. Results: The studied databases differed in the number of retrieved articles. PubMed was identified as the most suitable database for retrieving information on the selected topics with the accuracy and sensitivity ratios of 50.7% and 61.4% respectively. The uniqueness percent of retrieved articles ranged from 38% for Pubmed to 3.0% for Cinhal. The highest overlap rate (18.6%) was found between PubMed and Web of Science. Less than 1% of articles have been indexed in all searched databases. Conclusion: PubMed is suggested as the most suitable database for starting search in telemedicine and after PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science can retrieve about 90% of the relevant articles. PMID:26236086
Information Retrieval in Telemedicine: a Comparative Study on Bibliographic Databases.

PubMed

Ahmadi, Maryam; Sarabi, Roghayeh Ershad; Orak, Roohangiz Jamshidi; Bahaadinbeigy, Kambiz

2015-06-01

The first step in each systematic review is selection of the most valid database that can provide the highest number of relevant references. This study was carried out to determine the most suitable database for information retrieval in telemedicine field. Cinhal, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases were searched for telemedicine matched with Education, cost benefit and patient satisfaction. After analysis of the obtained results, the accuracy coefficient, sensitivity, uniqueness and overlap of databases were calculated. The studied databases differed in the number of retrieved articles. PubMed was identified as the most suitable database for retrieving information on the selected topics with the accuracy and sensitivity ratios of 50.7% and 61.4% respectively. The uniqueness percent of retrieved articles ranged from 38% for Pubmed to 3.0% for Cinhal. The highest overlap rate (18.6%) was found between PubMed and Web of Science. Less than 1% of articles have been indexed in all searched databases. PubMed is suggested as the most suitable database for starting search in telemedicine and after PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science can retrieve about 90% of the relevant articles.
Rational Design of in Vivo Tau Tangle-Selective Near-Infrared Fluorophores: Expanding the BODIPY Universe.

PubMed

Verwilst, Peter; Kim, Hye-Ri; Seo, Jinho; Sohn, Nak-Won; Cha, Seung-Yun; Kim, Yeongmin; Maeng, Sungho; Shin, Jung-Won; Kwak, Jong Hwan; Kang, Chulhun; Kim, Jong Seung

2017-09-27

The elucidation of the cause of Alzheimer's disease remains one of the greatest questions in neurodegenerative research. The lack of highly reliable low-cost sensors to study the structural changes in key proteins during the progression of the disease is a contributing factor to this lack of insight. In the current work, we describe the rational design and synthesis of two fluorescent BODIPY-based probes, named Tau 1 and Tau 2. The probes were evaluated on the molecular surface formed by a fibril of the PHF6 ( 306 VQIVYK 311 ) tau fragment using molecular docking studies to provide a potential molecular model to rationalize the selectivity of the new probes as compared to a homologous Aβ-selective probe. The probes were synthesized in a few steps from commercially available starting products and could thus prove to be highly cost-effective. We demonstrated the excellent photophysical properties of the dyes, such as a large Stokes shift and emission in the near-infrared window of the electromagnetic spectrum. The probes demonstrated a high selectivity for self-assembled microtubule-associated protein tau (Tau protein), in both solution and cell-based experiments. Moreover, the administration to an acute murine model of tauopathy clearly revealed the staining of self-assembled hyperphosphorylated tau protein in pathologically relevant hippocampal brain regions. Tau 1 demonstrated efficient blood-brain barrier penetrability and demonstrated a clear selectivity for tau tangles over Aβ plaques, as well as the capacity for in vivo imaging in a transgenic mouse model. The current work could open up avenues for the cost-effective monitoring of the tau protein aggregation state in animal models as well as tissue staining. Furthermore, these fluorophores could serve as the basis for the development of clinically relevant sensors, for example based on PET imaging.
Biologic therapies and bone loss in rheumatoid arthritis.

PubMed

Zerbini, C A F; Clark, P; Mendez-Sanchez, L; Pereira, R M R; Messina, O D; Uña, C R; Adachi, J D; Lems, W F; Cooper, C; Lane, N E

2017-02-01

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common systemic autoimmune disease of unknown cause, characterized by a chronic, symmetric, and progressive inflammatory polyarthritis. One of the most deleterious effects induced by the chronic inflammation of RA is bone loss. During the last 15 years, the better knowledge of the cytokine network involved in RA allowed the development of potent inhibitors of the inflammatory process classified as biological DMARDs. These new drugs are very effective in the inhibition of inflammation, but there are only few studies regarding their role in bone protection. The principal aim of this review was to show the evidence of the principal biologic therapies and bone loss in RA, focusing on their effects on bone mineral density, bone turnover markers, and fragility fractures. Using the PICOST methodology, two coauthors (PC, LM-S) conducted the search using the following MESH terms: rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, clinical trials, TNF- antagonists, infliximab, adalimumab, etanercept, certolizumab, golimumab, IL-6 antagonists, IL-1 antagonists, abatacept, tocilizumab, rituximab, bone mineral density, bone markers, and fractures. The search was conducted electronically and manually from the following databases: Medline and Science Direct. The search period included articles from 2003 to 2015. The selection included only original adult human research written in English. Titles were retrieved and the same two authors independently selected the relevant studies for a full text. The retrieved selected studies were also reviewed completing the search for relevant articles. The first search included 904 titles from which 253 titles were selected. The agreement on the selection among researchers resulted in a Kappa statistic of 0.95 (p < 0.000). Only 248 abstracts evaluated were included in the acronym PICOST. The final selection included only 28 studies, derived from the systematic search. Additionally, a manual search in the bibliography of the selected articles was made and included into the text and into the section of "small molecules of new agents." Treatment with biologic drugs is associated with the decrease in bone loss. Studies with anti-TNF blocking agents show preservation or increase in spine and hip BMD and also a better profile of bone markers. Most of these studies were performed with infliximab. Only three epidemiological studies analyzed the effect on fractures after anti-TNF blocking agent's treatment. IL-6 blocking agents also showed improvement in localized bone loss not seen with anti-TNF agents. There are a few studies with rituximab and abatacept. Although several studies reported favorable actions of biologic therapies on bone protection, there are still unmet needs for studies regarding their actions on the risk of bone fractures.
Selective decontamination of the digestive tract in gastrointestinal surgery: useful in infection prevention? A systematic review.

PubMed

Abis, Gabor S A; Stockmann, Hein B A C; van Egmond, Marjolein; Bonjer, Hendrik J; Vandenbroucke-Grauls, Christina M J E; Oosterling, Steven J

2013-12-01

Gastrointestinal surgery is associated with a high incidence of infectious complications. Selective decontamination of the digestive tract is an antimicrobial prophylaxis regimen that aims to eradicate gastrointestinal carriage of potentially pathogenic microorganisms and represents an adjunct to regular prophylaxis in surgery. Relevant studies were identified using bibliographic searches of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane database (period from 1970 to November 1, 2012). Only studies investigating selective decontamination of the digestive tract in gastrointestinal surgery were included. Two randomized clinical trials and one retrospective case-control trial showed significant benefit in terms of infectious complications and anastomotic leakage in colorectal surgery. Two randomized controlled trials in esophageal surgery and two randomized clinical trials in gastric surgery reported lower levels of infectious complications. Selective decontamination of the digestive tract reduces infections following esophageal, gastric, and colorectal surgeries and also appears to have beneficial effects on anastomotic leakage in colorectal surgery. We believe these results provide the basis for a large multicenter prospective study to investigate the role of selective decontamination of the digestive tract in colorectal surgery.
A cross-country comparison of intensive care physicians' beliefs about their transfusion behaviour: a qualitative study using the Theoretical Domains Framework.

PubMed

Islam, Rafat; Tinmouth, Alan T; Francis, Jill J; Brehaut, Jamie C; Born, Jennifer; Stockton, Charlotte; Stanworth, Simon J; Eccles, Martin P; Cuthbertson, Brian H; Hyde, Chris; Grimshaw, Jeremy M

2012-09-21

Evidence of variations in red blood cell transfusion practices have been reported in a wide range of clinical settings. Parallel studies in Canada and the United Kingdom were designed to explore transfusion behaviour in intensive care physicians. The aim of this paper is three-fold: first, to explore beliefs that influence Canadian intensive care physicians' transfusion behaviour; second, to systematically select relevant theories and models using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to inform a future predictive study; and third, to compare its results with the UK study. Ten intensive care unit (ICU) physicians throughout Canada were interviewed. Physicians' responses were coded into theoretical domains, and specific beliefs were generated for each response. Theoretical domains relevant to behaviour change were identified, and specific constructs from the relevant domains were used to select psychological theories. The results from Canada and the United Kingdom were compared. Seven theoretical domains populated by 31 specific beliefs were identified as relevant to the target behaviour. The domains Beliefs about capabilities (confident to not transfuse if patients' clinical condition is stable), Beliefs about consequences (positive beliefs of reducing infection and saving resources and negative beliefs about risking patients' clinical outcome and potentially more work), Social influences (transfusion decision is influenced by team members and patients' relatives), and Behavioural regulation (wide range of approaches to encourage restrictive transfusion) that were identified in the UK study were also relevant in the Canadian context. Three additional domains, Knowledge (it requires more evidence to support restrictive transfusion), Social/professional role and identity (conflicting beliefs about not adhering to guidelines, referring to evidence, believing restrictive transfusion as professional standard, and believing that guideline is important for other professionals), and Motivation and goals (opposing beliefs about the importance of restrictive transfusion and compatibility with other goals), were also identified in this study. Similar to the UK study, the Theory of Planned Behaviour, Social Cognitive Theory, Operant Learning Theory, Action Planning, and Knowledge-Attitude-Behaviour model were identified as potentially relevant theories and models for further study. Personal project analysis was added to the Canadian study to explore the Motivation and goals domain in further detail. A wide range of beliefs was identified by the Canadian ICU physicians as likely to influence their transfusion behaviour. We were able to demonstrate similar though not identical results in a cross-country comparison. Designing targeted behaviour-change interventions based on unique beliefs identified by physicians from two countries are more likely to encourage restrictive transfusion in ICU physicians in respective countries. This needs to be tested in future prospective clinical trials.
A cross-country comparison of intensive care physicians’ beliefs about their transfusion behaviour: A qualitative study using the theoretical domains framework

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Evidence of variations in red blood cell transfusion practices have been reported in a wide range of clinical settings. Parallel studies in Canada and the United Kingdom were designed to explore transfusion behaviour in intensive care physicians. The aim of this paper is three-fold: first, to explore beliefs that influence Canadian intensive care physicians’ transfusion behaviour; second, to systematically select relevant theories and models using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to inform a future predictive study; and third, to compare its results with the UK study. Methods Ten intensive care unit (ICU) physicians throughout Canada were interviewed. Physicians’ responses were coded into theoretical domains, and specific beliefs were generated for each response. Theoretical domains relevant to behaviour change were identified, and specific constructs from the relevant domains were used to select psychological theories. The results from Canada and the United Kingdom were compared. Results Seven theoretical domains populated by 31 specific beliefs were identified as relevant to the target behaviour. The domains Beliefs about capabilities (confident to not transfuse if patients’ clinical condition is stable), Beliefs about consequences (positive beliefs of reducing infection and saving resources and negative beliefs about risking patients’ clinical outcome and potentially more work), Social influences (transfusion decision is influenced by team members and patients’ relatives), and Behavioural regulation (wide range of approaches to encourage restrictive transfusion) that were identified in the UK study were also relevant in the Canadian context. Three additional domains, Knowledge (it requires more evidence to support restrictive transfusion), Social/professional role and identity (conflicting beliefs about not adhering to guidelines, referring to evidence, believing restrictive transfusion as professional standard, and believing that guideline is important for other professionals), and Motivation and goals (opposing beliefs about the importance of restrictive transfusion and compatibility with other goals), were also identified in this study. Similar to the UK study, the Theory of Planned Behaviour, Social Cognitive Theory, Operant Learning Theory, Action Planning, and Knowledge-Attitude-Behaviour model were identified as potentially relevant theories and models for further study. Personal project analysis was added to the Canadian study to explore the Motivation and goals domain in further detail. Conclusions A wide range of beliefs was identified by the Canadian ICU physicians as likely to influence their transfusion behaviour. We were able to demonstrate similar though not identical results in a cross-country comparison. Designing targeted behaviour-change interventions based on unique beliefs identified by physicians from two countries are more likely to encourage restrictive transfusion in ICU physicians in respective countries. This needs to be tested in future prospective clinical trials. PMID:22999460
Spatially Distributed Dendritic Resonance Selectively Filters Synaptic Input

PubMed Central

Segev, Idan; Shamma, Shihab

2014-01-01

An important task performed by a neuron is the selection of relevant inputs from among thousands of synapses impinging on the dendritic tree. Synaptic plasticity enables this by strenghtening a subset of synapses that are, presumably, functionally relevant to the neuron. A different selection mechanism exploits the resonance of the dendritic membranes to preferentially filter synaptic inputs based on their temporal rates. A widely held view is that a neuron has one resonant frequency and thus can pass through one rate. Here we demonstrate through mathematical analyses and numerical simulations that dendritic resonance is inevitably a spatially distributed property; and therefore the resonance frequency varies along the dendrites, and thus endows neurons with a powerful spatiotemporal selection mechanism that is sensitive both to the dendritic location and the temporal structure of the incoming synaptic inputs. PMID:25144440
The Effect of Nizatidine, a MATE2K Selective Inhibitor, on the Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Metformin in Healthy Volunteers

PubMed Central

Morrissey, Kari M.; Stocker, Sophie L.; Chen, Eugene C.; Castro, Richard A.; Brett, Claire M.; Giacomini, Kathleen M.

2015-01-01

Background and Objectives In the proximal tubule, basic drugs are transported from the renal cells to the tubule lumen through the concerted action of the H+/organic cation antiporters, multidrug and toxin extrusion 1 (MATE1) and 2K (MATE2K). Dual inhibitors of the MATE transporters have been shown to have a clinically relevant effect on the pharmacokinetics of concomitantly administered basic drugs. However, the clinical impact of selective renal organic cation transport inhibition on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of basic drugs, such as metformin, is unknown. This study sought to identify a selective MATE2K inhibitor in vitro and to determine its clinical impact on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of metformin in healthy subjects. Methods A strategic cell-based screen of 71 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medications was conducted to identify selective inhibitors of renal organic cation transporters that are capable of inhibiting at clinically relevant concentrations. From this screen, nizatidine was identified and predicted to be a clinically potent and selective inhibitor of MATE2K-mediated transport. The effect of nizatidine on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of metformin was evaluated in 12 healthy volunteers in an open-label, randomized, two-phase crossover drug-drug interaction (DDI) study. Results In healthy volunteers, the MATE2K-selective inhibitor, nizatidine, significantly increased the apparent volume of distribution, half-life and hypoglycemic activity of metformin. However, despite achieving unbound maximum concentrations greater than the in vitro inhibition potency (IC50) of MATE2K-mediated transport, nizatidine did not affect the renal clearance or net secretory clearance of metformin. Conclusion This study demonstrates that a selective inhibition of MATE2K by nizatidine, affected the apparent volume of distribution, tissue levels and peripheral effects of metformin. However, nizatidine did not alter systemic concentrations or the renal clearance of metformin, suggesting that specific MATE2K inhibition may not be sufficient to cause renal DDIs with basic drugs. PMID:26507723
Treating children with inflammatory bowel disease: Current and new perspectives

PubMed Central

Guariso, Graziella; Gasparetto, Marco

2017-01-01

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gut characterised by alternating periods of remission and relapse. Whilst the mechanism underlying this disease is yet to be fully understood, old and newer generation treatments can only target selected pathways of this complex inflammatory process. This narrative review aims to provide an update on the most recent advances in treatment of paediatric IBD. A MEDLINE search was conducted using “paediatric inflammatory bowel disease”, “paediatric Crohn’s disease”, “paediatric ulcerative colitis”, “treatment”, “therapy”, “immunosuppressant”, “biologic”, “monitoring” and “biomarkers” as key words. Clinical trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses published between 2014 and 2016 were selected. Studies referring to earlier periods were also considered in case the data was relevant to our scope. Major advances have been achieved in monitoring the individual metabolism, toxicity and response to relevant medications in IBD including thiopurines and biologics. New biologics acting on novel mechanisms such as selective interference with lymphocyte trafficking are emerging treatment options. Current research is investing in the development of reliable prognostic biomarkers, aiming to move towards personalised treatments targeted to individual patients. PMID:28852307
Attention-like processes in insects

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Attention is fundamentally important for sensory systems to focus on behaviourally relevant stimuli. It has therefore been an important field of study in human psychology and neuroscience. Primates, however, are not the only animals that might benefit from attention-like processes. Other animals, including insects, also have to use their senses and select one among many stimuli to forage, avoid predators and find mates. They have evolved different mechanisms to reduce the information processed by their brains to focus on only relevant stimuli. What are the mechanisms used by insects to selectively attend to visual and auditory stimuli? Do these attention-like mechanisms achieve the same functions as they do in primates? To investigate these questions, I use an established framework for investigating attention in non-human animals that proposes four fundamental components of attention: salience filters, competitive selection, top-down sensitivity control and working memory. I discuss evidence for each of these component processes in insects and compare the characteristics of these processes in insects to what we know from primates. Finally, I highlight important outstanding questions about insect attention that need to be addressed for us to understand the differences and similarities between vertebrate and insect attention. PMID:27852803
Attention-like processes in insects.

PubMed

Nityananda, Vivek

2016-11-16

Attention is fundamentally important for sensory systems to focus on behaviourally relevant stimuli. It has therefore been an important field of study in human psychology and neuroscience. Primates, however, are not the only animals that might benefit from attention-like processes. Other animals, including insects, also have to use their senses and select one among many stimuli to forage, avoid predators and find mates. They have evolved different mechanisms to reduce the information processed by their brains to focus on only relevant stimuli. What are the mechanisms used by insects to selectively attend to visual and auditory stimuli? Do these attention-like mechanisms achieve the same functions as they do in primates? To investigate these questions, I use an established framework for investigating attention in non-human animals that proposes four fundamental components of attention: salience filters, competitive selection, top-down sensitivity control and working memory. I discuss evidence for each of these component processes in insects and compare the characteristics of these processes in insects to what we know from primates. Finally, I highlight important outstanding questions about insect attention that need to be addressed for us to understand the differences and similarities between vertebrate and insect attention. © 2016 The Author(s).
Stress and Memory: A Selective Review on Recent Developments in the Understanding of Stress Hormone Effects on Memory and Their Clinical Relevance.

PubMed

Wolf, O T; Atsak, P; de Quervain, D J; Roozendaal, B; Wingenfeld, K

2016-08-01

Stress causes a neuroendocrine response cascade, leading to the release of catecholamines and glucocorticoids (GCs). GCs influence learning and memory by acting on mineralocorticoid (MR) and glucocorticoid (GR) receptors. Typically, GCs enhance the consolidation of memory processing at the same time as impairing the retrieval of memory of emotionally arousing experiences. The present selective review addresses four recent developments in this area. First, the role of the endocannabinoid system in mediating the rapid, nongenomic effects of GCs on memory is illustrated in rodents. Subsequently, studies on the impact of the selective stimulation of MRs on different memory processes in humans are summarised. Next, a series of human experiments on the impact of stress or GC treatment on fear extinction and fear reconsolidation is presented. Finally, the clinical relevance of the effects of exogenous GC administration is highlighted by the description of patients with anxiety disorders who demonstrate an enhancement of extinction-based therapies by GC treatment. The review highlights the substantial progress made in our mechanistic understanding of the memory-modulating properties of GCs, as well as their clinical potential. © 2015 British Society for Neuroendocrinology.
34 CFR 1100.20 - How is a fellow selected?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... LITERACY NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LITERACY: LITERACY LEADER FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM How Does the Director Award a... literacy field to rank applications according to the selection criteria in § 1100.21, and then provide the... order, recommendations by the board, and any other information relevant to any of the selection criteria...
34 CFR 1100.20 - How is a fellow selected?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... LITERACY NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LITERACY: LITERACY LEADER FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM How Does the Director Award a... literacy field to rank applications according to the selection criteria in § 1100.21, and then provide the... order, recommendations by the board, and any other information relevant to any of the selection criteria...
Fast and nondestructive determination of protein content in rapeseeds (Brassica napus L.) using Fourier transform infrared photoacoustic spectroscopy (FTIR-PAS).

PubMed

Lu, Yuzhen; Du, Changwen; Yu, Changbing; Zhou, Jianmin

2014-08-01

Fast and non-destructive determination of rapeseed protein content carries significant implications in rapeseed production. This study presented the first attempt of using Fourier transform mid-infrared photoacoustic spectroscopy (FTIR-PAS) to quantify protein content of rapeseed. The full-spectrum model was first built using partial least squares (PLS). Interval selection methods including interval partial least squares (iPLS), synergy interval partial least squares (siPLS), backward elimination interval partial least squares (biPLS) and dynamic backward elimination interval partial least squares (dyn-biPLS) were then employed to select the relevant band or band combination for PLS modeling. The full-spectrum PLS model achieved an ratio of prediction to deviation (RPD) of 2.047. In comparison, all interval selection methods produced better results than full-spectrum modeling. siPLS achieved the best predictive accuracy with an RPD of 3.215 when the spectrum was sectioned into 25 intervals, and two intervals (1198-1335 and 1614-1753 cm(-1) ) were selected. iPLS excelled biPLS and dyn-biPLS, and dyn-biPLS performed slightly better than biPLS. FTIR-PAS was verified as a promising analytical tool to quantify rapeseed protein content. Interval selection could extract the relevant individual band or synergy band associated with the sample constituent of interest, and then improve the prediction accuracy of the full-spectrum model. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.
Development of modelling method selection tool for health services management: from problem structuring methods to modelling and simulation methods.

PubMed

Jun, Gyuchan T; Morris, Zoe; Eldabi, Tillal; Harper, Paul; Naseer, Aisha; Patel, Brijesh; Clarkson, John P

2011-05-19

There is an increasing recognition that modelling and simulation can assist in the process of designing health care policies, strategies and operations. However, the current use is limited and answers to questions such as what methods to use and when remain somewhat underdeveloped. The aim of this study is to provide a mechanism for decision makers in health services planning and management to compare a broad range of modelling and simulation methods so that they can better select and use them or better commission relevant modelling and simulation work. This paper proposes a modelling and simulation method comparison and selection tool developed from a comprehensive literature review, the research team's extensive expertise and inputs from potential users. Twenty-eight different methods were identified, characterised by their relevance to different application areas, project life cycle stages, types of output and levels of insight, and four input resources required (time, money, knowledge and data). The characterisation is presented in matrix forms to allow quick comparison and selection. This paper also highlights significant knowledge gaps in the existing literature when assessing the applicability of particular approaches to health services management, where modelling and simulation skills are scarce let alone money and time. A modelling and simulation method comparison and selection tool is developed to assist with the selection of methods appropriate to supporting specific decision making processes. In particular it addresses the issue of which method is most appropriate to which specific health services management problem, what the user might expect to be obtained from the method, and what is required to use the method. In summary, we believe the tool adds value to the scarce existing literature on methods comparison and selection.
Linking attentional processes and conceptual problem solving: visual cues facilitate the automaticity of extracting relevant information from diagrams

PubMed Central

Rouinfar, Amy; Agra, Elise; Larson, Adam M.; Rebello, N. Sanjay; Loschky, Lester C.

2014-01-01

This study investigated links between visual attention processes and conceptual problem solving. This was done by overlaying visual cues on conceptual physics problem diagrams to direct participants’ attention to relevant areas to facilitate problem solving. Participants (N = 80) individually worked through four problem sets, each containing a diagram, while their eye movements were recorded. Each diagram contained regions that were relevant to solving the problem correctly and separate regions related to common incorrect responses. Problem sets contained an initial problem, six isomorphic training problems, and a transfer problem. The cued condition saw visual cues overlaid on the training problems. Participants’ verbal responses were used to determine their accuracy. This study produced two major findings. First, short duration visual cues which draw attention to solution-relevant information and aid in the organizing and integrating of it, facilitate both immediate problem solving and generalization of that ability to new problems. Thus, visual cues can facilitate re-representing a problem and overcoming impasse, enabling a correct solution. Importantly, these cueing effects on problem solving did not involve the solvers’ attention necessarily embodying the solution to the problem, but were instead caused by solvers attending to and integrating relevant information in the problems into a solution path. Second, this study demonstrates that when such cues are used across multiple problems, solvers can automatize the extraction of problem-relevant information extraction. These results suggest that low-level attentional selection processes provide a necessary gateway for relevant information to be used in problem solving, but are generally not sufficient for correct problem solving. Instead, factors that lead a solver to an impasse and to organize and integrate problem information also greatly facilitate arriving at correct solutions. PMID:25324804
Linking attentional processes and conceptual problem solving: visual cues facilitate the automaticity of extracting relevant information from diagrams.

PubMed

Rouinfar, Amy; Agra, Elise; Larson, Adam M; Rebello, N Sanjay; Loschky, Lester C

2014-01-01

This study investigated links between visual attention processes and conceptual problem solving. This was done by overlaying visual cues on conceptual physics problem diagrams to direct participants' attention to relevant areas to facilitate problem solving. Participants (N = 80) individually worked through four problem sets, each containing a diagram, while their eye movements were recorded. Each diagram contained regions that were relevant to solving the problem correctly and separate regions related to common incorrect responses. Problem sets contained an initial problem, six isomorphic training problems, and a transfer problem. The cued condition saw visual cues overlaid on the training problems. Participants' verbal responses were used to determine their accuracy. This study produced two major findings. First, short duration visual cues which draw attention to solution-relevant information and aid in the organizing and integrating of it, facilitate both immediate problem solving and generalization of that ability to new problems. Thus, visual cues can facilitate re-representing a problem and overcoming impasse, enabling a correct solution. Importantly, these cueing effects on problem solving did not involve the solvers' attention necessarily embodying the solution to the problem, but were instead caused by solvers attending to and integrating relevant information in the problems into a solution path. Second, this study demonstrates that when such cues are used across multiple problems, solvers can automatize the extraction of problem-relevant information extraction. These results suggest that low-level attentional selection processes provide a necessary gateway for relevant information to be used in problem solving, but are generally not sufficient for correct problem solving. Instead, factors that lead a solver to an impasse and to organize and integrate problem information also greatly facilitate arriving at correct solutions.
Relevance of Google-customized search engine vs. CISMeF quality-controlled health gateway.

PubMed

Gehanno, Jean-François; Kerdelhue, Gaétan; Sakji, Saoussen; Massari, Philippe; Joubert, Michel; Darmoni, Stéfan J

2009-01-01

CISMeF (acronym for Catalog and Index of French Language Health Resources on the Internet) is a quality-controlled health gateway conceived to catalog and index the most important and quality-controlled sources of institutional health information in French. The goal of this study is to compare the relevance of results provided by this gateway from a small set of documents selected and described by human experts to those provided by a search engine from a large set of automatically indexed and ranked resources. The Google-Customized search engine (CSE) was used. The evaluation was made using the 10th first results of 15 queries and two blinded physician evaluators. There was no significant difference between the relevance of information retrieval in CISMeF and Google CSE. In conclusion, automatic indexing does not lead to lower relevance than a manual MeSH indexing and may help to cope with the increasing number of references to be indexed in a controlled health quality gateway.

Simulation Testing for Selection of Critical Care Medicine Trainees. A Pilot Feasibility Study.

PubMed

Cocciante, Adriano G; Nguyen, Martin N; Marane, Candida F; Panayiotou, Anita E; Karahalios, Amalia; Beer, Janet A; Johal, Navroop; Morris, John; Turner, Stacy; Hessian, Elizabeth C

2016-04-01

Selection of physicians into anesthesiology, intensive care, and emergency medicine training has traditionally relied on evaluation of curriculum vitae, letters of recommendation, and interviews, despite these methods being poor predictors of subsequent workplace performance. In this study, we evaluated the feasibility and face validity of incorporating assessment of nontechnical skills in simulation and personality traits into an existing junior doctor selection framework. Candidates short-listed for a critical care residency position were invited to participate in the study. On the interview day, consenting candidates participated in a simulation scenario and debriefing and completed a personality test (16 Personality Factor Questionnaire) and a survey. Timing of participants' progression through the stations and faculty staff numbers were evaluated. Nontechnical skills were evaluated and candidates ranked using the Ottawa Crisis Resource Management Global Rating Scale (Ottawa GRS). Nontechnical skills ranking and traditional selection method ranking were compared using the concordance correlation coefficient. Interrater reliability was assessed using the concordance correlation coefficient. Thirteen of 20 eligible participants consented to study inclusion. All participants completed the necessary stations without significant time delays. Eighteen staff members were required to conduct interviews, simulation, debriefing, and personality testing. Participants rated the simulation station to be acceptable, fair, and relevant and as providing an opportunity to demonstrate abilities. Personality testing was rated less fair, less relevant, and less acceptable, and as giving less opportunity to demonstrate abilities. Participants reported that simulation was equally as stressful as the interview, whereas personality testing was rated less stressful. Assessors rated both personality testing and simulation as acceptable and able to provide additional information about candidates. The Ottawa GRS showed moderate interrater concordance. There was moderate concordance between rankings based on traditional selection methods and Ottawa GRS rankings (ρ = 0.52; 95% confidence interval, -0.02 to 0.82; P = 0.06). A multistation selection process involving interviews, simulation, and personality testing is feasible and has face validity. A potential barrier to adoption is the high number of faculty required to conduct the process.
Evaluation of a Partial Genome Screening of Two Asthma Susceptibility Regions Using Bayesian Network Based Bayesian Multilevel Analysis of Relevance

PubMed Central

Antal, Péter; Kiszel, Petra Sz.; Gézsi, András; Hadadi, Éva; Virág, Viktor; Hajós, Gergely; Millinghoffer, András; Nagy, Adrienne; Kiss, András; Semsei, Ágnes F.; Temesi, Gergely; Melegh, Béla; Kisfali, Péter; Széll, Márta; Bikov, András; Gálffy, Gabriella; Tamási, Lilla; Falus, András; Szalai, Csaba

2012-01-01

Genetic studies indicate high number of potential factors related to asthma. Based on earlier linkage analyses we selected the 11q13 and 14q22 asthma susceptibility regions, for which we designed a partial genome screening study using 145 SNPs in 1201 individuals (436 asthmatic children and 765 controls). The results were evaluated with traditional frequentist methods and we applied a new statistical method, called Bayesian network based Bayesian multilevel analysis of relevance (BN-BMLA). This method uses Bayesian network representation to provide detailed characterization of the relevance of factors, such as joint significance, the type of dependency, and multi-target aspects. We estimated posteriors for these relations within the Bayesian statistical framework, in order to estimate the posteriors whether a variable is directly relevant or its association is only mediated. With frequentist methods one SNP (rs3751464 in the FRMD6 gene) provided evidence for an association with asthma (OR = 1.43(1.2–1.8); p = 3×10−4). The possible role of the FRMD6 gene in asthma was also confirmed in an animal model and human asthmatics. In the BN-BMLA analysis altogether 5 SNPs in 4 genes were found relevant in connection with asthma phenotype: PRPF19 on chromosome 11, and FRMD6, PTGER2 and PTGDR on chromosome 14. In a subsequent step a partial dataset containing rhinitis and further clinical parameters was used, which allowed the analysis of relevance of SNPs for asthma and multiple targets. These analyses suggested that SNPs in the AHNAK and MS4A2 genes were indirectly associated with asthma. This paper indicates that BN-BMLA explores the relevant factors more comprehensively than traditional statistical methods and extends the scope of strong relevance based methods to include partial relevance, global characterization of relevance and multi-target relevance. PMID:22432035
Identifying the barriers and enablers for a triage, treatment, and transfer clinical intervention to manage acute stroke patients in the emergency department: a systematic review using the theoretical domains framework (TDF).

PubMed

Craig, Louise E; McInnes, Elizabeth; Taylor, Natalie; Grimley, Rohan; Cadilhac, Dominique A; Considine, Julie; Middleton, Sandy

2016-11-28

Clinical guidelines recommend that assessment and management of patients with stroke commences early including in emergency departments (ED). To inform the development of an implementation intervention targeted in ED, we conducted a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies to identify relevant barriers and enablers to six key clinical behaviours in acute stroke care: appropriate triage, thrombolysis administration, monitoring and management of temperature, blood glucose levels, and of swallowing difficulties and transfer of stroke patients in ED. Studies of any design, conducted in ED, where barriers or enablers based on primary data were identified for one or more of these six clinical behaviours. Major biomedical databases (CINAHL, OVID SP EMBASE, OVID SP MEDLINE) were searched using comprehensive search strategies. The barriers and enablers were categorised using the theoretical domains framework (TDF). The behaviour change technique (BCT) that best aligned to the strategy each enabler represented was selected for each of the reported enablers using a standard taxonomy. Five qualitative studies and four surveys out of the 44 studies identified met the selection criteria. The majority of barriers reported corresponded with the TDF domains of "environmental, context and resources" (such as stressful working conditions or lack of resources) and "knowledge" (such as lack of guideline awareness or familiarity). The majority of enablers corresponded with the domains of "knowledge" (such as education for physicians on the calculated risk of haemorrhage following intravenous thrombolysis [tPA]) and "skills" (such as providing opportunity to treat stroke cases of varying complexity). The total number of BCTs assigned was 18. The BCTs most frequently assigned to the reported enablers were "focus on past success" and "information about health consequences." Barriers and enablers for the delivery of key evidence-based protocols in an emergency setting have been identified and interpreted within a relevant theoretical framework. This new knowledge has since been used to select specific BCTs to implement evidence-based care in an ED setting. It is recommended that findings from similar future reviews adopt a similar theoretical approach. In particular, the use of existing matrices to assist the selection of relevant BCTs.
Justification of parameters and selection of equipment for laboratory researches of a rammer's operating element dynamics in a soil foundation of a tank for oil and oil products storage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gruzin, A. V.; Gruzin, V. V.; Shalay, V. V.

2017-08-01

The development of technology for a directional soil compaction of tank foundations for oil and oil products storage is a relevant problem which solution will enable simultaneously provide required operational characteristics of a soil foundation and reduce time and material costs to prepare the foundation. The impact dynamics of rammers' operating elements on the soil foundation is planned to specify in the course of laboratory studies. A specialized technique is developed to justify the parameters and select the equipment for laboratory researches. The usage of this technique enabled us to calculate dimensions of the models, of a test bench and specifications of the recording equipment, and a lighting system. The necessary equipment for laboratory studies was selected. Preliminary laboratory tests were carried out. The estimate of accuracy for planned laboratory studies was given.
A systematic review of stakeholder views of selection methods for medical schools admission.

PubMed

Kelly, M E; Patterson, F; O'Flynn, S; Mulligan, J; Murphy, A W

2018-06-15

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the literature with respect to stakeholder views of selection methods for medical school admissions. An electronic search of nine databases was conducted between January 2000-July 2014. Two reviewers independently assessed all titles (n = 1017) and retained abstracts (n = 233) for relevance. Methodological quality of quantitative papers was assessed using the MERSQI instrument. The overall quality of evidence in this field was low. Evidence was synthesised in a narrative review. Applicants support interviews, and multiple mini interviews (MMIs). There is emerging evidence that situational judgement tests (SJTs) and selection centres (SCs) are also well regarded, but aptitude tests less so. Selectors endorse the use of interviews in general and in particular MMIs judging them to be fair, relevant and appropriate, with emerging evidence of similarly positive reactions to SCs. Aptitude tests and academic records were valued in decisions of whom to call to interview. Medical students prefer interviews based selection to cognitive aptitude tests. They are unconvinced about the transparency and veracity of written applications. Perceptions of organisational justice, which describe views of fairness in organisational processes, appear to be highly influential on stakeholders' views of the acceptability of selection methods. In particular procedural justice (perceived fairness of selection tools in terms of job relevance and characteristics of the test) and distributive justice (perceived fairness of selection outcomes in terms of equal opportunity and equity), appear to be important considerations when deciding on acceptability of selection methods. There were significant gaps with respect to both key stakeholder groups and the range of selection tools assessed. Notwithstanding the observed limitations in the quality of research in this field, there appears to be broad concordance of views on the various selection methods, across the diverse stakeholders groups. This review highlights the need for better standards, more appropriate methodologies and for broadening the scope of stakeholder research.
Simultaneous analysis of insect repellent DEET, sunscreen oxybenzone and five relevant metabolites by reversed-phase HPLC with UV detection: application to an in vivo study in a piglet model.

PubMed

Kasichayanula, Sreeneeranj; House, James D; Wang, Tao; Gu, Xiaochen

2005-08-05

N,N-Diethyl-m-toluamide (DEET) and oxybenzone are two essential active ingredients in insect repellent and sunscreen preparations. We developed and validated a simple, sensitive, and selective HPLC assay to simultaneously measure DEET, oxybenzone and five primary metabolites of DEET and oxybenzone in biological samples including plasma, urine and skin strips. The compounds were separated on a reversed-phase C18 column using three-stage gradient steps with methanol and water. DEET and two relevant metabolites were detected at 254 nm, while oxybenzone and three relevant metabolites were detected at 289 nm. The limit of detection was 0.6 ng for DEET and 0.5 ng for oxybenzone, respectively. The developed method was further applied to analyze various biological samples from an in vivo animal study that evaluated concurrent use of commercially available insect repellent and sunscreen preparations.
RELEVANCE OF WHOLE BODY VIBRATION EXERCISE IN SPORT: A SHORT REVIEW WITH SOCCER, DIVER AND COMBAT SPORT.

PubMed

Morel, Danielle Soares; Dionello, Carla da Fontoura; Moreira-Marconi, Eloá; Brandão-Sobrinho-Neto, Samuel; Paineiras-Domingos, Laisa Liane; Souza, Patrícia Lopes; Sá-Caputo, Danúbia da Cunha; Dias, Glenda; Figueiredo, Claudia; Carmo, Roberto Carlos Resende; Paiva, Patrícia de Castro; Sousa-Gonçalves, Cintia Renata; Kütter, Cristiane Ribeiro; Guedes-Aguiar, Eliane de Oliveira; Cloak, Ross; Bernardo-Filho, Mario

2017-01-01

Whole body vibration exercise (WBVE) has been used as a safe and accessible exercise and important reviews have been published about the use of this exercise to manage diseases and to improve physical conditions of athletes The aim of this paper is to highlight the relevance of WBVE to soccer players, divers and combat athletes. This study was made through a systematic review of publications involving WBVE and the selected sports in two databases (Pubmed and PEDRo). It were identified 10 studies involving WBVE and sports (6 of soccer, 2 of diving and 2 of sport combat) with 156 subjects (80 soccer players, 32 divers and 44 combat athletes), with age from 17 to 44 years old. The use of WBVE has proven to be a safe and useful strategy to improve the physical conditions of players of different sports. These findings may have clinical relevance and should be considered as a strategy to be used to try improve the physical conditions of players.
Policy-Making Theory as an Analytical Framework in Policy Analysis: Implications for Research Design and Professional Advocacy.

PubMed

Sheldon, Michael R

2016-01-01

Policy studies are a recent addition to the American Physical Therapy Association's Research Agenda and are critical to our understanding of various federal, state, local, and organizational policies on the provision of physical therapist services across the continuum of care. Policy analyses that help to advance the profession's various policy agendas will require relevant theoretical frameworks to be credible. The purpose of this perspective article is to: (1) demonstrate the use of a policy-making theory as an analytical framework in a policy analysis and (2) discuss how sound policy analysis can assist physical therapists in becoming more effective change agents, policy advocates, and partners with other relevant stakeholder groups. An exploratory study of state agency policy responses to address work-related musculoskeletal disorders is provided as a contemporary example to illustrate key points and to demonstrate the importance of selecting a relevant analytical framework based on the context of the policy issue under investigation. © 2016 American Physical Therapy Association.
Hemisphere division and its effect on selective attention: a generality examination of Lavie's load theory.

PubMed

Nishimura, Ritsuko; Yoshizaki, Kazuhito; Kato, Kimiko; Hatta, Takeshi

2009-01-01

The present study examined the role of visual presentation mode (unilateral vs. bilateral visual fields) on attentional modulation. We examined whether or not the presentation mode affects the compatibility effect, using a paradigm involving two task-relevant letter arrays. Sixteen participants identified a target letter among task-relevant letters while ignoring either a compatible or incompatible distracter letter that was presented to both hemispheres. Two letters arrays were presented to visual fields, either unilaterally or bilaterally. Results indicated that the compatibility effect was greater in bilateral than in unilateral visual field conditions. Findings support the assumption that the two hemispheres have separate attentional resources.
7 CFR 3430.33 - Selection of reviewers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... education fields taking into account the following factors: (1) Level of relevant formal scientific, technical education, and extension experience of the individual, as well as the extent to which an individual is engaged in relevant research, education, or extension activities. (2) Need to include as...
Ancillary health effects of climate mitigation scenarios as drivers of policy uptake: a review of air quality, transportation and diet co-benefits modeling studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chang, Kelly M.; Hess, Jeremy J.; Balbus, John M.; Buonocore, Jonathan J.; Cleveland, David A.; Grabow, Maggie L.; Neff, Roni; Saari, Rebecca K.; Tessum, Christopher W.; Wilkinson, Paul; Woodward, Alistair; Ebi, Kristie L.

2017-11-01

Background: Significant mitigation efforts beyond the Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) coming out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement are required to avoid warming of 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures. Health co-benefits represent selected near term, positive consequences of climate policies that can offset mitigation costs in the short term before the beneficial impacts of those policies on the magnitude of climate change are evident. The diversity of approaches to modeling mitigation options and their health effects inhibits meta-analyses and syntheses of results useful in policy-making. Methods/Design: We evaluated the range of methods and choices in modeling health co-benefits of climate mitigation to identify opportunities for increased consistency and collaboration that could better inform policy-making. We reviewed studies quantifying the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation related to air quality, transportation, and diet published since the 2009 Lancet Commission ‘Managing the health effects of climate change’ through January 2017. We documented approaches, methods, scenarios, health-related exposures, and health outcomes. Results/Synthesis: Forty-two studies met the inclusion criteria. Air quality, transportation, and diet scenarios ranged from specific policy proposals to hypothetical scenarios, and from global recommendations to stakeholder-informed local guidance. Geographic and temporal scope as well as validity of scenarios determined policy relevance. More recent studies tended to use more sophisticated methods to address complexity in the relevant policy system. Discussion: Most studies indicated significant, nearer term, local ancillary health benefits providing impetus for policy uptake and net cost savings. However, studies were more suited to describing the interaction of climate policy and health and the magnitude of potential outcomes than to providing specific accurate estimates of health co-benefits. Modeling the health co-benefits of climate policy provides policy-relevant information when the scenarios are reasonable, relevant, and thorough, and the model adequately addresses complexity. Greater consistency in selected modeling choices across the health co-benefits of climate mitigation research would facilitate evaluation of mitigation options particularly as they apply to the NDCs and promote policy uptake.
GREAT: a gradient-based color-sampling scheme for Retinex.

PubMed

Lecca, Michela; Rizzi, Alessandro; Serapioni, Raul Paolo

2017-04-01

Modeling the local color spatial distribution is a crucial step for the algorithms of the Milano Retinex family. Here we present GREAT, a novel, noise-free Milano Retinex implementation based on an image-aware spatial color sampling. For each channel of a color input image, GREAT computes a 2D set of edges whose magnitude exceeds a pre-defined threshold. Then GREAT re-scales the channel intensity of each image pixel, called target, by the average of the intensities of the selected edges weighted by a function of their positions, gradient magnitudes, and intensities relative to the target. In this way, GREAT enhances the input image, adjusting its brightness, contrast and dynamic range. The use of the edges as pixels relevant to color filtering is justified by the importance that edges play in human color sensation. The name GREAT comes from the expression "Gradient RElevAnce for ReTinex," which refers to the threshold-based definition of a gradient relevance map for edge selection and thus for image color filtering.
Suppression of no-longer relevant information in Working Memory: An alpha-power related mechanism?

PubMed

Poch, Claudia; Valdivia, María; Capilla, Almudena; Hinojosa, José Antonio; Campo, Pablo

2018-03-27

Selective attention can enhance Working Memory (WM) performance by selecting relevant information, while preventing distracting items from encoding or from further maintenance. Alpha oscillatory modulations are a correlate of visuospatial attention. Specifically, an enhancement of alpha power is observed in the ipsilateral posterior cortex to the locus of attention, along with a suppression in the contralateral hemisphere. An influential model proposes that the alpha enhancement is functionally related to the suppression of information. However, whether ipsilateral alpha power represents a mechanism through which no longer relevant WM representations are inhibited has yet not been explored. Here we examined whether the amount of distractors to be suppressed during WM maintenance is functionally related to alpha power lateralized activity. We measure EEG activity while participants (N = 36) performed a retro-cue task in which the WM load was varied across the relevant/irrelevant post-cue hemifield. We found that alpha activity was lateralized respect to the locus of attention, but did not track post-cue irrelevant load. Additionally, non-lateralized alpha activity increased with post-cue relevant load. We propose that alpha lateralization associated to retro-cuing might be related to a general orienting mechanism toward relevant representation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Spatiotemporal Object History Affects the Selection of Task-Relevant Properties

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schreij, Daniel; Olivers, Christian N. L.

2013-01-01

For stable perception, we maintain mental representations of objects across space and time. What information is linked to such a representation? In this study, we extended our work showing that the spatiotemporal history of an object affects the way the object is attended the next time it is encountered. Observers conducted a visual search for a…
Entry and Persistence of Women and Minorities in College Science and Engineering Education. Research and Development Report. NCES 2000-601

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Gary; Taddese, Nebiyu; Walter, Elizabeth

2000-01-01

This study examines the gaps related to gender and race/ethnicity in entrance, persistence, and attainment of postsecondary science and engineering (S&E) education. After reviewing selected prior research and examining potentially relevant variables in two National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveys, several variables were selected…
Signaling Task Awareness in Think-Aloud Protocols from Students Selecting Relevant Information from Text

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schellings, Gonny L. M.; Broekkamp, Hein

2011-01-01

Self-regulated learning has been described as an adaptive process: students adapt their learning strategies for attaining different learning goals. In order to be adaptive, students must have a clear notion of what the task requirements consist of. Both trace data and questionnaire data indicate that students adapt study strategies in limited ways…
Citizenship Education Software: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography of Microcomputer Programs for the Social Studies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Charles S.

1983-01-01

Software listed was evaluated on the basis of content relevance, variety of instructional strategies, exemplary use of computer for instruction, factual accuracy, evidence of skillful programing, and general "user friendliness." Compatibility with an Apple II+, 48K, was required. Materials for use in grades three through the college level are…
Attention and Cognitive Control Networks Assessed in a Dichotic Listening fMRI Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Falkenberg, Liv E.; Specht, Karsten; Westerhausen, Rene

2011-01-01

A meaningful interaction with our environment relies on the ability to focus on relevant sensory input and to ignore irrelevant information, i.e. top-down control and attention processes are employed to select from competing stimuli following internal goals. In this, the demands for the recruitment of top-down control processes depend on the…
Teaching Selected Poems from Jim Wayne Miller's "The Brier Poems."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wood, Tammy

All lessons in this unit of study are designed to introduce some of the basic elements of poetry (simile, metaphor, alliteration, sensory language, etc.) while exposing students to a realistic slice of Appalachian life. Appropriate grade levels and a time frame are suggested, and relevant Virginia Standards of Learning are outlined in the unit.…
An A+ Teaching Model for Serving K-12 Gifted Students in a Technologically Rich Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maynard, Brandi

2012-01-01

Experts in the field have had a difficult time finding a conclusive set of attributes of high-quality gifted teachers using collaborative technology. The purpose of this multiple, exploratory case study was to examine the views of selected educators regarding the teacher characteristics and technology most relevant to the development of shared…

Horticulture Materials for Agricultural Education Programs. Core Agricultural Education Curriculum, Central Cluster.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Illinois Univ., Urbana. Office of Agricultural Communications and Education.

This curriculum guide contains five units with relevant problem areas for horticulture. These problem areas have been selected as suggested areas of study to be included in a core curriculum for secondary students enrolled in an agricultural education program. Each problem area includes some or all of the following components: related problem…
Validity of 2D lateral cephalometry in orthodontics: a systematic review

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Lateral cephalometric radiography is commonly used as a standard tool in orthodontic assessment and treatment planning. The aim of this study was to evaluate the available scientific literature and existing evidence for the validation of using lateral cephalometric imaging for orthodontic treatment planning. The secondary objective was to determine the accuracy and reliability of this technique. We did not attempt to evaluate the value of this radiographic technique for other purposes. A literature search was performed using specific keywords on electronic databases: Ovid MEDLINE, Scopus and Web of Science. Two reviewers selected relevant articles, corresponding to predetermined inclusion criteria. The electronic search was followed by a hand search of the reference lists of relevant papers. Two reviewers assessed the level of evidence of relevant publications as high, moderate or low. Based on this, the evidence grade for diagnostic efficacy was rated as strong, moderately strong, limited or insufficient. The initial search revealed 784 articles listed in MEDLINE (Ovid), 1,034 in Scopus and 264 articles in the Web of Science. Only 17 articles met the inclusion criteria and were selected for qualitative synthesis. Results showed seven studies on the role of cephalometry in orthodontic treatment planning, eight concerning cephalometric measurements and landmark identification and two on cephalometric analysis. It is surprising that, notwithstanding the 968 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, scientific evidence on the usefulness of this radiographic technique in orthodontics is still lacking, with contradictory results. More rigorous research on a larger study population should be performed to achieve full evidence on this topic. PMID:24325757
Cue Reliability Represented in the Shape of Tuning Curves in the Owl's Sound Localization System.

PubMed

Cazettes, Fanny; Fischer, Brian J; Peña, Jose L

2016-02-17

Optimal use of sensory information requires that the brain estimates the reliability of sensory cues, but the neural correlate of cue reliability relevant for behavior is not well defined. Here, we addressed this issue by examining how the reliability of spatial cue influences neuronal responses and behavior in the owl's auditory system. We show that the firing rate and spatial selectivity changed with cue reliability due to the mechanisms generating the tuning to the sound localization cue. We found that the correlated variability among neurons strongly depended on the shape of the tuning curves. Finally, we demonstrated that the change in the neurons' selectivity was necessary and sufficient for a network of stochastic neurons to predict behavior when sensory cues were corrupted with noise. This study demonstrates that the shape of tuning curves can stand alone as a coding dimension of environmental statistics. In natural environments, sensory cues are often corrupted by noise and are therefore unreliable. To make the best decisions, the brain must estimate the degree to which a cue can be trusted. The behaviorally relevant neural correlates of cue reliability are debated. In this study, we used the barn owl's sound localization system to address this question. We demonstrated that the mechanisms that account for spatial selectivity also explained how neural responses changed with degraded signals. This allowed for the neurons' selectivity to capture cue reliability, influencing the population readout commanding the owl's sound-orienting behavior. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/362101-10$15.00/0.
Neural discriminability in rat lateral extrastriate cortex and deep but not superficial primary visual cortex correlates with shape discriminability.

PubMed

Vermaercke, Ben; Van den Bergh, Gert; Gerich, Florian; Op de Beeck, Hans

2015-01-01

Recent studies have revealed a surprising degree of functional specialization in rodent visual cortex. It is unknown to what degree this functional organization is related to the well-known hierarchical organization of the visual system in primates. We designed a study in rats that targets one of the hallmarks of the hierarchical object vision pathway in primates: selectivity for behaviorally relevant dimensions. We compared behavioral performance in a visual water maze with neural discriminability in five visual cortical areas. We tested behavioral discrimination in two independent batches of six rats using six pairs of shapes used previously to probe shape selectivity in monkey cortex (Lehky and Sereno, 2007). The relative difficulty (error rate) of shape pairs was strongly correlated between the two batches, indicating that some shape pairs were more difficult to discriminate than others. Then, we recorded in naive rats from five visual areas from primary visual cortex (V1) over areas LM, LI, LL, up to lateral occipito-temporal cortex (TO). Shape selectivity in the upper layers of V1, where the information enters cortex, correlated mostly with physical stimulus dissimilarity and not with behavioral performance. In contrast, neural discriminability in lower layers of all areas was strongly correlated with behavioral performance. These findings, in combination with the results from Vermaercke et al. (2014b), suggest that the functional specialization in rodent lateral visual cortex reflects a processing hierarchy resulting in the emergence of complex selectivity that is related to behaviorally relevant stimulus differences.
Assessing mental imagery in clinical psychology: A review of imagery measures and a guiding framework

PubMed Central

Pearson, David G.; Deeprose, Catherine; Wallace-Hadrill, Sophie M.A.; Heyes, Stephanie Burnett; Holmes, Emily A.

2013-01-01

Mental imagery is an under-explored field in clinical psychology research but presents a topic of potential interest and relevance across many clinical disorders, including social phobia, schizophrenia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. There is currently a lack of a guiding framework from which clinicians may select the domains or associated measures most likely to be of appropriate use in mental imagery research. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach and present a review of studies across experimental psychology and clinical psychology in order to highlight the key domains and measures most likely to be of relevance. This includes a consideration of methods for experimentally assessing the generation, maintenance, inspection and transformation of mental images; as well as subjective measures of characteristics such as image vividness and clarity. We present a guiding framework in which we propose that cognitive, subjective and clinical aspects of imagery should be explored in future research. The guiding framework aims to assist researchers in the selection of measures for assessing those aspects of mental imagery that are of most relevance to clinical psychology. We propose that a greater understanding of the role of mental imagery in clinical disorders will help drive forward advances in both theory and treatment. PMID:23123567
[Written pharmaceutical advertising--still unreliable?].

PubMed

Gladsø, Kristin Haugen; Garberg, Hedda Rosland; Spigset, Olav; Slørdal, Lars

2014-09-02

Marketing by the pharmaceutical industry affects doctors' prescribing habits. All pharmaceutical advertising received by nine doctors in two GP offices over a period of three months was collected. The advertising material was sorted by compound. For each compound, the advert with the highest number of references was selected. The cited references were obtained, and the claims in the adverts were assessed in terms of their consistency with the source data based on the provisions in the Norwegian regulations on pharmaceuticals. The references were also assessed with regard to the incidence of conflicts of interest among authors. The doctors received a total of 270 shipments of advertising for 46 different compounds. Altogether 95% of the 173 references cited in the 46 selected adverts could be obtained. The adverts contained a total of 156 claims. Of these, 56% were assessed as correct when compared to the source data and as having clinical relevance. Altogether 75% of the journal articles reported relevant conflicts of interest for the authors. About half the claims in the adverts were found to be correct and clinically relevant. These results concur with those from a methodologically identical study based on advertising material collected in 2004. The cited literature was of varying quality and often funded by the pharmaceutical companies. The findings indicate that the target group should be sceptical of this type of marketing.
Evaluation of United States Department of Agriculture-sponsored consumer materials addressing food security.

PubMed

Tolma, Eleni; John, Robert; Garner, Jane

2007-01-01

Food insecurity in the United States is a major public health issue. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the availability and quality of printed materials addressing food security targeted to special populations by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Nutrition education resources addressing food security available from USDA websites were selected for analysis. Not applicable. The review team consisted of project staff (n = 6), two of who were fluent in Spanish. Selection criteria were established to identify the food-security materials, and a group of reviewers assessed the quality of each publication both quantitatively and qualitatively. A consensus meeting among the reviewers was held to make final determinations of the quality of the materials. The quantitative data analysis consisted of basic descriptive statistics. Among the 27 materials initially identified, 20 were either irrelevant or of low relevance to food security. Moreover, very few of them were intended for minority populations. The quality of most of the materials ranged from "average" to "good." Some of the major weaknesses include readability level, lack of cultural relevance, and inadequate coverage of food insecurity. Very few materials on food insecurity are of high quality. In the development of such materials, emphasis should be given to the readability level, content, and cultural relevance.
A STUDY OF THE FACTORS THAT MAY INFLUENCE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A VOCATIONAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM AT THE UTAH STATE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

HEGGEN, JAMES R.; IRVINE, FLEET

OF THE APPROXIMATELY 375 TO 400 YOUTHS CONFINED AT THE UTAH STATE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, 169 STUDENTS, ABOUT TWO-THIRDS MALES AND ONE-THIRD FEMALES, WITH AN AGE RANGE FROM 15.5 TO 18.5 YEARS, WERE STUDIED IN ORDER TO DEVELOP GUIDELINES FOR SELECTING VOCATIONAL TRAINING AREAS TO BE OFFERED IN THE SCHOOL. RELEVANT LITERATURE WAS REVIEWED, STUDENT…
A method for the selection of relevant pattern indices for monitoring of spatial forest cover pattern at a regional scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Clercq, Eva M.; Vandemoortele, Femke; De Wulf, Robert R.

2006-06-01

When signing Agenda 21, several countries agreed to monitor the status of forests to ensure their sustainable use. For reporting on the change in spatial forest cover pattern on a regional scale, pattern metrics are widely used. These indices are not often thoroughly evaluated as to their sensitivity to remote sensing data characteristics. Hence, one would not know whether the change in the metric values was due to actual landscape pattern changes or to characteristic variation of multitemporal remote sensing data. The objective of this study is to empirically test an array of pattern metrics for the monitoring of spatial forest cover. Different user requirements are used as point of departure. This proved to be a straightforward method for selecting relevant pattern indices. We strongly encourage the systematic screening of these indices prior to use in order to get a deeper understanding of the results obtained by them.
Trial-to-trial dynamics of selective long-term-memory retrieval with continuously changing retrieval targets.

PubMed

Kizilirmak, Jasmin M; Rösler, Frank; Khader, Patrick H

2014-10-01

How do we control the successive retrieval of behaviorally relevant information from long-term memory (LTM) without being distracted by other potential retrieval targets associated to the same retrieval cues? Here, we approach this question by investigating the nature of trial-by-trial dynamics of selective LTM retrieval, i.e., in how far retrieval in one trial has detrimental or facilitatory effects on selective retrieval in the following trial. Participants first learned associations between retrieval cues and targets, with one cue always being linked to three targets, forming small associative networks. In successive trials, participants had to access either the same or a different target belonging to either the same or a different cue. We found that retrieval times were faster for targets that had already been relevant in the previous trial, with this facilitatory effect being substantially weaker when the associative network changed in which the targets were embedded. Moreover, staying within the same network still had a facilitatory effect even if the target changed, which became evident in a relatively higher memory performance in comparison to a network change. Furthermore, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) showed topographically and temporally dissociable correlates of these effects, suggesting that they result from combined influences of distinct processes that aid memory retrieval when relevant and irrelevant targets change their status from trial to trial. Taken together, the present study provides insight into the different processing stages of memory retrieval when fast switches between retrieval targets are required. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Major publications in the critical care pharmacotherapy literature: January-December 2014.

PubMed

Day, Sarah A; Cucci, Michaelia; Droege, Molly E; Holzhausen, Jenna M; Kram, Bridgette; Kram, Shawn; Pajoumand, Mehrnaz; Parker, Christine R; Patel, Mona K; Peitz, Gregory J; Poore, Alia; Turck, Charles J; Van Berkel, Megan A; Wong, Adrian; Zomp, Amanda; Rech, Megan A

2015-11-15

Nine recently published articles and one guideline with important implications for critical care pharmacy practice are summarized. The Critical Care Pharmacotherapy Literature Update (CCPLU) group includes more than 40 experienced critical care pharmacists across the United States. Group members monitor 29 peer-reviewed journals on an ongoing basis to identify literature relevant to pharmacy practice in the critical care setting. After evaluation by CCPLU group members, selected articles are chosen for summarization and distribution to group members nationwide based on applicability to practice, relevance, and study design and strength. Hundreds of relevant articles were evaluated by the group in 2014, of which 114 were summarized and disseminated to CCPLU group members. From among those 114 publications, 10 deemed to be of particularly high utility to the critical care practitioner were selected for inclusion in this review for their potential to change practice or reinforce current evidence-based practice. One of the selected articles presents updated recommendations on the management of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF); the other 9 address topics such as albumin replacement in patients with severe sepsis, use of enteral statins for acute respiratory distress syndrome, fibrinolysis for patients with intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism, the use of unfractionated heparin versus bivalirudin for primary percutaneous coronary intervention, and early protocol-based care for septic shock. There were many important additions to the critical care pharmacotherapy literature in 2014, including a joint guideline for the management of AF and reports of clinical trials. Copyright © 2015 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc. All rights reserved.
Quantitative Genetic Architecture at Latitudinal Range Boundaries: Reduced Variation but Higher Trait Independence.

PubMed

Paccard, Antoine; Van Buskirk, Josh; Willi, Yvonne

2016-05-01

Species distribution limits are hypothesized to be caused by small population size and limited genetic variation in ecologically relevant traits, but earlier studies have not evaluated genetic variation in multivariate phenotypes. We asked whether populations at the latitudinal edges of the distribution have altered quantitative genetic architecture of ecologically relevant traits compared with midlatitude populations. We calculated measures of evolutionary potential in nine Arabidopsis lyrata populations spanning the latitudinal range of the species in eastern and midwestern North America. Environments at the latitudinal extremes have reduced water availability, and therefore plants were assessed under wet and dry treatments. We estimated genetic variance-covariance (G-) matrices for 10 traits related to size, development, and water balance. Populations at southern and northern distribution edges had reduced levels of genetic variation across traits, but their G-matrices were more spherical; G-matrix orientation was unrelated to latitude. As a consequence, the predicted short-term response to selection was at least as strong in edge populations as in central populations. These results are consistent with genetic drift eroding variation and reducing the effectiveness of correlational selection at distribution margins. We conclude that genetic variation of isolated traits poorly predicts the capacity to evolve in response to multivariate selection and that the response to selection may frequently be greater than expected at species distribution margins because of genetic drift.
Synthesis and Characterization of Tricarbonyl-Re/Tc(I) Chelate Probes Targeting the G Protein-Coupled Estrogen Receptor GPER/GPR30

PubMed Central

Burai, Ritwik; Ramesh, Chinnasamy; Nayak, Tapan K.; Dennis, Megan K.; Bryant, Bj K.; Prossnitz, Eric R.; Arterburn, Jeffrey B.

2012-01-01

The discovery of the G protein-coupled estrogen receptor GPER (also GPR30) and the resulting development of selective chemical probes have revealed new aspects of estrogen receptor biology. The potential clinical relevance of this receptor has been suggested from numerous studies that have identified GPER expression in breast, endometrial, ovarian and other cancers. Thus GPER can be considered a candidate biomarker and target for non-invasive imaging and therapy. We have designed and synthesized a series of organometallic tricarbonyl-rhenium complexes conjugated to a GPER-selective small molecule derived from tetrahydro-3H-cyclopenta[c]quinoline. The activity and selectivity of these chelates in GPER-mediated signaling pathways were evaluated. These results demonstrate that GPER targeting characteristics depend strongly on the structure of the chelate and linkage. Ethanone conjugates functioned as agonists, a 1,2,3-triazole spacer yielded an antagonist, and derivatives with increased steric volume exhibited decreased activities. Promising GPER selectivity was observed, as none of the complexes interacted with the nuclear estrogen receptors. Radiolabeling with technetium-99m in aqueous media was efficient and gave radioligands with high radiochemical yields and purity. These chelates have favorable physicochemical properties, show excellent stability in biologically relevant media, exhibit receptor specificity and are promising candidates for continuing development as diagnostic imaging agents targeting GPER expression in cancer. PMID:23077529
Top studies relevant to primary care practice.

PubMed

Perry, Danielle; Kolber, Michael R; Korownyk, Christina; Lindblad, Adrienne J; Ramji, Jamil; Ton, Joey; Allan, G Michael

2018-04-01

To summarize 10 high-quality studies from 2017 that have strong relevance to primary care practice. Study selection involved routine literature surveillance by a group of primary care health professionals. This included screening abstracts of important journals and Evidence Alerts, as well as searching the American College of Physicians Journal Club. Topics of the 2017 articles include whether treating subclinical hypothyroidism improves outcomes or symptoms; whether evolocumab reduces cardiovascular disease as well as low-density lipoprotein levels; whether lifestyle interventions reduce medication use in patients with diabetes; whether vitamin D prevents cardiovascular disease, cancer, or upper respiratory tract infections; whether canagliflozin reduces clinical events in patients with diabetes; how corticosteroid injections affect knee osteoarthritis; whether drained abscesses benefit from antibiotic treatment; whether patients with diabetes benefit from bariatric surgery; whether exenatide reduces clinical events in patients with diabetes; and whether tympanostomy tubes affect outcomes in recurrent acute otitis media or chronic otitis media. We provide brief summaries, context where needed, and final recommendations for 10 studies with potential effects on primary care. We also briefly review 5 "runner-up" studies. Research from 2017 produced several high-quality studies in diabetes management. These have demonstrated benefit for alternative therapies and offered evidence not previously available. This year's selection of studies also provided information on a variety of conditions and therapies that are, or might become, more common in primary care settings. Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada.
Adaptive attunement of selective covert attention to evolutionary-relevant emotional visual scenes.

PubMed

Fernández-Martín, Andrés; Gutiérrez-García, Aída; Capafons, Juan; Calvo, Manuel G

2017-05-01

We investigated selective attention to emotional scenes in peripheral vision, as a function of adaptive relevance of scene affective content for male and female observers. Pairs of emotional-neutral images appeared peripherally-with perceptual stimulus differences controlled-while viewers were fixating on a different stimulus in central vision. Early selective orienting was assessed by the probability of directing the first fixation towards either scene, and the time until first fixation. Emotional scenes selectively captured covert attention even when they were task-irrelevant, thus revealing involuntary, automatic processing. Sex of observers and specific emotional scene content (e.g., male-to-female-aggression, families and babies, etc.) interactively modulated covert attention, depending on adaptive priorities and goals for each sex, both for pleasant and unpleasant content. The attentional system exhibits domain-specific and sex-specific biases and attunements, probably rooted in evolutionary pressures to enhance reproductive and protective success. Emotional cues selectively capture covert attention based on their bio-social significance. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The relationship between visual working memory and attention: retention of precise colour information in the absence of effects on perceptual selection

PubMed Central

Hollingworth, Andrew; Hwang, Seongmin

2013-01-01

We examined the conditions under which a feature value in visual working memory (VWM) recruits visual attention to matching stimuli. Previous work has suggested that VWM supports two qualitatively different states of representation: an active state that interacts with perceptual selection and a passive (or accessory) state that does not. An alternative hypothesis is that VWM supports a single form of representation, with the precision of feature memory controlling whether or not the representation interacts with perceptual selection. The results of three experiments supported the dual-state hypothesis. We established conditions under which participants retained a relatively precise representation of a parcticular colour. If the colour was immediately task relevant, it reliably recruited attention to matching stimuli. However, if the colour was not immediately task relevant, it failed to interact with perceptual selection. Feature maintenance in VWM is not necessarily equivalent with feature-based attentional selection. PMID:24018723
EFL/ESL Textbook Selection in Korea and East Asia - Relevant Issues and Literature Review

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meurant, Robert C.

EFL/ESL departments periodically face the problem of textbook selection. Cogent issues are that non-native speakers will use L2 English mainly to communicate with other non-native English speakers, so an American accent is becoming less important. L2 English will mainly be used in computer-mediated communication, hence the importance of L2 Digital Literacy. The convergence of Information Communication Technologies is radically impacting Second Language Acquisition, which is integrating web-hosted Assessment and Learning Management Systems. EFL/ESL textbooks need to be compatible with blended learning, prepare students for a globalized world, and foster autonomous learning. I summarize five papers on EFL/ESL textbook evaluation and selection, and include relevant material for adaptation. Textbooks are major sources of contact with the target language, so selection is an important decision. Educators need to be systematic and objective in their approach, adopting a selection process that is open, transparent, accountable, participatory, informed and rigorous.
[Actual relevance of Pauwels' classification of femoral neck fractures--a critical review].

PubMed

Schwarz, N

2010-03-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity of Pauwels' classification of femoral neck fractures. A study of literature was performed. It has never been proven that the inclination of the fracture plane has a prognostic relevance. A number of papers prove the contrary, there are no publications where Pauwels' classification has been used successfully in selecting treatment modalities. Pauwels' theory of fracture inclination angle has not been transferred into clinical practice. This discrepancy probably goes back to the fact that the angle cannot be determined preoperatively, that in the majority of femoral neck fractures the angle is within the range of 40 to 60 degrees, that the theoretical angle variations do practically not exist, and that the shearing forces are reduced to an unknown amount by friction resistance due to the uneven fracture plane. The mechanical laws of the pseudarthrosis of the femoral neck cannot be extrapolated to acute fractures. The theory of Pauwels has apparently no clinical relevance for the majority of acute fractures, except for the rare transcervical fractures, and should not be considered any longer as a classification of acute femoral neck fractures due to the lack of prognostic and therapeutic relevance.
Existing reporting guidelines for clinical trials are not completely relevant for implantable medical devices: a systematic review.

PubMed

Motte, Anne-France; Diallo, Stéphanie; van den Brink, Hélène; Châteauvieux, Constance; Serrano, Carole; Naud, Carole; Steelandt, Julie; Alsac, Jean-Marc; Aubry, Pierre; Cour, Florence; Pellerin, Olivier; Pineau, Judith; Prognon, Patrice; Borget, Isabelle; Bonan, Brigitte; Martelli, Nicolas

2017-11-01

The aim of this study was to determine relevant items for reporting clinical trials on implantable medical devices (IMDs) and to identify reporting guidelines which include these items. A panel of experts identified the most relevant items for evaluating IMDs from an initial list based on reference papers. We then conducted a systematic review of articles indexed in MEDLINE. We retrieved reporting guidelines from the EQUATOR network's library for health research reporting. Finally, we screened these reporting guidelines to find those using our set of reporting items. Seven relevant reporting items were selected that related to four topics: randomization, learning curve, surgical setting, and device information. A total of 348 reporting guidelines were identified, among which 26 met our inclusion criteria. However, none of the 26 reporting guidelines presented all seven items together. The most frequently reported item was timing of randomization (65%). On the contrary, device information and learning curve effects were poorly specified. To our knowledge, this study is the first to identify specific items related to IMDs in reporting guidelines for clinical trials. We have shown that no existing reporting guideline is totally suitable for these devices. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Using multi-criteria risk ranking methodology to select case studies for a generic risk assessment framework for exotic disease incursion and spread through Europe.

PubMed

Horigan, V; De Nardi, M; Simons, R R L; Bertolini, S; Crescio, M I; Estrada-Peña, A; Léger, A; Maurella, C; Ru, G; Schuppers, M; Stärk, K D C; Adkin, A

2018-05-01

We present a novel approach of using the multi-criteria pathogen prioritisation methodology as a basis for selecting the most appropriate case studies for a generic risk assessment framework. The approach uses selective criteria to rank exotic animal health pathogens according to the likelihood of introduction and the impact of an outbreak if it occurred in the European Union (EU). Pathogens were evaluated based on their impact on production at the EU level and international trade. A subsequent analysis included criteria of relevance to quantitative risk assessment case study selection, such as the availability of data for parameterisation, the need for further research and the desire for the case studies to cover different routes of transmission. The framework demonstrated is flexible with the ability to adjust both the criteria and their weightings to the user's requirements. A web based tool has been developed using the RStudio shiny apps software, to facilitate this. Crown Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Momentary Conscious Pairing Eliminates Unconscious-Stimulus Influences on Task Selection

PubMed Central

Zhou, Fanzhi Anita; Davis, Greg

2012-01-01

Task selection, previously thought to operate only under conscious, voluntary control, can be activated by unconsciously-perceived stimuli. In most cases, such activation is observed for unconscious stimuli that closely resemble other conscious, task-relevant stimuli and hence may simply reflect perceptual activation of consciously established stimulus-task associations. However, other studies have reported ‘direct’ unconscious-stimulus influences on task selection in the absence of any conscious, voluntary association between that stimulus and task (e.g., Zhou and Davis, 2012). In new experiments, described here, these latter influences on cued- and free-choice task selection appear robust and long-lived, yet, paradoxically, are suppressed to undetectable levels following momentary conscious prime-task pairing. Assessing, and rejecting, three intuitive explanations for such suppressive effects, we conclude that conscious prime-task pairing minimizes non-strategic influences of unconscious stimuli on task selection, insulating endogenous choice mechanisms from maladaptive external control. PMID:23050012
Sub-inhibitory concentrations of heavy metals facilitate the horizontal transfer of plasmid-mediated antibiotic resistance genes in water environment.

PubMed

Zhang, Ye; Gu, April Z; Cen, Tianyu; Li, Xiangyang; He, Miao; Li, Dan; Chen, Jianmin

2018-06-01

Although widespread antibiotic resistance has been mostly attributed to the selective pressure generated by overuse and misuse of antibiotics, recent growing evidence suggests that chemicals other than antibiotics, such as certain metals, can also select and stimulate antibiotic resistance via both co-resistance and cross-resistance mechanisms. For instance, tetL, merE, and oprD genes are resistant to both antibiotics and metals. However, the potential de novo resistance induced by heavy metals at environmentally-relevant low concentrations (much below theminimum inhibitory concentrations [MICs], also referred as sub-inhibitory) has hardly been explored. This study investigated and revealed that heavy metals, namely Cu(II), Ag(I), Cr(VI), and Zn(II), at environmentally-relevant and sub-inhibitory concentrations, promoted conjugative transfer of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) between E. coli strains. The mechanisms of this phenomenon were further explored, which involved intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, SOS response, increased cell membrane permeability, and altered expression of conjugation-relevant genes. These findings suggest that sub-inhibitory levels of heavy metals that widely present in various environments contribute to the resistance phenomena via facilitating horizontal transfer of ARGs. This study provides evidence from multiple aspects implicating the ecological effect of low levels of heavy metals on antibiotic resistance dissemination and highlights the urgency of strengthening efficacious policy and technology to control metal pollutants in the environments. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Binding Pathway of Opiates to μ-Opioid Receptors Revealed by Machine Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barati Farimani, Amir; Feinberg, Evan; Pande, Vijay

2018-02-01

Many important analgesics relieve pain by binding to the $\\mu$-Opioid Receptor ($\\mu$OR), which makes the $\\mu$OR among the most clinically relevant proteins of the G Protein Coupled Receptor (GPCR) family. Despite previous studies on the activation pathways of the GPCRs, the mechanism of opiate binding and the selectivity of $\\mu$OR are largely unknown. We performed extensive molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and analysis to find the selective allosteric binding sites of the $\\mu$OR and the path opiates take to bind to the orthosteric site. In this study, we predicted that the allosteric site is responsible for the attraction and selection of opiates. Using Markov state models and machine learning, we traced the pathway of opiates in binding to the orthosteric site, the main binding pocket. Our results have important implications in designing novel analgesics.
G-Bean: an ontology-graph based web tool for biomedical literature retrieval

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Currently, most people use NCBI's PubMed to search the MEDLINE database, an important bibliographical information source for life science and biomedical information. However, PubMed has some drawbacks that make it difficult to find relevant publications pertaining to users' individual intentions, especially for non-expert users. To ameliorate the disadvantages of PubMed, we developed G-Bean, a graph based biomedical search engine, to search biomedical articles in MEDLINE database more efficiently. Methods G-Bean addresses PubMed's limitations with three innovations: (1) Parallel document index creation: a multithreaded index creation strategy is employed to generate the document index for G-Bean in parallel; (2) Ontology-graph based query expansion: an ontology graph is constructed by merging four major UMLS (Version 2013AA) vocabularies, MeSH, SNOMEDCT, CSP and AOD, to cover all concepts in National Library of Medicine (NLM) database; a Personalized PageRank algorithm is used to compute concept relevance in this ontology graph and the Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) weighting scheme is used to re-rank the concepts. The top 500 ranked concepts are selected for expanding the initial query to retrieve more accurate and relevant information; (3) Retrieval and re-ranking of documents based on user's search intention: after the user selects any article from the existing search results, G-Bean analyzes user's selections to determine his/her true search intention and then uses more relevant and more specific terms to retrieve additional related articles. The new articles are presented to the user in the order of their relevance to the already selected articles. Results Performance evaluation with 106 OHSUMED benchmark queries shows that G-Bean returns more relevant results than PubMed does when using these queries to search the MEDLINE database. PubMed could not even return any search result for some OHSUMED queries because it failed to form the appropriate Boolean query statement automatically from the natural language query strings. G-Bean is available at http://bioinformatics.clemson.edu/G-Bean/index.php. Conclusions G-Bean addresses PubMed's limitations with ontology-graph based query expansion, automatic document indexing, and user search intention discovery. It shows significant advantages in finding relevant articles from the MEDLINE database to meet the information need of the user. PMID:25474588
G-Bean: an ontology-graph based web tool for biomedical literature retrieval.

PubMed

Wang, James Z; Zhang, Yuanyuan; Dong, Liang; Li, Lin; Srimani, Pradip K; Yu, Philip S

2014-01-01

Currently, most people use NCBI's PubMed to search the MEDLINE database, an important bibliographical information source for life science and biomedical information. However, PubMed has some drawbacks that make it difficult to find relevant publications pertaining to users' individual intentions, especially for non-expert users. To ameliorate the disadvantages of PubMed, we developed G-Bean, a graph based biomedical search engine, to search biomedical articles in MEDLINE database more efficiently. G-Bean addresses PubMed's limitations with three innovations: (1) Parallel document index creation: a multithreaded index creation strategy is employed to generate the document index for G-Bean in parallel; (2) Ontology-graph based query expansion: an ontology graph is constructed by merging four major UMLS (Version 2013AA) vocabularies, MeSH, SNOMEDCT, CSP and AOD, to cover all concepts in National Library of Medicine (NLM) database; a Personalized PageRank algorithm is used to compute concept relevance in this ontology graph and the Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) weighting scheme is used to re-rank the concepts. The top 500 ranked concepts are selected for expanding the initial query to retrieve more accurate and relevant information; (3) Retrieval and re-ranking of documents based on user's search intention: after the user selects any article from the existing search results, G-Bean analyzes user's selections to determine his/her true search intention and then uses more relevant and more specific terms to retrieve additional related articles. The new articles are presented to the user in the order of their relevance to the already selected articles. Performance evaluation with 106 OHSUMED benchmark queries shows that G-Bean returns more relevant results than PubMed does when using these queries to search the MEDLINE database. PubMed could not even return any search result for some OHSUMED queries because it failed to form the appropriate Boolean query statement automatically from the natural language query strings. G-Bean is available at http://bioinformatics.clemson.edu/G-Bean/index.php. G-Bean addresses PubMed's limitations with ontology-graph based query expansion, automatic document indexing, and user search intention discovery. It shows significant advantages in finding relevant articles from the MEDLINE database to meet the information need of the user.
A compendium and functional characterization of mammalian genes involved in adaptation to Arctic or Antarctic environments.

PubMed

Yudin, Nikolay S; Larkin, Denis M; Ignatieva, Elena V

2017-12-28

Many mammals are well adapted to surviving in extremely cold environments. These species have likely accumulated genetic changes that help them efficiently cope with low temperatures. It is not known whether the same genes related to cold adaptation in one species would be under selection in another species. The aims of this study therefore were: to create a compendium of mammalian genes related to adaptations to a low temperature environment; to identify genes related to cold tolerance that have been subjected to independent positive selection in several species; to determine promising candidate genes/pathways/organs for further empirical research on cold adaptation in mammals. After a search for publications containing keywords: "whole genome", "transcriptome or exome sequencing data", and "genome-wide genotyping array data" authors looked for information related to genetic signatures ascribable to positive selection in Arctic or Antarctic mammalian species. Publications related to Human, Arctic fox, Yakut horse, Mammoth, Polar bear, and Minke whale were chosen. The compendium of genes that potentially underwent positive selection in >1 of these six species consisted of 416 genes. Twelve of them showed traces of positive selection in three species. Gene ontology term enrichment analysis of 416 genes from the compendium has revealed 13 terms relevant to the scope of this study. We found that enriched terms were relevant to three major groups: terms associated with collagen proteins and the extracellular matrix; terms associated with the anatomy and physiology of cilium; terms associated with docking. We further revealed that genes from compendium were over-represented in the lists of genes expressed in the lung and liver. A compendium combining mammalian genes involved in adaptation to cold environment was designed, based on the intersection of positively selected genes from six Arctic and Antarctic species. The compendium contained 416 genes that have been positively selected in at least two species. However, we did not reveal any positively selected genes that would be related to cold adaptation in all species from our list. But, our work points to several strong candidate genes involved in mechanisms and biochemical pathways related to cold adaptation response in different species.
Faster, Better, Cheaper: A ZERODUR® low-expansion, light-weight present path toward affordable spaceborne telescopes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hull, Anthony B.; Westerhoff, Thomas

2014-06-01

For competed missions, payload costs are often the discriminate of whether or not outstanding science can be selected to fly. Optical Telescope Assemblies (OTAs) encompass a significant fraction of the payload cost, and mirror aperture and stability are usually are key to the science merit. The selection of the primary mirror approach drives architecture decisions for the rest of the OTA and even payload. We look at the ways OTA architecture is affected by the PM selection, and specifically at the benefits of selecting a low expansion material. We will also review recent advances in ZERODUR® fabrication which make this low-expansion material relevant in situations where affordable, lightweight mirrors can enable the apertures needed for science merit. Extreme Lightweight ZERODUR® Mirrors (ELZM) are available in apertures from 0.3m to over 4m. SCHOTT has recently demonstrated a relevant 1.2m ELZM substrate.
Toward a New Theory for Selecting Instructional Visuals.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Croft, Richard S.; Burton, John K.

This paper provides a rationale for the selection of illustrations and visual aids for the classroom. The theories that describe the processing of visuals are dual coding theory and cue summation theory. Concept attainment theory offers a basis for selecting which cues are relevant for any learning task which includes a component of identification…
Hemispheric Asymmetries in Meaning Selection: Evidence from the Disambiguation of Homophonic vs. Heterophonic Homographs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peleg, Orna; Markus, Andrey; Eviatar, Zohar

2012-01-01

Research investigating hemispheric asymmetries in meaning selection using homophonic homographs (e.g., "bank"), suggests that the left hemisphere (LH) quickly selects contextually relevant meanings, whereas the right hemisphere (RH) maintains a broader spectrum of meanings including those that are contextually irrelevant (e.g., Faust & Chiarello,…
Development of estimates of dietary nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines for use with the short willet food frequency questionnaire

PubMed Central

Griesenbeck, John S; Steck, Michelle D; Huber, John C; Sharkey, Joseph R; Rene, Antonio A; Brender, Jean D

2009-01-01

Background Studies have suggested that nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines have an etiologic role in adverse pregnancy outcomes and chronic diseases such as cancer. Although an extensive body of literature exists on estimates of these compounds in foods, the extant data varies in quality, quantified estimates, and relevance. Methods We developed estimates of nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines for food items listed in the Short Willet Food Frequency Questionnaire (WFFQ) as adapted for use in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study. Multiple reference databases were searched for published literature reflecting nitrate, nitrite, and nitrosamine values in foods. Relevant published literature was reviewed; only publications reporting results for items listed on the WFFQ were selected for inclusion. The references selected were prioritized according to relevance to the U.S. population. Results Based on our estimates, vegetable products contain the highest levels of nitrate, contributing as much as 189 mg/serving. Meat and bean products contain the highest levels of nitrites with values up to 1.84 mg/serving. Alcohol, meat and dairy products contain the highest values of nitrosamines with a maximum value of 0.531 μg/serving. The estimates of dietary nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines generated in this study are based on the published values currently available. Conclusion To our knowledge, these are the only estimates specifically designed for use with the adapted WFFQ and generated to represent food items available to the U.S. population. The estimates provided may be useful in other research studies, specifically in those exploring the relation between exposure to these compounds in foods and adverse health outcomes. PMID:19348679
Computational Selection of Transcriptomics Experiments Improves Guilt-by-Association Analyses

PubMed Central

Bhat, Prajwal; Yang, Haixuan; Bögre, László; Devoto, Alessandra; Paccanaro, Alberto

2012-01-01

The Guilt-by-Association (GBA) principle, according to which genes with similar expression profiles are functionally associated, is widely applied for functional analyses using large heterogeneous collections of transcriptomics data. However, the use of such large collections could hamper GBA functional analysis for genes whose expression is condition specific. In these cases a smaller set of condition related experiments should instead be used, but identifying such functionally relevant experiments from large collections based on literature knowledge alone is an impractical task. We begin this paper by analyzing, both from a mathematical and a biological point of view, why only condition specific experiments should be used in GBA functional analysis. We are able to show that this phenomenon is independent of the functional categorization scheme and of the organisms being analyzed. We then present a semi-supervised algorithm that can select functionally relevant experiments from large collections of transcriptomics experiments. Our algorithm is able to select experiments relevant to a given GO term, MIPS FunCat term or even KEGG pathways. We extensively test our algorithm on large dataset collections for yeast and Arabidopsis. We demonstrate that: using the selected experiments there is a statistically significant improvement in correlation between genes in the functional category of interest; the selected experiments improve GBA-based gene function prediction; the effectiveness of the selected experiments increases with annotation specificity; our algorithm can be successfully applied to GBA-based pathway reconstruction. Importantly, the set of experiments selected by the algorithm reflects the existing literature knowledge about the experiments. [A MATLAB implementation of the algorithm and all the data used in this paper can be downloaded from the paper website: http://www.paccanarolab.org/papers/CorrGene/]. PMID:22879875
Design and Application of Drought Indexes in Highly Regulated Mediterranean Water Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castelletti, A.; Zaniolo, M.; Giuliani, M.

2017-12-01

Costs of drought are progressively increasing due to the undergoing alteration of hydro-meteorological regimes induced by climate change. Although drought management is largely studied in the literature, most of the traditional drought indexes fail in detecting critical events in highly regulated systems, which generally rely on ad-hoc formulations and cannot be generalized to different context. In this study, we contribute a novel framework for the design of a basin-customized drought index. This index represents a surrogate of the state of the basin and is computed by combining the available information about the water available in the system to reproduce a representative target variable for the drought condition of the basin (e.g., water deficit). To select the relevant variables and combinatione thereof, we use an advanced feature extraction algorithm called Wrapper for Quasi Equally Informative Subset Selection (W-QEISS). W-QEISS relies on a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to find Pareto-efficient subsets of variables by maximizing the wrapper accuracy, minimizing the number of selected variables, and optimizing relevance and redundancy of the subset. The accuracy objective is evaluated trough the calibration of an extreme learning machine of the water deficit for each candidate subset of variables, with the index selected from the resulting solutions identifying a suitable compromise between accuracy, cardinality, relevance, and redundancy. The approach is tested on Lake Como, Italy, a regulated lake mainly operated for irrigation supply. In the absence of an institutional drought monitoring system, we constructed the combined index using all the hydrological variables from the existing monitoring system as well as common drought indicators at multiple time aggregations. The soil moisture deficit in the root zone computed by a distributed-parameter water balance model of the agricultural districts is used as target variable. Numerical results show that our combined drought index succesfully reproduces the deficit. The index represents a valuable information for supporting appropriate drought management strategies, including the possibility of directly informing the lake operations about the drought conditions and improve the overall reliability of the irrigation supply system.
Immunophenotyping of acute leukaemias by flow cytometry: a review.

PubMed

Pamnani, R

2009-12-01

To provide an overview of the utility of flow cytometry for phenotyping of acute leukaemias and selection-of monoclonal antibodies. The literature review was obtained through internet, journals and chapters in the relevant books. Relevant articles and chapters on immunophenotyping of acute leukaemias were selected from respected international journals and books in the field of haematology and were reviewed. Complete articles relevant to the topic were selected and reviewed and the necessary information extracted for this review. Flow cytometry has been used extensively in recent years to characterise haemopoeitic malignancies and done routinely in the developed world. This technique has greatly improved the diagnosis and classification of haemopoeitic malignancies and has been recommended by World Health Organisation classification (WHO) of tumours of haemopoeitic and lymphoid tissue. Application of flow cytometry for the diagnosis of leukaemias has been recently introduced in Kenya and is currently being undertaken in research using limited but appropriate panels of monoclonal antibodies. It is hoped that findings of this research will inform the use of flow cytometry as an ancillary diagnostic technique in our resource-constrained set up.
American Military History: A Selected Bibliography

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-04-01

34 Defence Studies 5, no. 1 (March 2005): 151-164. Taylor & Francis Haycock, R. G. "The Relevance and Role of the Battlefield Tour and the Staff Ride...for Armed Forces in the 21st Century Introduction." Defence Studies 5, no. 1 (March 2005): 5-14. Taylor & Francis 2 Howard, Michael. "The Use and...Staff Rides: History and Historiography." Defence Studies 5, no. 1 (March 2005): 48-58. Taylor & Francis Lee, Wayne E. "Mind and Matter—Cultural
Biomarkers for Early Detection of Clinically Relevant Prostate Cancer. A Multi-Institutional Validation Trial

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-10-01

Study (PASS). We are in the process of evaluating these three biomarker panels in tissue, blood, and urine samples with well annotated clinical and...impacting both the initial choice of therapy and decision-making during AS. The objective of the study is to utilize analytically validated assays that...predict reclassification from Gleason 6 cancer to Gleason 7 or greater. The analysis plan was determined before specimens were selected for the study
Biomarkers for Early Detection of Clinically Relevant Prostate Cancer. A Multi-Institutional Validation Trial

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-10-01

Study (PASS). We are in the process of evaluating these three biomarker panels in tissue, blood, and urine samples with well annotated clinical and...choice of therapy and decision-making during AS. The objective of the study is to utilize analytically validated assays that take into account tumor...Gleason 6 cancer to Gleason 7 or greater. The analysis plan was determined before specimens were selected for the study , and included 7 breaking
Suitability of a Group Behavioural Therapy Module for Workplace Smoking Cessation Programs in Malaysia: a Pilot Study.

PubMed

Maarof, Muhammad Faizal; Ali, Adliah Mhd; Amit, Noh; Bakry, Mohd Makmor; Taha, Nur Akmar

2016-01-01

In Malaysia, data on components suitability the established smoking cessation module is limited. This exploratory study aimed to evaluate the suitability of the components developed in the module for group behavioural therapy in workplace smoking cessation programs. Twenty staff were identified but only eight individuals were selected according to the study criteria during the recruitment period in May 2014. Focus group discussion was conducted to identify themes relevant to the behavioural issues among smokers. Thematic analysis yielded seven major themes which were reasons for regular smoking, reasons for quitting, comprehending smoking characteristics, quit attempt experiences, support and encouragement, learning new skills and behaviour, and preparing for lapse/relapse or difficult situations. As a result, the developed module was found to be relevant and suitable for use based on these themes.
Orthodontic Treatment Timing and Modalities in Anterior Open Bite: Case Series Study

PubMed Central

Al Hamadi, Wisam; Saleh, Fayez; Kaddouha, Mohamad

2017-01-01

Objective: The purpose of this study was to present early and adult cases of anterior open bite that were treated efficiently using different treatment approaches and mechanics. Materials and Methods: Five patients of different age groups (from 7 to 27 years), suffering from a clear Anterior open bite deformity, were properly diagnosed and relevant treatment modality for each was selected. Results: Positive overbite was efficiently achieved for all patients. Conclusion: Patient compliance is a key factor in using removable habit breakers. However, fixed palatal crib gave the same results but in shorter time. Anterior open bite of skeletal components should be thoroughly evaluated before selecting camouflage or orthognathic surgery treatment modality. PMID:29299074
Selective Control of Attention Supports the Positivity Effect in Aging

PubMed Central

Sasse, Laura K.; Gamer, Matthias; Büchel, Christian; Brassen, Stefanie

2014-01-01

There is emerging evidence for a positivity effect in healthy aging, which describes an age-specific increased focus on positive compared to negative information. Life-span researchers have attributed this effect to the selective allocation of cognitive resources in the service of prioritized emotional goals. We explored the basic principles of this assumption by assessing selective attention and memory for visual stimuli, differing in emotional content and self-relevance, in young and old participants. To specifically address the impact of cognitive control, voluntary attentional selection during the presentation of multiple-item displays was analyzed and linked to participants' general ability of cognitive control. Results revealed a positivity effect in older adults' selective attention and memory, which was particularly pronounced for self-relevant stimuli. Focusing on positive and ignoring negative information was most evident in older participants with a generally higher ability to exert top-down control during visual search. Our findings highlight the role of controlled selectivity in the occurrence of a positivity effect in aging. Since the effect has been related to well-being in later life, we suggest that the ability to selectively allocate top-down control might represent a resilience factor for emotional health in aging. PMID:25093459
Selective control of attention supports the positivity effect in aging.

PubMed

Sasse, Laura K; Gamer, Matthias; Büchel, Christian; Brassen, Stefanie

2014-01-01

There is emerging evidence for a positivity effect in healthy aging, which describes an age-specific increased focus on positive compared to negative information. Life-span researchers have attributed this effect to the selective allocation of cognitive resources in the service of prioritized emotional goals. We explored the basic principles of this assumption by assessing selective attention and memory for visual stimuli, differing in emotional content and self-relevance, in young and old participants. To specifically address the impact of cognitive control, voluntary attentional selection during the presentation of multiple-item displays was analyzed and linked to participants' general ability of cognitive control. Results revealed a positivity effect in older adults' selective attention and memory, which was particularly pronounced for self-relevant stimuli. Focusing on positive and ignoring negative information was most evident in older participants with a generally higher ability to exert top-down control during visual search. Our findings highlight the role of controlled selectivity in the occurrence of a positivity effect in aging. Since the effect has been related to well-being in later life, we suggest that the ability to selectively allocate top-down control might represent a resilience factor for emotional health in aging.

Quality and methodological challenges in Internet-based mental health trials.

PubMed

Ye, Xibiao; Bapuji, Sunita Bayyavarapu; Winters, Shannon; Metge, Colleen; Raynard, Mellissa

2014-08-01

To review the quality of Internet-based mental health intervention studies and their methodological challenges. We searched multiple literature databases to identify relevant studies according to the Population, Interventions, Comparators, Outcomes, and Study Design framework. Two reviewers independently assessed selection bias, allocation bias, confounding bias, blinding, data collection methods, and withdrawals/dropouts, using the Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies. We rated each component as strong, moderate, or weak and assigned a global rating (strong, moderate, or weak) to each study. We discussed methodological issues related to the study quality. Of 122 studies included, 31 (25%), 44 (36%), and 47 (39%) were rated strong, moderate, and weak, respectively. Only five studies were rated strong for all of the six quality components (three of them were published by the same group). Lack of blinding, selection bias, and low adherence were the top three challenges in Internet-based mental health intervention studies. The overall quality of Internet-based mental health intervention needs to improve. In particular, studies need to improve sample selection, intervention allocation, and blinding.
Diagnosis, Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment, Prevention, and Control of Hypertension in Cameroon: Protocol for a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinic-Based and Community-Based Studies.

PubMed

Kuate Defo, Barthelemy; Mbanya, Jean Claude; Tardif, Jean-Claude; Ekundayo, Olugbemiga; Perreault, Sylvie; Potvin, Louise; Cote, Robert; Kengne, Andre Pascal; Choukem, Simeon Pierre; Assah, Felix; Kingue, Samuel; Richard, Lucie; Pongou, Roland; Frohlich, Katherine; Saji, Jude; Fournier, Pierre; Sobngwi, Eugene; Ridde, Valery; Dubé, Marie-Pierre; De Denus, Simon; Mbacham, Wilfred; Lafrance, Jean-Philippe; Nsagha, Dickson Shey; Mampuya, Warner; Dzudie, Anastase; Cloutier, Lyne; Zarowsky, Christina; Tanya, Agatha; Ndom, Paul; Hatem, Marie; Rey, Evelyne; Roy, Louise; Borgès Da Silva, Roxane; Dagenais, Christian; Todem, David; Weladji, Robert; Mbanya, Dora; Emami, Elham; Njoumemi, Zakariaou; Monnais, Laurence; Dubois, Carl-Ardy

2017-05-29

Hypertension holds a unique place in population health and health care because it is the leading cause of cardiovascular disease and the most common noncommunicable condition seen in primary care worldwide. Without effective prevention and control, raised blood pressure significantly increases the risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, chronic kidney disease, heart failure, dementia, renal failure, and blindness. There is an urgent need for stakeholders-including individuals and families-across the health system, researchers, and decision makers to work collaboratively for improving prevention, screening and detection, diagnosis and evaluation, awareness, treatment and medication adherence, management, and control for people with or at high risk for hypertension. Meeting this need will help reduce the burden of hypertension-related disease, prevent complications, and reduce the need for hospitalization, costly interventions, and premature deaths. This review aims to synthesize evidence on the epidemiological landscape and control of hypertension in Cameroon, and to identify elements that could potentially inform interventions to combat hypertension in this setting and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. The full search process will involve several steps, including selecting relevant databases, keywords, and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH); searching for relevant studies from the selected databases; searching OpenGrey and the Grey Literature Report for gray literature; hand searching in Google Scholar; and soliciting missed publications (if any) from relevant authors. We will select qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods studies with data on the epidemiology and control of hypertension in Cameroon. We will include published literature in French or English from electronic databases up to December 31, 2016, and involving adults aged 18 years or older. Both facility and population-based studies on hypertension will be included. Two reviewers of the team will independently search, screen, extract data, and assess the quality of selected studies using suitable tools. Selected studies will be analyzed by narrative synthesis, meta-analysis, or both, depending on the nature of the data retrieved in line with the review objectives. This review is part of an ongoing research program on disease prevention and control in the context of the dual burden of communicable and noncommunicable diseases in Africa. The first results are expected in 2017. This review will provide a comprehensive assessment of the burden of hypertension and control measures that have been designed and implemented in Cameroon. Findings will form the knowledge base relevant to stakeholders across the health system and researchers who are involved in hypertension prevention and control in the community and clinic settings in Cameroon, as a yardstick for similar African countries. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42017054950; http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/ display_record.asp?ID=CRD42017054950 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6qYSjt9Jc). ©Barthelemy Kuate Defo, Jean Claude Mbanya, Jean-Claude Tardif, Olugbemiga Ekundayo, Sylvie Perreault, Louise Potvin, Robert Cote, Andre Pascal Kengne, Simeon Pierre Choukem, Felix Assah, Samuel Kingue, Lucie Richard, Roland Pongou, Katherine Frohlich, Jude Saji, Pierre Fournier, Eugene Sobngwi, Valery Ridde, Marie-Pierre Dubé, Simon De Denus, Wilfred Mbacham, Jean-Philippe Lafrance, Dickson Shey Nsagha, Warner Mampuya, Anastase Dzudie, Lyne Cloutier, Christina Zarowsky, Agatha Tanya, Paul Ndom, Marie Hatem, Evelyne Rey, Louise Roy, Roxane Borgès Da Silva, Christian Dagenais, David Todem, Robert Weladji, Dora Mbanya, Elham Emami, Zakariaou Njoumemi, Laurence Monnais, Carl-Ardy Dubois. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 29.05.2017.
Complex Environmental Data Modelling Using Adaptive General Regression Neural Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kanevski, Mikhail

2015-04-01

The research deals with an adaptation and application of Adaptive General Regression Neural Networks (GRNN) to high dimensional environmental data. GRNN [1,2,3] are efficient modelling tools both for spatial and temporal data and are based on nonparametric kernel methods closely related to classical Nadaraya-Watson estimator. Adaptive GRNN, using anisotropic kernels, can be also applied for features selection tasks when working with high dimensional data [1,3]. In the present research Adaptive GRNN are used to study geospatial data predictability and relevant feature selection using both simulated and real data case studies. The original raw data were either three dimensional monthly precipitation data or monthly wind speeds embedded into 13 dimensional space constructed by geographical coordinates and geo-features calculated from digital elevation model. GRNN were applied in two different ways: 1) adaptive GRNN with the resulting list of features ordered according to their relevancy; and 2) adaptive GRNN applied to evaluate all possible models N [in case of wind fields N=(2^13 -1)=8191] and rank them according to the cross-validation error. In both cases training were carried out applying leave-one-out procedure. An important result of the study is that the set of the most relevant features depends on the month (strong seasonal effect) and year. The predictabilities of precipitation and wind field patterns, estimated using the cross-validation and testing errors of raw and shuffled data, were studied in detail. The results of both approaches were qualitatively and quantitatively compared. In conclusion, Adaptive GRNN with their ability to select features and efficient modelling of complex high dimensional data can be widely used in automatic/on-line mapping and as an integrated part of environmental decision support systems. 1. Kanevski M., Pozdnoukhov A., Timonin V. Machine Learning for Spatial Environmental Data. Theory, applications and software. EPFL Press. With a CD: data, software, guides. (2009). 2. Kanevski M. Spatial Predictions of Soil Contamination Using General Regression Neural Networks. Systems Research and Information Systems, Volume 8, number 4, 1999. 3. Robert S., Foresti L., Kanevski M. Spatial prediction of monthly wind speeds in complex terrain with adaptive general regression neural networks. International Journal of Climatology, 33 pp. 1793-1804, 2013.
Making Chemistry Relevant to the Engineering Major

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Basu-Dutt, Sharmistha; Slappey, Charles; Bartley, Julie K.

2010-01-01

As part of a campus-wide, externally funded project to increase performance in, enthusiasm for, and retention within STEM disciplines, we developed an interdisciplinary, team-taught first-year seminar course. The construction and delivery of this course was designed to show the relevance of selected general chemistry topics such as matter and…
Annotated Psychodynamic Bibliography for Residents in Psychiatry

PubMed Central

CALIGOR, EVE

1996-01-01

The author provides an annotated bibliography to introduce psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis to residents in psychiatry. The emphasis of the selection is on relevance to practice. The entries are grouped by topic, levels of difficulty are noted, and readings are identified as being of either current or historic relevance. PMID:22700303
Developments in "Two Social Psychologies": Toward an Appreciation of Mutual Relevance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stryker, Sheldon

1977-01-01

Historically, psychologists and sociologists have paid little attention to the social psychologies developed by one another; however, the theories are often mutually relevant. This paper reviews a selected set of recent developments and seeks to draw from these a picture of general trends. (Author/MV)
The Invisible Minority: Preparing Teachers to Meet the Needs of Gay and Lesbian Youth.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mathison, Carla

1998-01-01

Teacher educators can help prepare future educators to teach homosexual students by creating safe environments for homosexual students, providing positive role models, selecting relevant curriculum and activities, providing information and training for faculty, securing relevant library holdings, and conducting research on homosexual students.…
Is the Survival-Processing Memory Advantage Due to Richness of Encoding?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Röer, Jan P.; Bell, Raoul; Buchner, Axel

2013-01-01

Memory for words rated according to their relevance in a grassland survival context is exceptionally good. According to Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada's (2007) evolutionary-based explanation, natural selection processes have tuned the human memory system to prioritize the processing of fitness-relevant information. The survival-processing memory…
Beyond sex allocation: the role of mating systems in sexual selection in parasitoid wasps

PubMed Central

Boulton, Rebecca A; Collins, Laura A; Shuker, David M

2015-01-01

Despite the diverse array of mating systems and life histories which characterise the parasitic Hymenoptera, sexual selection and sexual conflict in this taxon have been somewhat overlooked. For instance, parasitoid mating systems have typically been studied in terms of how mating structure affects sex allocation. In the past decade, however, some studies have sought to address sexual selection in the parasitoid wasps more explicitly and found that, despite the lack of obvious secondary sexual traits, sexual selection has the potential to shape a range of aspects of parasitoid reproductive behaviour and ecology. Moreover, various characteristics fundamental to the parasitoid way of life may provide innovative new ways to investigate different processes of sexual selection. The overall aim of this review therefore is to re-examine parasitoid biology with sexual selection in mind, for both parasitoid biologists and also researchers interested in sexual selection and the evolution of mating systems more generally. We will consider aspects of particular relevance that have already been well studied including local mating structure, sex allocation and sperm depletion. We go on to review what we already know about sexual selection in the parasitoid wasps and highlight areas which may prove fruitful for further investigation. In particular, sperm depletion and the costs of inbreeding under chromosomal sex determination provide novel opportunities for testing the role of direct and indirect benefits for the evolution of mate choice. PMID:24981603
Synthesis and pharmacological evaluation of indole-based sigma receptor ligands

PubMed Central

Mésangeau, Christophe; Amata, Emanuele; Alsharif, Walid; Seminerio, Michael J.; Robson, Matthew J.; Matsumoto, Rae R.; Poupaert, Jacques H.; McCurdy, Christopher R.

2011-01-01

A series of novel indole-based analogues were prepared and their affinities for sigma receptors were determined using in vitro radioligand binding assays. The results of this study identified several compounds with nanomolar sigma-2 affinity and significant selectivity over sigma-1 receptors. In particular, 2-(4-(3-(4-fluorophenyl)indol-1-yl)butyl)-6,7-dimethoxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline (9f) was found to display high affinity at sigma-2 receptors with good selectivity (σ-1/σ-2 = 395). The pharmacological binding profile for this compound was established with other relevant nonsigma sites. PMID:21899931
Electron Capture in Proton Collisions with CO.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stancil, P. C.; Schultz, D. R.; Kimura, M.; Gu, J.-P.; Hirsch, G.; Buenker, R. J.; Li, Y.

1999-10-01

Electron capture by protons following collisions with carbon monoxide is studied with a variety of theoretical approaches including quantal and semiclassical molecular-orbital close-coupling (MOCC) and classical trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) techniques. The MOCC treatments utilize potential surfaces and couplings computed for a range of H^+-CO orientation angles and C-O separations. Results including integral, differential, electronic state-selective, and vibrational state-selective cross sections will be presented for low- to intermediate-energies. Comparison with experiment will be made where possible and the relevance of the reaction in astrophysics and atmospheric physics will be discussed.
From behavior to neural dynamics: An integrated theory of attention

PubMed Central

Buschman, Timothy J.; Kastner, Sabine

2015-01-01

The brain has a limited capacity and therefore needs mechanisms to selectively enhance the information most relevant to one’s current behavior. We refer to these mechanisms as ‘attention’. Attention acts by increasing the strength of selected neural representations and preferentially routing them through the brain’s large-scale network. This is a critical component of cognition and therefore has been a central topic in cognitive neuroscience. Here we review a diverse literature that has studied attention at the level of behavior, networks, circuits and neurons. We then integrate these disparate results into a unified theory of attention. PMID:26447577
The impact of pesticides on oxidative stress level in human organism and their activity as an endocrine disruptor.

PubMed

Jabłońska-Trypuć, Agata; Wołejko, Elżbieta; Wydro, Urszula; Butarewicz, Andrzej

2017-07-03

Pesticides cause serious environmental and health problems both to humans and animals. The aim of this review is to discuss selected herbicides and fungicides regarding their mode of action and their influence on basic oxidative stress parameters and endocrine disruption properties tested in selected cell cultures in vitro. Because of numerous difficulties which animal studies are subject to, cell cultures are an excellent experimental model reflecting human exposure to different pesticides through all relevant routes. This experimental model can be used to monitor aggregate and cumulative pesticide exposures.
Specific Mutation of a Gammaherpesvirus-Expressed Antigen in Response to CD8 T Cell Selection In Vivo

PubMed Central

Loh, Joy; Popkin, Daniel L.; Droit, Lindsay; Braaten, Douglas C.; Zhao, Guoyan; Zhang, Xin; Vachharajani, Punit; Myers, Nancy; Hansen, Ted H.

2012-01-01

Herpesviruses are thought to be highly genetically stable, and their use as vaccine vectors has been proposed. However, studies of the human gammaherpesvirus, Epstein-Barr virus, have found viral isolates containing mutations in HLA class I-restricted epitopes. Using murine gammaherpesvirus 68 expressing ovalbumin (OVA), we examined the stability of a gammaherpesvirus antigenic locus under strong CD8 T cell selection in vivo. OVA-specific CD8 T cells selected viral isolates containing mutations in the OVA locus but minimal alterations in other genomic regions. Thus, a CD8 T cell response to a gammaherpesvirus-expressed antigen that is not essential for replication or pathogenesis can result in selective mutation of that antigen in vivo. This finding may have relevance for the use of herpesvirus vectors for chronic antigen expression in vivo. PMID:22171269
Magnetoencephalogram blind source separation and component selection procedure to improve the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease patients.

PubMed

Escudero, Javier; Hornero, Roberto; Abásolo, Daniel; Fernández, Alberto; Poza, Jesús

2007-01-01

The aim of this study was to improve the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients applying a blind source separation (BSS) and component selection procedure to their magnetoencephalogram (MEG) recordings. MEGs from 18 AD patients and 18 control subjects were decomposed with the algorithm for multiple unknown signals extraction. MEG channels and components were characterized by their mean frequency, spectral entropy, approximate entropy, and Lempel-Ziv complexity. Using Student's t-test, the components which accounted for the most significant differences between groups were selected. Then, these relevant components were used to partially reconstruct the MEG channels. By means of a linear discriminant analysis, we found that the BSS-preprocessed MEGs classified the subjects with an accuracy of 80.6%, whereas 72.2% accuracy was obtained without the BSS and component selection procedure.
Ribosome Levels Selectively Regulate Translation and Lineage Commitment in Human Hematopoiesis.

PubMed

Khajuria, Rajiv K; Munschauer, Mathias; Ulirsch, Jacob C; Fiorini, Claudia; Ludwig, Leif S; McFarland, Sean K; Abdulhay, Nour J; Specht, Harrison; Keshishian, Hasmik; Mani, D R; Jovanovic, Marko; Ellis, Steven R; Fulco, Charles P; Engreitz, Jesse M; Schütz, Sabina; Lian, John; Gripp, Karen W; Weinberg, Olga K; Pinkus, Geraldine S; Gehrke, Lee; Regev, Aviv; Lander, Eric S; Gazda, Hanna T; Lee, Winston Y; Panse, Vikram G; Carr, Steven A; Sankaran, Vijay G

2018-03-22

Blood cell formation is classically thought to occur through a hierarchical differentiation process, although recent studies have shown that lineage commitment may occur earlier in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). The relevance to human blood diseases and the underlying regulation of these refined models remain poorly understood. By studying a genetic blood disorder, Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA), where the majority of mutations affect ribosomal proteins and the erythroid lineage is selectively perturbed, we are able to gain mechanistic insight into how lineage commitment is programmed normally and disrupted in disease. We show that in DBA, the pool of available ribosomes is limited, while ribosome composition remains constant. Surprisingly, this global reduction in ribosome levels more profoundly alters translation of a select subset of transcripts. We show how the reduced translation of select transcripts in HSPCs can impair erythroid lineage commitment, illuminating a regulatory role for ribosome levels in cellular differentiation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
User fees, self-selection and the poor in Bangladesh.

PubMed

Thomas, S; Killingsworth, J R; Acharya, S

1998-03-01

The widespread uncontrolled introduction of user fees in any developing country is likely to have a disastrous impact on poorer patients. Furthermore, traditional targeting schemes aimed at their exemption are often expensive, difficult to administer and ineffective at reaching those in greatest need. This research study examines how user fees can raise revenue and target poorer patients, under the right market conditions, without resorting to costly targeting schemes. The authors draw their findings from case studies of cost recovery in the health and population sectors in Bangladesh. The mechanism suggested in the paper is to use self-selection. It is argued that under certain market conditions poorer patients will choose the health-care option that is appropriate to their means. They will thus identify themselves as poor without having to be selected or tested by an independent authority. This self-selection allows the relevant authorities to cross-subsidize their market choice by over-charging the non-poor in other segments of the market.
Electronic patient records in action: Transforming information into professionally relevant knowledge.

PubMed

Winman, Thomas; Rystedt, Hans

2011-03-01

The implementation of generic models for organizing information in complex institutions like those in healthcare creates a gap between standardization and the need for locally relevant knowledge. The present study addresses how this gap can be bridged by focusing on the practical work of healthcare staff in transforming information in EPRs into knowledge that is useful for everyday work. Video recording of shift handovers on a rehabilitation ward serves as the empirical case. The results show how extensive selections and reorganizations of information in EPRs are carried out in order to transform information into professionally relevant accounts. We argue that knowledge about the institutional obligations and professional ways of construing information are fundamental for these transitions. The findings point to the need to consider the role of professional knowledge inherent in unpacking information in efforts to develop information systems intended to bridge between institutional and professional boundaries in healthcare. © The Author(s) 2011.
[Attention therapy for children - long-term affects of the ATTENTIONER].

PubMed

Jacobs, Claus; Petermann, Franz

2008-11-01

A high percentage of children are affected by attention deficit disorders. For a large proportion the cardinal symptom is inattention; in particular, deficits in selective attention prevail. The ATTENTIONER offers an effective training method for the treatment of selective attention deficit. In 2007, long-term effects of therapy were already reported by Jacobs and Petermann, who examined children ten weeks after therapy on average. In the current study three measurements were conducted: pre-intervention, post-intervention, and at follow-up ten to 76 months after post-intervention. Significant long-term effects on measures of selective attention were observed. At follow-up the majority of patients achieved average results which were not clinically relevant. For most children stable therapy effects can be achieved with the ATTENTIONER.
[Transmission of parasites by blood transfusions and organ transplantation].

PubMed

Burchard, G D

1994-08-01

The purpose of the present study consists in an updated review concerning the transmission of protozoa and worms by blood transfusion and organ transplantation. Prophylactic regimens and possible modifications will be discussed. The literature devoted to tropical medicine in recent years was screened and a search on Medline was performed. Relevant review articles were selected. Transfusion induced malaria and--especially in Latin America--transfusion associated Chagas' disease are the most important of these diseases. Prophylaxis of transfusion malaria is different in different countries, it is based primarily on donor selection and immunodiagnostic examinations. It is recommended that the German guidelines for prevention of transfusion malaria should be modified and that a donor selection should also take place concerning Chagas' disease.

Use of Gene Expression Programming in regionalization of flow duration curve

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hashmi, Muhammad Z.; Shamseldin, Asaad Y.

2014-06-01

In this paper, a recently introduced artificial intelligence technique known as Gene Expression Programming (GEP) has been employed to perform symbolic regression for developing a parametric scheme of flow duration curve (FDC) regionalization, to relate selected FDC characteristics to catchment characteristics. Stream flow records of selected catchments located in the Auckland Region of New Zealand were used. FDCs of the selected catchments were normalised by dividing the ordinates by their median value. Input for the symbolic regression analysis using GEP was (a) selected characteristics of normalised FDCs; and (b) 26 catchment characteristics related to climate, morphology, soil properties and land cover properties obtained using the observed data and GIS analysis. Our study showed that application of this artificial intelligence technique expedites the selection of a set of the most relevant independent variables out of a large set, because these are automatically selected through the GEP process. Values of the FDC characteristics obtained from the developed relationships have high correlations with the observed values.
Designing basin-customized combined drought indices via feature extraction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zaniolo, Marta; Giuliani, Matteo; Castelletti, Andrea

2017-04-01

The socio-economic costs of drought are progressively increasing worldwide due to the undergoing alteration of hydro-meteorological regimes induced by climate change. Although drought management is largely studied in the literature, most of the traditional drought indexes fail in detecting critical events in highly regulated systems, which generally rely on ad-hoc formulations and cannot be generalized to different context. In this study, we contribute a novel framework for the design of a basin-customized drought index. This index represents a surrogate of the state of the basin and is computed by combining the available information about the water available in the system to reproduce a representative target variable for the drought condition of the basin (e.g., water deficit). To select the relevant variables and how to combine them, we use an advanced feature extraction algorithm called Wrapper for Quasi Equally Informative Subset Selection (W-QEISS). The W-QEISS algorithm relies on a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to find Pareto-efficient subsets of variables by maximizing the wrapper accuracy, minimizing the number of selected variables (cardinality) and optimizing relevance and redundancy of the subset. The accuracy objective is evaluated trough the calibration of a pre-defined model (i.e., an extreme learning machine) of the water deficit for each candidate subset of variables, with the index selected from the resulting solutions identifying a suitable compromise between accuracy, cardinality, relevance, and redundancy. The proposed methodology is tested in the case study of Lake Como in northern Italy, a regulated lake mainly operated for irrigation supply to four downstream agricultural districts. In the absence of an institutional drought monitoring system, we constructed the combined index using all the hydrological variables from the existing monitoring system as well as the most common drought indicators at multiple time aggregations. The soil moisture deficit in the root zone computed by a distributed-parameter water balance model of the agricultural districts is used as target variable. Numerical results show that our framework succeeds in constructing a combined drought index that reproduces the soil moisture deficit. Moreover, this index represents a valuable information for supporting appropriate drought management strategies, including the possibility of directly informing the lake operations about the drought conditions and improve the overall reliability of the irrigation supply system.
Multilevel Structural Equation Models for Investigating the Effects of Computer-Based Learning in Math Classrooms on Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) Major Selection in 4-Year Postsecondary Institutions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Ahlam

2017-01-01

Background/Context: Because of the growing concern over the decline of bachelor degree recipients in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in the U.S., several studies have been devoted to identifying the factors that affect students' STEM major choices. A majority of these studies have focused on factors relevant to…
Processing and Analysis of Polarimetric Ship Signatures from MARSIE: Report on Results for Polar Epsilon

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-10-01

trial has provided a vast and valuable polarimetric data set that has and will be beneficial to the study of polarimetric signatures of ships. iv...following polarimetric issues are relevant to the Polar Epsilon CONOPS and will be studied further: • The effects of acquisition geometry, target...between minimum detectable ship size and area coverage rate. Therefore, vessel detection will be dependent upon beam mode selection. The vessel
Employment of adaptive learning techniques for the discrimination of acoustic emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erkes, J. W.; McDonald, J. F.; Scarton, H. A.; Tam, K. C.; Kraft, R. P.

1983-11-01

The following aspects of this study on the discrimination of acoustic emissions (AE) were examined: (1) The analytical development and assessment of digital signal processing techniques for AE signal dereverberation, noise reduction, and source characterization; (2) The modeling and verification of some aspects of key selected techniques through a computer-based simulation; and (3) The study of signal propagation physics and their effect on received signal characteristics for relevant physical situations.
Tactical Integration of Conventional and Special Operations Forces in Training for a Complex World

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-05-26

the researcher has formulated for analysis of the single case study of OEF. Operation Enduring Freedom was selected for its contemporary relevance and...5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR( S ) Major Darren Riley 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7...PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME( S ) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER School of Advanced Military Studies 320 Gibson Avenue
Tech Talk for Social Studies Teachers. Writing about Nazi Germany and Leni Riefenstahl:-Using Technology to Access Information

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Street, Chris; Stang, Kristin

2008-01-01

Asking students to explore teacher-selected Web sites is an effective way to provide students with appropriate links to credible online resources. This article provides several links to relevant sites that cover the Holocaust and Nazi Germany in general. It also provides several sites that focus on one particularly controversial and significant…
Teachers' Views of Mathematics Textbook Series in Flanders: Does it (Not) Matter Which Mathematics Textbook Series Schools Choose?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Steenbrugge, H.; Valcke, M.; Desoete, A.

2013-01-01

The debate on the differential effects of mathematics textbook series is a recurrent topic in the research literature. Research results remain inconclusive, pointing to a lack of evidence to decide on the relevance of the selection by schools of a mathematics textbook series. Studies also point to difficulties in comparing textbooks. Recently, in…
Learning-Related Cognitive Self-Regulation Measures for Prekindergarten Children: A Comparative Evaluation of the Educational Relevance of Selected Measures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lipsey, Mark W.; Nesbitt, Kimberly Turner; Farran, Dale C.; Dong, Nianbo; Fuhs, Mary Wagner; Wilson, Sandra Jo

2017-01-01

Many cognitive self-regulation (CSR) measures are related to the academic achievement of prekindergarten children and are thus of potential interest for school readiness screening and as outcome variables in intervention research aimed at improving those skills in order to facilitate learning. The objective of this study was to identify…
The Function of Annotations in the Comprehension of Scientific Texts: Cognitive Load Effects and the Impact of Verbal Ability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wallen, Erik; Plass, Jan L.; Brunken, Roland

2005-01-01

Students participated in a study (n = 98) investigating the effectiveness of three types of annotations on three learning outcome measures. The annotations were designed to support the cognitive processes in the comprehension of scientific texts, with a function to aid either the process of selecting relevant information, organizing the…
Patterns of analgesic and anti-inflammatory medicine use by Australian veterans.

PubMed

Pearson, S-A; Ringland, C; Kelman, C; Mant, A; Lowinger, J; Stark, H; Nichol, G; Day, R; Henry, D

2007-12-01

We examined analgesic and anti-inflammatory medicine use by Australian veterans before and after the introduction of selective Cox-2 inhibitors. We studied cohorts of Gold Card-holding veterans using prescription data held by the Department of Veterans' Affairs for the period 1 July 1998 to 30 June 2004. Outcomes were volume dispensed, average daily quantity and cumulative incidence of use of paracetamol-containing and aspirin-containing medicines, non-selective and Cox-2-selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), tramadol and dextropropoxyphene. Overall, we found high levels of use of analgesic and anti-inflammatory medicines, which increased by 43% over the study period. Use of paracetamol-containing medicines was overtaken by NSAIDs in 1999/2000, corresponding to the introduction of the Cox-2-selective agents. Between 12 and 17% of Cox-2-selective medicine recipients were supplied amounts indicative of continuous use in relatively high doses and 51% of veterans received at least one relatively Cox-2-selective medicine (celecoxib, rofecoxib, meloxicam, diclofenac) by the end of the study period. Dextropropoxyphene use declined during the study and tramadol use increased 10-fold. This study shows very high levels of Cox-2 inhibitor use during the 6-year period. Cox-2-selective agents were more likely to be taken continuously and at higher doses than non-selective NSAIDs. This is relevant in view of the cardiovascular toxicity of this group of medicines. The study shows the value of using unit record dispensing data to assess drug use patterns. Linking dispensing records to hospital separation and mortality data will further enhance our ability to monitor drug safety.
Orangutans (Pongo spp.) may prefer tools with rigid properties to flimsy tools.

PubMed

Walkup, Kristina R; Shumaker, Robert W; Pruetz, Jill D

2010-11-01

Preference for tools with either rigid or flexible properties was explored in orangutans (Pongo spp.) through an extension of D. J. Povinelli, J. E. Reaux, and L. A. Theall's (2000) flimsy-tool problem. Three captive orangutans were presented with three unfamiliar pairs of tools to solve a novel problem. Although each orangutan has spontaneously used tools in the past, the tools presented in this study were novel to the apes. Each pair of tools contained one tool with rigid properties (functional) and one tool with flimsy properties (nonfunctional). Solving the problem required selection of a rigid tool to retrieve a food reward. The functional tool was selected in nearly all trials. Moreover, two of the orangutans demonstrated this within the first test trials with each of the three tool types. Although further research is required to test this statistically, it suggests either a preexisting preference for rigid tools or comprehension of the relevant features required in a tool to solve the task. The results of this study demonstrate that orangutans can recognize, or learn to recognize, relevant tool properties and can choose an appropriate tool to solve a problem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).
Dopaminergic modulation of semantic priming in healthy volunteers.

PubMed

Roesch-Ely, Daniela; Weiland, Stephan; Scheffel, Hans; Schwaninger, Markus; Hundemer, Hans-Peter; Kolter, Thomas; Weisbrod, Matthias

2006-09-15

Semantic priming is a function related to prefrontal cortical (PFC) networks and is lateralized. There is evidence that semantic priming underlies dopaminergic modulation. It is known that the D1-receptor is more abundant in prefrontal networks; however, until now there have been no studies investigating the selective modulation of semantic priming with dopamine agonists. Furthermore, D1 receptor dysfunction has been described in schizophrenia, and patients with formal thought disorder seem to have disturbed focusing of associations and increased indirect priming. With a subtraction design, we compared the influence of pergolide (D1/D2 agonist) with bromocriptine (D2 agonist) and placebo, in a randomized, double-blind, crossover design in 40 healthy male volunteers. Subjects performed a lateralized lexical decision task including direct and indirect related prime-target pairs (stimulus onset asynchrony = 750 msec). Only on pergolide a decrease of the indirect priming in the left hemisphere presentations was found. These findings point to a potential selective modulation of agonists with a D1 component on the focusing of semantic associations. The clinical relevance of this study is that it might help the development of therapeutic strategies for treating cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease, which are highly relevant to the functional outcome.
A Blocking Group Scan Using a Spherical Organometallic Complex Identifies an Unprecedented Binding Mode with Potent Activity In Vitro and In Vivo for the Opioid Peptide Dermorphin.

PubMed

Strack, Martin; Bedini, Andrea; Yip, King T; Lombardi, Sara; Siegmund, Daniel; Stoll, Raphael; Spampinato, Santi M; Metzler-Nolte, Nils

2016-10-04

Herein, the selective enforcement of one particular receptor-ligand interaction between specific domains of the μ-selective opioid peptide dermorphin and the μ opioid receptor is presented. For this, a blocking group scan is described which exploits the steric demand of a bis(quinolinylmethyl)amine rhenium(I) tricarbonyl complex conjugated to a number of different, strategically chosen positions of dermorphin. The prepared peptide conjugates lead to the discovery of two different binding modes: An expected N-terminal binding mode corresponds to the established view of opioid peptide binding, whereas an unexpected C-terminal binding mode is newly discovered. Surprisingly, both binding modes provide high affinity and agonistic activity at the μ opioid receptor in vitro. Furthermore, the unprecedented C-terminal binding mode shows potent dose-dependent antinociception in vivo. Finally, in silico docking studies support receptor activation by both dermorphin binding modes and suggest a biological relevance for dermorphin itself. Relevant ligand-protein interactions are similar for both binding modes, which is in line with previous protein mutation studies. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.
Foetal Gender and Obstetric Outcome

PubMed Central

Schildberger, B.; Leitner, H.

2016-01-01

Introduction: Data on specific characteristics based on the gender of the unborn baby and their significance for obstetrics are limited. The aim of this study is to analyse selected parameters of obstetric relevance in the phases pregnancy, birth and postpartum period in dependence on the gender of the foetus. Materials and Methods: The selected study method comprised a retrospective data acquisition and evaluation from the Austrian birth register of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology of Tyrolean State Hospitals. For the analysis all inpatient singleton deliveries in Austria during the period from 2008 to 2013 were taken into account (live and stillbirths n = 444 685). The gender of the baby was correlated with previously defined, obstetrically relevant parameters. Results: In proportions, significantly more premature births and sub partu medical interventions (vaginal and abdominal surgical deliveries. episiotomies) were observed for male foetuses (p < 0.001). The neonatal outcome (5-min Apgar score, umbilical pH value less than 7.1, transfer to a neonatal special unit) is significantly poorer for boys (p < 0.001). Discussion: In view of the vulnerability of male foetuses and infants, further research is needed in order to be able to react appropriately to the differing gender-specific requirements in obstetrics. PMID:27065487
Low impact of exposure to environmentally relevant doses of 226Ra in Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) embryonic cells.

PubMed

Olsvik, Pål A; Berntssen, Marc H G; Hylland, Ketil; Eriksen, Dag Ø; Holen, Elisabeth

2012-07-01

The aim of this study was to investigate whether (226)Ra, a radionuclide present in produced water from oil platforms in the North Sea and other offshore drilling areas, could affect vulnerable early life stages of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). Blastula-stage embryonic cells (EC) from fertilized eggs of Atlantic cod were isolated and exposed to environmental relevant concentrations of (226)Ra and transcription of selected genes quantified. The results showed a weak, but significant up-regulation of GPx3 and HSP70 transcripts after 48 h of exposure to 2.11 Bq/L. In EC exposed to three (226)Ra concentrations (2.11, 23 and 117 Bq/L) for 12 h, metallothionein, HSP90AA, thioredoxin and caspase 8 were significantly up-regulated in cells exposed to 117 Bq/L, whereas thioredoxin was also significantly up-regulated in EC exposed to 23 Bq/L. When EC were exposed to the same (226)Ra concentrations for 48 h, only heme oxygenase was significantly up-regulated in the 23 Bq/L exposure group. The results suggest that environmentally relevant activities of (226)Ra may induce oxidative stress and apoptosis in fish ECs. Exposure of Atlantic cod EC to Cd, selected as a model toxicant, supported the ability of EC around blastula stage to respond to toxicants by altered transcription. Due to dilution, environmentally relevant concentrations of radionuclides present in produced water would be expected to pose a minor threat to early life stages of fish. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Context Relevant Prediction Model for COPD Domain Using Bayesian Belief Network

PubMed Central

Saleh, Lokman; Ajami, Hicham; Mili, Hafedh

2017-01-01

In the last three decades, researchers have examined extensively how context-aware systems can assist people, specifically those suffering from incurable diseases, to help them cope with their medical illness. Over the years, a huge number of studies on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) have been published. However, how to derive relevant attributes and early detection of COPD exacerbations remains a challenge. In this research work, we will use an efficient algorithm to select relevant attributes where there is no proper approach in this domain. Such algorithm predicts exacerbations with high accuracy by adding discretization process, and organizes the pertinent attributes in priority order based on their impact to facilitate the emergency medical treatment. In this paper, we propose an extension of our existing Helper Context-Aware Engine System (HCES) for COPD. This project uses Bayesian network algorithm to depict the dependency between the COPD symptoms (attributes) in order to overcome the insufficiency and the independency hypothesis of naïve Bayesian. In addition, the dependency in Bayesian network is realized using TAN algorithm rather than consulting pneumologists. All these combined algorithms (discretization, selection, dependency, and the ordering of the relevant attributes) constitute an effective prediction model, comparing to effective ones. Moreover, an investigation and comparison of different scenarios of these algorithms are also done to verify which sequence of steps of prediction model gives more accurate results. Finally, we designed and validated a computer-aided support application to integrate different steps of this model. The findings of our system HCES has shown promising results using Area Under Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUC = 81.5%). PMID:28644419
Using Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to Teach Different Recruitment and Selection Paradigms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Billsberry, Jon; Gilbert, Louise H.

2008-01-01

This article makes a case for using Roald Dahl's children's fantasy and morality tale "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to teach recruitment and selection. It draws attention to its relevance in illustrating and explaining three different recruitment and selection paradigms: psychometric, social process, and fit. It argues that the use of this…
Signs of impaired selective attention in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

PubMed

Pinkhardt, Elmar H; Jürgens, Reinhart; Becker, Wolfgang; Mölle, Matthias; Born, Jan; Ludolph, Albert C; Schreiber, Herbert

2008-04-01

The evidence for involvement of extramotor cortical areas in non-demented patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been provided by recent neuropsychological and functional brain imaging studies. The aim of this study was to investigate possible alterations in selective attention, as an important constituent part of frontal brain function in ALS patients. A classical dichotic listening task paradigm was employed to assess event-related EEG potential (ERPs) indicators of selective attention as well as preattentive processing of mismatch, without interference by motor impairment.A total of 20 patients with sporadic ALS according to the revised El Escorial criteria and 20 healthy controls were studied. Additionally a neuropsychological test battery of frontotemporal functions was applied. Compared with the controls, the ALS patients showed a distinct decrease of the fronto-precentral negative difference wave (Nd), i.e., the main ERP indicator of selective attention. Analysis of the P3 component of the ERPs indicated an increased processing of non-relevant stimuli in ALS patients confirming a reduced focus of attention. We conclude impaired selective attention reflects a subtle variant of frontotemporal dementia frequently observed in ALS patients at a relatively early stage of the disease.
Filtered selection coupled with support vector machines generate a functionally relevant prediction model for colorectal cancer

PubMed Central

Gabere, Musa Nur; Hussein, Mohamed Aly; Aziz, Mohammad Azhar

2016-01-01

Purpose There has been considerable interest in using whole-genome expression profiles for the classification of colorectal cancer (CRC). The selection of important features is a crucial step before training a classifier. Methods In this study, we built a model that uses support vector machine (SVM) to classify cancer and normal samples using Affymetrix exon microarray data obtained from 90 samples of 48 patients diagnosed with CRC. From the 22,011 genes, we selected the 20, 30, 50, 100, 200, 300, and 500 genes most relevant to CRC using the minimum-redundancy–maximum-relevance (mRMR) technique. With these gene sets, an SVM model was designed using four different kernel types (linear, polynomial, radial basis function [RBF], and sigmoid). Results The best model, which used 30 genes and RBF kernel, outperformed other combinations; it had an accuracy of 84% for both ten fold and leave-one-out cross validations in discriminating the cancer samples from the normal samples. With this 30 genes set from mRMR, six classifiers were trained using random forest (RF), Bayes net (BN), multilayer perceptron (MLP), naïve Bayes (NB), reduced error pruning tree (REPT), and SVM. Two hybrids, mRMR + SVM and mRMR + BN, were the best models when tested on other datasets, and they achieved a prediction accuracy of 95.27% and 91.99%, respectively, compared to other mRMR hybrid models (mRMR + RF, mRMR + NB, mRMR + REPT, and mRMR + MLP). Ingenuity pathway analysis was used to analyze the functions of the 30 genes selected for this model and their potential association with CRC: CDH3, CEACAM7, CLDN1, IL8, IL6R, MMP1, MMP7, and TGFB1 were predicted to be CRC biomarkers. Conclusion This model could be used to further develop a diagnostic tool for predicting CRC based on gene expression data from patient samples. PMID:27330311

Developing Tools for Identifying Employer and Employee Satisfaction of Nursing New Graduates in China

PubMed Central

Fan, Yuying; Li, Qiujie; Yang, Shufen; Guo, Ying; Yang, Libin; Zhao, Shibin

2014-01-01

Purpose. Researchers developed evaluation tools measuring employment relevant satisfaction for nursing new graduates. The evaluation tools were designed to be relevant to nursing managers who make employment decisions and nursing new graduates who were just employed. Methods. In-depth interviews and an expert panel were established to review the activities that evaluate the employee and employer satisfaction of nursing new graduates. Based on individual interviews and literature review, evaluation items were selected. A two-round Delphi study was then conducted from September 2008 to May 2009 with a panel of experts from a range of nursing colleges in China. Results. The response rate was 100% and Kendall's W was 0.73 in the second round of Delphi study. After two rounds of Delphi surveys, a list of 5 employee satisfaction items and 4 employer satisfaction items was identified for nursing new graduates. Conclusions. The findings of this study identified a different but multidimensional set of factors for employment relevant satisfaction, which confirmed the importance of certain fundamental aspects of practice. We developed the evaluation tools to assess the employer and employee satisfaction of nursing new graduates, which provided a database for further study. PMID:25097876
Developing tools for identifying employer and employee satisfaction of nursing new graduates in China.

PubMed

Fan, Yuying; Li, Qiujie; Yang, Shufen; Guo, Ying; Yang, Libin; Zhao, Shibin

2014-01-01

Researchers developed evaluation tools measuring employment relevant satisfaction for nursing new graduates. The evaluation tools were designed to be relevant to nursing managers who make employment decisions and nursing new graduates who were just employed. In-depth interviews and an expert panel were established to review the activities that evaluate the employee and employer satisfaction of nursing new graduates. Based on individual interviews and literature review, evaluation items were selected. A two-round Delphi study was then conducted from September 2008 to May 2009 with a panel of experts from a range of nursing colleges in China. The response rate was 100% and Kendall's W was 0.73 in the second round of Delphi study. After two rounds of Delphi surveys, a list of 5 employee satisfaction items and 4 employer satisfaction items was identified for nursing new graduates. The findings of this study identified a different but multidimensional set of factors for employment relevant satisfaction, which confirmed the importance of certain fundamental aspects of practice. We developed the evaluation tools to assess the employer and employee satisfaction of nursing new graduates, which provided a database for further study.
Water displacement leg volumetry in clinical studies - A discussion of error sources

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background Water displacement leg volumetry is a highly reproducible method, allowing the confirmation of efficacy of vasoactive substances. Nevertheless errors of its execution and the selection of unsuitable patients are likely to negatively affect the outcome of clinical studies in chronic venous insufficiency (CVI). Discussion Placebo controlled double-blind drug studies in CVI were searched (Cochrane Review 2005, MedLine Search until December 2007) and assessed with regard to efficacy (volume reduction of the leg), patient characteristics, and potential methodological error sources. Almost every second study reported only small drug effects (≤ 30 mL volume reduction). As the most relevant error source the conduct of volumetry was identified. Because the practical use of available equipment varies, volume differences of more than 300 mL - which is a multifold of a potential treatment effect - have been reported between consecutive measurements. Other potential error sources were insufficient patient guidance or difficulties with the transition from the Widmer CVI classification to the CEAP (Clinical Etiological Anatomical Pathophysiological) grading. Summary Patients should be properly diagnosed with CVI and selected for stable oedema and further clinical symptoms relevant for the specific study. Centres require a thorough training on the use of the volumeter and on patient guidance. Volumetry should be performed under constant conditions. The reproducibility of short term repeat measurements has to be ensured. PMID:20070899
The effect of early child care attendance on childhood asthma and wheezing: A meta-analysis.

PubMed

Swartz, Alicia; Collier, Tina; Young, Chelsea Anne; Cruz, Eddie; Bekmezian, Arpi; Coffman, Janet; Celedon, Juan; Alkon, Abbey; Cabana, Michael D

2018-04-09

Research evidence offers mixed results regarding the relationship between early child care attendance and childhood asthma and wheezing. A meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize the current research evidence of the association between early child care attendance and the risk of childhood asthma and wheezing. Peer reviewed studies published from 1964-January 2017 were identified in MEDLINE, CINAL, and EMBASE using MeSH headings relevant to child care and asthma. Two investigators independently reviewed the selected articles from this search. All relevant articles that met our inclusion criteria were selected for further analysis. Data were extracted from studies that had sufficient data to analyze the odds of asthma or wheezing among children who attended child care. The meta-analysis of 32 studies found that (1) early child care attendance is protective against asthma in children 3-5 years of age but not for children with asthma 6 years of age or older. (2) Early child care attendance increases the risk of wheezing among children 2 years of age or younger, but not the risk of wheezing for children over 2 years of age. This meta-analysis shows that early child care attendance is not significantly associated with the risk of asthma or wheeze in children 6 years of age or older.
Towards a Job Demands-Resources Health Model: Empirical Testing with Generalizable Indicators of Job Demands, Job Resources, and Comprehensive Health Outcomes.

PubMed

Brauchli, Rebecca; Jenny, Gregor J; Füllemann, Désirée; Bauer, Georg F

2015-01-01

Studies using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model commonly have a heterogeneous focus concerning the variables they investigate-selective job demands and resources as well as burnout and work engagement. The present study applies the rationale of the JD-R model to expand the relevant outcomes of job demands and job resources by linking the JD-R model to the logic of a generic health development framework predicting more broadly positive and negative health. The resulting JD-R health model was operationalized and tested with a generalizable set of job characteristics and positive and negative health outcomes among a heterogeneous sample of 2,159 employees. Applying a theory-driven and a data-driven approach, measures which were generally relevant for all employees were selected. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that the model fitted the data. Multiple group analyses indicated invariance across six organizations, gender, job positions, and three times of measurement. Initial evidence was found for the validity of an expanded JD-R health model. Thereby this study contributes to the current research on job characteristics and health by combining the core idea of the JD-R model with the broader concepts of salutogenic and pathogenic health development processes as well as both positive and negative health outcomes.
Benzodiazepines for catatonia in people with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses.

PubMed

Gibson, Roger Carl; Walcott, Geoffery

2008-10-08

Catatonia is a debilitating disorder of movement and volition associated with schizophrenia and some other mental disorders. People in a catatonic state have increased risk of secondary complications such as pneumonia, malnutrition and dehydration. The mainstay of treatment has been drug therapies and electroconvulsive therapy. To compare the effects of benzodiazepines with other drugs, placebo or electroconvulsive therapy for people with catatonia. We searched the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group Trials Register (March 2007) and manually searched reference lists from the selected studies. All relevant randomised controlled clinical trials. We (RCG, GW) extracted data independently. For dichotomous data we would have calculated relative risks (RR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) on an intention-to-treat basis using a fixed-effect model. No studies could be included. We did find studies reporting no usable data that we had to exclude or assign to those awaiting assessment. These studies, although poorly reported, do illustrate that relevant studies have been undertaken, and are not impossible. Studies have been justified and undertaken in the past. This justification remains as relevant as ever. Further studies with a high-quality methodology and reporting are required and it may be for countries where catatonia is seen often to take a lead in this area.
Kernel-Based Relevance Analysis with Enhanced Interpretability for Detection of Brain Activity Patterns

PubMed Central

Alvarez-Meza, Andres M.; Orozco-Gutierrez, Alvaro; Castellanos-Dominguez, German

2017-01-01

We introduce Enhanced Kernel-based Relevance Analysis (EKRA) that aims to support the automatic identification of brain activity patterns using electroencephalographic recordings. EKRA is a data-driven strategy that incorporates two kernel functions to take advantage of the available joint information, associating neural responses to a given stimulus condition. Regarding this, a Centered Kernel Alignment functional is adjusted to learning the linear projection that best discriminates the input feature set, optimizing the required free parameters automatically. Our approach is carried out in two scenarios: (i) feature selection by computing a relevance vector from extracted neural features to facilitating the physiological interpretation of a given brain activity task, and (ii) enhanced feature selection to perform an additional transformation of relevant features aiming to improve the overall identification accuracy. Accordingly, we provide an alternative feature relevance analysis strategy that allows improving the system performance while favoring the data interpretability. For the validation purpose, EKRA is tested in two well-known tasks of brain activity: motor imagery discrimination and epileptic seizure detection. The obtained results show that the EKRA approach estimates a relevant representation space extracted from the provided supervised information, emphasizing the salient input features. As a result, our proposal outperforms the state-of-the-art methods regarding brain activity discrimination accuracy with the benefit of enhanced physiological interpretation about the task at hand. PMID:29056897
Beware of Kinked Frontiers: A Systematic Review of the Choice of Comparator Strategies in Cost-Effectiveness Analyses of Human Papillomavirus Testing in Cervical Screening.

PubMed

O'Mahony, James F; Naber, Steffie K; Normand, Charles; Sharp, Linda; O'Leary, John J; de Kok, Inge M C M

2015-12-01

To systematically review the choice of comparator strategies in cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs) of human papillomavirus testing in cervical screening. The PubMed, Web of Knowledge, and Scopus databases were searched to identify eligible model-based CEAs of cervical screening programs using human papillomavirus testing. The eligible CEAs were reviewed to investigate what screening strategies were chosen for analysis and how this choice might have influenced estimates of the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Selected examples from the reviewed studies are presented to illustrate how the omission of relevant comparators might influence estimates of screening cost-effectiveness. The search identified 30 eligible CEAs. The omission of relevant comparator strategies appears likely in 18 studies. The ICER estimates in these cases are probably lower than would be estimated had more comparators been included. Five of the 30 studies restricted relevant comparator strategies to sensitivity analyses or other subanalyses not part of the principal base-case analysis. Such exclusion of relevant strategies from the base-case analysis can result in cost-ineffective strategies being identified as cost-effective. Many of the CEAs reviewed appear to include insufficient comparator strategies. In particular, they omit strategies with relatively long screening intervals. Omitting relevant comparators matters particularly if it leads to the underestimation of ICERs for strategies around the cost-effectiveness threshold because these strategies are the most policy relevant from the CEA perspective. Consequently, such CEAs may not be providing the best possible policy guidance and lead to the mistaken adoption of cost-ineffective screening strategies. Copyright © 2015 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Selective attention deficits in obsessive-compulsive disorder: the role of metacognitive processes.

PubMed

Koch, Julia; Exner, Cornelia

2015-02-28

While initial studies supported the hypothesis that cognitive characteristics that capture cognitive resources act as underlying mechanisms in memory deficits in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the influence of those characteristics on selective attention has not been studied, yet. In this study, we examined the influence of cognitive self-consciousness (CSC), rumination and worrying on performance in selective attention in OCD and compared the results to a depressive and a healthy control group. We found that 36 OCD and 36 depressive participants were impaired in selective attention in comparison to 36 healthy controls. In all groups, hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that age, intelligence and years in school significantly predicted performance in selective attention. But only in OCD, the predictive power of the regression model was improved when CSC, rumination and worrying were implemented as predictor variables. In contrast, in none of the three groups the predictive power improved when indicators of severity of obsessive-compulsive (OC) and depressive symptoms and trait anxiety were introduced as predictor variables. Thus, our results support the assumption that mental characteristics that bind cognitive resources play an important role in the understanding of selective attention deficits in OCD and that this mechanism is especially relevant for OCD. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Self-management priority setting and decision-making in adults with multimorbidity: A narrative review of literature

PubMed Central

Bratzke, Lisa C.; Muehrer, Rebecca J.; Kehl, Karen A.; Lee, Kyoung Suk; Ward, Earlise C.; Kwekkeboom, Kristine L.

2014-01-01

Objectives The purpose of this narrative review was to synthesize current research findings related to self-management, in order to better understand the processes of priority setting and decision-making in among adults with multimorbidity. Design A narrative literature review was undertaken, synthesizing findings from published, peer-reviewed empirical studies that addressed priority setting and/or decision-making in self-management of multimorbidity. Data sources A search of PubMed, PsychINFO, CINAHL and SocIndex databases was conducted from database inception through December 2013. References lists from selected empirical studies and systematic reviews were evaluated to identify any additional relevant articles. Review methods Full text of potentially eligible articles were reviewed and selected for inclusion if they described empirical studies that addressed priority setting or decision-making in self-management of multimorbidity among adults. Two independent reviewers read each selected article and extracted relevant data to an evidence table. Processes and factors and processes of multimorbidity self-management were identified and sorted into categories of priority setting, decision-making, and facilitators/barriers. Results Thirteen articles were selected for inclusion; most were qualitative studies describing processes, facilitators, and barriers of multimorbidity self-management. The findings revealed that patients prioritize a dominant chronic illness and re-prioritize over time as conditions and treatments change; that multiple facilitators (e.g. support programs) and barriers (e.g. lack of financial resources) impact individuals’ self-management priority setting and decision-making ability; as do individual beliefs, preferences, and attitudes (e.g., perceived personal control, preferences regarding treatment). Conclusions Health care providers need to be cognizant that individuals with multimorbidity engage in day-to-day priority setting and decision-making among their multiple chronic illnesses and respective treatments. Researchers need to develop and test interventions that support day-to-day priority setting and decision-making and improve health outcomes for individuals with multimorbidity. PMID:25468131
Self-management priority setting and decision-making in adults with multimorbidity: a narrative review of literature.

PubMed

Bratzke, Lisa C; Muehrer, Rebecca J; Kehl, Karen A; Lee, Kyoung Suk; Ward, Earlise C; Kwekkeboom, Kristine L

2015-03-01

The purpose of this narrative review was to synthesize current research findings related to self-management, in order to better understand the processes of priority setting and decision-making among adults with multimorbidity. A narrative literature review was undertaken, synthesizing findings from published, peer-reviewed empirical studies that addressed priority setting and/or decision-making in self-management of multimorbidity. A search of PubMed, PsychINFO, CINAHL and SocIndex databases was conducted from database inception through December 2013. References lists from selected empirical studies and systematic reviews were evaluated to identify any additional relevant articles. Full text of potentially eligible articles were reviewed and selected for inclusion if they described empirical studies that addressed priority setting or decision-making in self-management of multimorbidity among adults. Two independent reviewers read each selected article and extracted relevant data to an evidence table. Processes and factors of multimorbidity self-management were identified and sorted into categories of priority setting, decision-making, and facilitators/barriers. Thirteen articles were selected for inclusion; most were qualitative studies describing processes, facilitators, and barriers of multimorbidity self-management. The findings revealed that patients prioritize a dominant chronic illness and re-prioritize over time as conditions and treatments change; that multiple facilitators (e.g. support programs) and barriers (e.g. lack of financial resources) impact individuals' self-management priority setting and decision-making ability; as do individual beliefs, preferences, and attitudes (e.g., perceived personal control, preferences regarding treatment). Health care providers need to be cognizant that individuals with multimorbidity engage in day-to-day priority setting and decision-making among their multiple chronic illnesses and respective treatments. Researchers need to develop and test interventions that support day-to-day priority setting and decision-making and improve health outcomes for individuals with multimorbidity. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Bioenvironmental aspects of europium and rhodium: a selected bibliography

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fore, C.S.; Carrier, R.F.; Talmage, S.S.

This bibliography of 428 abstracted references represents a summary of the domestic and foreign literature relevant to the biological and environmental aspects of europium and rhodium. The collected data are organized by current NAEG interests - research highlighting inventory and distribution of the radionulcides, ecological studies covering terrestrial and aquatic systems, and biological studies in both man and animals. Studies that focus directly on research conducted at specific sites (e.g., the Nevada Test Site) are emphasized throughout the bibliography. (ACR)
Standards for Clinical Trials in Male and Female Sexual Dysfunction: III. Unique Aspects of Clinical Trials in Male Sexual Dysfunction.

PubMed

Fisher, William A; Gruenwald, Ilan; Jannini, Emmanuele A; Lev-Sagie, Ahinoam; Lowenstein, Lior; Pyke, Robert E; Reisman, Yakov; Revicki, Dennis A; Rubio-Aurioles, Eusebio

2017-01-01

This series of articles, Standards for Clinical Trials in Male and Female Sexual Dysfunction, began with the discussion of a common expected standard for clinical trial design in male and female sexual dysfunction, a common rationale for the design of phase I to IV clinical trials, and common considerations for the selection of study population and study duration in male and female sexual dysfunction. The second article in this series discussed fundamental principles in development, validation, and selection of patient- (and partner-) reported outcome assessment. The third and present article in this series discusses selected aspects of sexual dysfunction that are that are unique to male sexual dysfunctions and relevant to the conduct of clinical trials of candidate treatments for men. Copyright © 2016 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Prediction and selection of vocabulary for two leisure activities.

PubMed

Dark, Leigha; Balandin, Susan

2007-01-01

People who use augmentative or alternative communication (AAC) need access to a relevant, socially valid vocabulary if they are to communicate successfully in a variety of contexts. Many people with complex communication needs who utilize some form of high technology or low technology AAC rely on others to predict and select vocabulary for them. In this study the ability of one speech pathologist, nine leisure support workers, and six people with cerebral palsy to accurately predict context-specific vocabulary was explored. Participants predicted vocabulary for two leisure activities - sailing session and Internet café - using the blank page method of vocabulary selection to identify the vocabulary items they considered important for each activity. This predicted vocabulary was then compared with the actual vocabulary used in each of the activities. A total of 187 (68%) of the words predicted for the sailing session were used during recorded conversations, with 88 words (32%) not appearing in the recorded samples. During the visit to the Internet café only 104 (47%) of the words predicted occurred in the recorded samples, with 117 words (53%) not occurring at all. These results support the need to socially validate any vocabulary in order to ensure that it is relevant and useful for the person using the AAC system.
Decoding task-based attentional modulation during face categorization.

PubMed

Chiu, Yu-Chin; Esterman, Michael; Han, Yuefeng; Rosen, Heather; Yantis, Steven

2011-05-01

Attention is a neurocognitive mechanism that selects task-relevant sensory or mnemonic information to achieve current behavioral goals. Attentional modulation of cortical activity has been observed when attention is directed to specific locations, features, or objects. However, little is known about how high-level categorization task set modulates perceptual representations. In the current study, observers categorized faces by gender (male vs. female) or race (Asian vs. White). Each face was perceptually ambiguous in both dimensions, such that categorization of one dimension demanded selective attention to task-relevant information within the face. We used multivoxel pattern classification to show that task-specific modulations evoke reliably distinct spatial patterns of activity within three face-selective cortical regions (right fusiform face area and bilateral occipital face areas). This result suggests that patterns of activity in these regions reflect not only stimulus-specific (i.e., faces vs. houses) responses but also task-specific (i.e., race vs. gender) attentional modulation. Furthermore, exploratory whole-brain multivoxel pattern classification (using a searchlight procedure) revealed a network of dorsal fronto-parietal regions (left middle frontal gyrus and left inferior and superior parietal lobule) that also exhibit distinct patterns for the two task sets, suggesting that these regions may represent abstract goals during high-level categorization tasks.
Prediction of Protein Modification Sites of Pyrrolidone Carboxylic Acid Using mRMR Feature Selection and Analysis

PubMed Central

Zheng, Lu-Lu; Niu, Shen; Hao, Pei; Feng, KaiYan; Cai, Yu-Dong; Li, Yixue

2011-01-01

Pyrrolidone carboxylic acid (PCA) is formed during a common post-translational modification (PTM) of extracellular and multi-pass membrane proteins. In this study, we developed a new predictor to predict the modification sites of PCA based on maximum relevance minimum redundancy (mRMR) and incremental feature selection (IFS). We incorporated 727 features that belonged to 7 kinds of protein properties to predict the modification sites, including sequence conservation, residual disorder, amino acid factor, secondary structure and solvent accessibility, gain/loss of amino acid during evolution, propensity of amino acid to be conserved at protein-protein interface and protein surface, and deviation of side chain carbon atom number. Among these 727 features, 244 features were selected by mRMR and IFS as the optimized features for the prediction, with which the prediction model achieved a maximum of MCC of 0.7812. Feature analysis showed that all feature types contributed to the modification process. Further site-specific feature analysis showed that the features derived from PCA's surrounding sites contributed more to the determination of PCA sites than other sites. The detailed feature analysis in this paper might provide important clues for understanding the mechanism of the PCA formation and guide relevant experimental validations. PMID:22174779
Analysis and Identification of Aptamer-Compound Interactions with a Maximum Relevance Minimum Redundancy and Nearest Neighbor Algorithm

PubMed Central

Wang, ShaoPeng; Zhang, Yu-Hang; Lu, Jing; Cui, Weiren; Hu, Jerry; Cai, Yu-Dong

2016-01-01

The development of biochemistry and molecular biology has revealed an increasingly important role of compounds in several biological processes. Like the aptamer-protein interaction, aptamer-compound interaction attracts increasing attention. However, it is time-consuming to select proper aptamers against compounds using traditional methods, such as exponential enrichment. Thus, there is an urgent need to design effective computational methods for searching effective aptamers against compounds. This study attempted to extract important features for aptamer-compound interactions using feature selection methods, such as Maximum Relevance Minimum Redundancy, as well as incremental feature selection. Each aptamer-compound pair was represented by properties derived from the aptamer and compound, including frequencies of single nucleotides and dinucleotides for the aptamer, as well as the constitutional, electrostatic, quantum-chemical, and space conformational descriptors of the compounds. As a result, some important features were obtained. To confirm the importance of the obtained features, we further discussed the associations between them and aptamer-compound interactions. Simultaneously, an optimal prediction model based on the nearest neighbor algorithm was built to identify aptamer-compound interactions, which has the potential to be a useful tool for the identification of novel aptamer-compound interactions. The program is available upon the request. PMID:26955638
Analysis and Identification of Aptamer-Compound Interactions with a Maximum Relevance Minimum Redundancy and Nearest Neighbor Algorithm.

PubMed

Wang, ShaoPeng; Zhang, Yu-Hang; Lu, Jing; Cui, Weiren; Hu, Jerry; Cai, Yu-Dong

2016-01-01

The development of biochemistry and molecular biology has revealed an increasingly important role of compounds in several biological processes. Like the aptamer-protein interaction, aptamer-compound interaction attracts increasing attention. However, it is time-consuming to select proper aptamers against compounds using traditional methods, such as exponential enrichment. Thus, there is an urgent need to design effective computational methods for searching effective aptamers against compounds. This study attempted to extract important features for aptamer-compound interactions using feature selection methods, such as Maximum Relevance Minimum Redundancy, as well as incremental feature selection. Each aptamer-compound pair was represented by properties derived from the aptamer and compound, including frequencies of single nucleotides and dinucleotides for the aptamer, as well as the constitutional, electrostatic, quantum-chemical, and space conformational descriptors of the compounds. As a result, some important features were obtained. To confirm the importance of the obtained features, we further discussed the associations between them and aptamer-compound interactions. Simultaneously, an optimal prediction model based on the nearest neighbor algorithm was built to identify aptamer-compound interactions, which has the potential to be a useful tool for the identification of novel aptamer-compound interactions. The program is available upon the request.
Combining techniques for screening and evaluating interaction terms on high-dimensional time-to-event data.

PubMed

Sariyar, Murat; Hoffmann, Isabell; Binder, Harald

2014-02-26

Molecular data, e.g. arising from microarray technology, is often used for predicting survival probabilities of patients. For multivariate risk prediction models on such high-dimensional data, there are established techniques that combine parameter estimation and variable selection. One big challenge is to incorporate interactions into such prediction models. In this feasibility study, we present building blocks for evaluating and incorporating interactions terms in high-dimensional time-to-event settings, especially for settings in which it is computationally too expensive to check all possible interactions. We use a boosting technique for estimation of effects and the following building blocks for pre-selecting interactions: (1) resampling, (2) random forests and (3) orthogonalization as a data pre-processing step. In a simulation study, the strategy that uses all building blocks is able to detect true main effects and interactions with high sensitivity in different kinds of scenarios. The main challenge are interactions composed of variables that do not represent main effects, but our findings are also promising in this regard. Results on real world data illustrate that effect sizes of interactions frequently may not be large enough to improve prediction performance, even though the interactions are potentially of biological relevance. Screening interactions through random forests is feasible and useful, when one is interested in finding relevant two-way interactions. The other building blocks also contribute considerably to an enhanced pre-selection of interactions. We determined the limits of interaction detection in terms of necessary effect sizes. Our study emphasizes the importance of making full use of existing methods in addition to establishing new ones.
Variations in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene and biased attention for emotional information: a meta-analysis.

PubMed

Pergamin-Hight, Lee; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian J; van Ijzendoorn, Marinus H; Bar-Haim, Yair

2012-02-15

Selective attention to negative information has been strongly implicated in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety and offered as a potential intermediate phenotype for anxiety disorders. Attention biases have been studied in relation to a polymorphism in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) offering equivocal findings. The present meta-analysis tested whether the extant published data support the notion that variation in the 5-HTTLPR genotype modulates selective attention to negative information. Eleven relevant samples from 10 published articles were identified through a systematic literature search (total n = 807). Relevant attention bias and 5-HTTLPR data were extracted based on specific coding rules, and Cohen's d effect size index was used to calculate all outcome measures. Publication bias was assessed using various methods. Carriers of the low (SS, SL(G), L(G)L(G)) transmission efficacy genotype display attentional vigilance toward negatively valenced stimuli, a pattern not found in the intermediate (SL(A), L(A)L(G)) and high (L(A)L(A)) efficacy genotypes. This phenomenon emerges as of medium effect size. The meta-analysis supports the notion that allele variants of the 5-HTTLPR are associated with selective attention to negative stimuli. More studies are needed to fully establish the consistency of this effect. Future studies applying systematic attention bias modification may shed further light on the role of 5-HTTLPR in the development of anxiety disorders and in the prediction of clinical response to attention bias modification treatments. Copyright © 2012 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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