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PubMed1989

[Disorders of language and cognition in schizophrenic patients and their effect on communication].

The subjects of this study are disturbances of concept formation in schizophrenics and the influence of that disorder on communication. The verbal coding and recognition of colours of a group of chronic schizophrenics and their normal controls were investigated. In describing the colours, the schizophrenics showed less variability, lower utterance lengths, and shorter reaction times for coding. These symptoms were interpreted as an indication that the schizophrenics don't realize the complexity of the task and differentiate less between the different descriptions (over inclusion). This higher stereotypy contradicts the suggested higher creativity of schizophrenics. No difference was found between the coding of schizophrenics and that of normals in communication with normals. However the schizophrenics showed a deficit of decoding. This was also interpreted as an indication of enlarged concepts within the meaning of the conception of "over inclusion".

Adult↗

PubMed1986

Quantitative analysis of cardiac arrhythmias.

Quantitative analysis of cardiac arrhythmias has been the subject of intensive research during the last 10 years. Several systems have been designed to help in the processing of cardiac signals: single or multiple lead electrocardiograms (ECG), electrograms from intracardiac catheters, esophageal recordings, etc. The main objective of these developments was oriented toward positive identification of arrhythmias or rhythm-disturbance counts to imitate the cardiologist's interpretation in contexts such as routing ECG and ambulatory recordings. However, these systems were mainly measurement tools aimed at extracting auricular and ventricular depolarization timings plus gross morphology description. The domain of morphology analysis of beat-to-beat auricular depolarization on ECG has never been highly active due to poor signal conditions. For routine ECG, automatic interpretation was set as an objective to complement computer-assisted ECG interpretation of conduction problems (i.e., morphology analysis of a representative beat extracted or averaged from the dominant rhythm). The limitations of rhythm interpretation in this context are well known. In the ambulatory ECG context, the analysis procedures are relatively simple and are often summarized as trivial counts describing, most exclusively, the ventricular arrhythmic behavior of the heart over a relatively long duration. Waveform-detection and measurement have been the bottleneck of advancement in arrhythmia analysis since highly reliable detection of events on a beat-to-beat basis are necessary to perform a valid analysis. Rare approaches have proposed probabilistic definition of event detection. The present review puts emphasis on the potential of several methods which have been demonstrated as powerful in identifying short- or long-duration heartbeat patterns, mode of heartbeat initiation, mode of heartbeat coupling, etc. Globally, these methods are referred to as time series analysis, modeling of rhythm patterns, simulation, and pattern recognition. A delay in the advancement of the study of arrhythmogenesis and limiting the analysis of arrhythmias to textbook descriptions is not justified when put in perspective of the potential of implementing powerful techniques which have been more or less neglected or used in a narrow way.

Arrhythmias, Cardiac↗

PubMed2004

The production and interpretation of disease mapsA methodological case-study.

BACKGROUND: The study of the spatial variation in disease incidence is a vital component of descriptive epidemiology. The production of attractive and informative disease maps complements any formal statistical analyses of spatial variations and often their visual impact will influence the recipient of the information much more than the accompanying statistics. Like any other graphical display, however, a map can both inform and mislead. METHODS: We describe methodological alternatives and pitfalls for the production of disease maps using data on recent suicides in England and Wales as an illustrative example. RESULTS: Decisions concerning the methods of mapping of suicide rates, including smoothing, choice of grouping criteria and colouring scheme dramatically influence the resulting map and how it might be interpreted by the reader. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides clinicians and other non-specialist research workers an insight into the methodological pitfalls of disease mapping and atlas production and should also act as a methodological framework for a critical appraisal of published maps and atlases.

Cause of Death↗

PubMed1998

Nutation-Frequency Correlated EPR Spectroscopy: The PEANUT Experiment

The phase-inverted echo-amplitude detected nutation (PEANUT) experiment for the measurement of transient electron spin nutation frequencies is introduced. In this new pulse sequence, nutation refocused to a rotary echo is detected via the amplitude modulation of a primary electron spin echo. Since detection and excitation of the nutation are fully separated in time, experiments at very high nutation frequencies become feasible. The nutation frequencies which are proportional to the transition moment of an EPR transition can be used to label individual EPR lines by an additional parameter. Using a two-dimensional PEANUT experiment which correlates the nutation frequencies with the resonance fields, the interpretation of complicated field-swept EPR spectra can considerably be simplified. A theoretical description of the experiment is given and the inner working of the approach is described. The predicted features of PEANUT spectra are verified experimentally and examples of applications to both ordered and disordered systems are given. Copyright 1998 Academic Press. Copyright 1998 Academic Press

Journal Article↗

PubMed1995

Evaluating program design in the state hospital setting.

This study used a benchmarking and goal attainment approach to identify the extent to which two state hospital-based programs were doing what they were intended to do. The 1989 version of the Moos Ward Atmosphere Scale (WAS) was used to collect information from staff and patients in resocialization and admissions programs. Analysis of variance revealed differences between and within programs, and t tests revealed differences between the study sample and the WAS norms. Program descriptions, information from the literature, and features of the measurement scale were used to interpret the findings and develop recommendations for improvements.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2006

Population pharmacokinetics and bioavailability of motexafin gadolinium (Xcytrin) in CD1 mice following intravenous and intraperitoneal injection.

Motexafin gadolinium (Xcytrin) is an expanded porphyrin macrocyclic compound under development for the treatment of several types of cancer. Currently clinical trials and non-clinical pharmacology and toxicology studies are ongoing. The goals of this open label, four arm, non-crossover bioavailability study were to explore motexafin gadolinium pharmacokinetics, determine the i.p. bioavailability, and define a pharmacokinetic model suitable for descriptive and predictive use. Mice received one or seven daily i.v. or i.p. injections (40 mg/kg) then blood samples were collected and analyzed. Plasma concentration data were modelled using population pharmacokinetic methods and a two compartment model was the most appropriate model. The stability and predictive performance of the model were evaluated using bootstrap procedures. The accuracy of the predicted concentrations was 8.3%. Motexafin gadolinium was rapidly cleared from the plasma and although T(1/2beta) was 12.9 h there was no accumulation following seven doses. The i.p. bioavailability was 87.4% and higher plasma concentrations were sustainable for a longer period with i.p. dosing. V(c) was larger than the blood volume and the tissue compartment volume was 38% of V(c), suggesting motexafin gadolinium was not widely distributed into less well perfused tissues. The pharmacokinetic profile in this study was similar to that in oncology patients administered multiple doses of motexafin gadolinium. The unbiased model yields reliable parameter estimates and insight into the pharmacokinetics of motexafin gadolinium in mice, is suitable for both descriptive and predictive purposes, and is a valuable tool in the planning, analysis, and interpretation of pharmacology and toxicology studies in mice.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

Multivariate analysis of heavy metal contents in soils, sediments and water in the region of Meknes (central Morocco).

Concentrations of Al, Fe, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn in soils, sediments and water samples collected along the Oued Boufekrane river (Meknes, central Morocco) were determined. In soils, a homogeneous distribution of metal concentrations was observed throughout the study area except for Pb, which presents high enrichment at sites located at the vicinity of a main highway. In sediments, high enrichment, with respect to upstream sites, were observed downstream of the city of Meknes for Al, Cr, Fe and Ni and inside the city for Cu, Zn and Pb. In water samples, the metal contents showed to correlate with their homologues in sediments suggesting that the metal contents in water and sediments have identical origins. Descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis (principal factor method, PFM) were used to assist the interpretation of elemental data. This allowed the determination of the correlations between the metals and the identification of three main factor loadings controlling the metal variability in soils and sediments.

Environmental Monitoring↗

PubMed1995

Acromegaly and pituitary tumors: early anatomoclinical observations.

The elucidation of pituitary physiopathology has been a major challenge for physicians since early ages. Due to the unawareness of the endocrine system, acromegaly, the most striking pituitary disorder, was commonly regarded as an intrinsic bone disease. Andrea Verga and Vincenzo Brigidi, Italian authors of the 19th century, reported the first macroscopic and microscopic descriptions of pituitary adenomas in acromegalic patients. Although far from providing a correct pathogenetic interpretation of the disease, they opened the way to forthcoming observations and discoveries. A short history of acromegaly and pituitary physiopathology is drawn.

Acromegaly↗

PubMed1990

The epidemiology of schistosome infections of snails: taking the theory into the field.

Most field studies of the epidemiology of schistosome infections of snails have been essentially descriptive in nature. Although much use has been made of epidemiological models in the interpretation of experimental studies of schistosome-snail interactions, the models have had restricted application outside the laboratory. Here, Mark Woolhouse and Steve Chandiwana make use of a theoretical framework in discussing current understanding of schistisome-snail epidemiological patterns in the field, and then consider the implications of the analysis for the control of schistosomiasis.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2006

When we think about thinking: the acquisition of belief verbs.

Mental-content verbs such as think, believe, imagine and hope seem to pose special problems for the young language learner. One possible explanation for these difficulties is that the concepts that these verbs express are hard to grasp and therefore their acquisition must await relevant conceptual development. According to a different, perhaps complementary, proposal, a major contributor to the difficulty of these items lies with the informational requirements for identifying them from the contexts in which they appear. The experiments reported here explore the implications of these proposals by investigating the contribution of observational and linguistic cues to the acquisition of mental predicate vocabulary. We first demonstrate that particular observed situations can be helpful in prompting reference to mental contents, specifically, contexts that include a salient and/or unusual mental state such as a false belief. We then compare the potency of such observational support to the reliability of alternate or concomitant syntactic information (e.g., sentential complementation) in tasks where both children and adults are asked to hypothesize the meaning of novel verbs. The findings support the efficacy of false belief situations for increasing the saliency of mental state descriptions, but also show that syntactic information is a more reliable indicator of mentalistic interpretations than even the most cooperative contextual cues. Moreover, when syntactic and observational information sources converge, both children and simulated adult learners are vastly more likely to build conjectures involving mental verbs. This is consistent with a multiple-cue constraint satisfaction view of vocabulary acquisition. Taken together, our findings support the position that the informational demands of mapping, rather than age-related cognitive deficiency, can bear much of the explanatory burden for the learning problems posed by abstract words.

Child↗

PubMed2004

Modelling the vertical distribution of radionuclides in soil. Part 1: the convection-dispersion equation revisited.

The convective-dispersive transport and linear sorption model is discussed for the vertical migration of radionuclides in soil. An alternative procedure of solving the corresponding system of partial differential equations is presented as well as the special solution for the pulse-like fallout initial condition. Idealizations and simplifications of the model and properties of the solution are discussed. The model is fitted to a set of 528 measured radionuclide soil profiles and the resulting model parameters, apparent convection velocity v and apparent dispersion constant D, are evaluated statistically. Typical orders of magnitude of the velocities and the diffusion constants of Chernobyl-134Cs are 0.3 cm/year and 0.3 cm2/year, respectively. The mobilities of the radionuclides are ranked as 137Cs (global fallout) < 134Cs < 106Ru, 125Sb. Significant regional differences (related to different soils and geological properties below ground) of v and D exist. These analyses also indicate that v and D are not mere fitting parameters, but can be given a real physical interpretation. While in most cases, the convection-dispersion equation (CDE) model produces good descriptions for near-surface soil layers, potentially important limitations are its failure to describe "young" profiles shortly after fallout.

Antimony↗

PubMed1991

ELISA testing for avian chlamydiosis.

Studies of Chlamydia antigen ELISA and BELISA assays are reviewed. This article includes descriptions of university studies and clinical laboratory usage of assays. A guide to clinical interpretation of tests is included.

Animals↗

PubMed2001

Decisions about treatment: interpretations of two measures of control by women having a hysterectomy.

A number of authors have developed sets of role descriptions that have been used to classify patients' roles in decisions about their health care as either active, collaborative or passive. We explored the validity of two such measures. Twenty women who had recently had a hysterectomy described their experiences of treatment decision-making in their own words and picked role descriptions from the Control Preferences Scale (Degner, Sloan, J. Clin. Epidemiol. 45 (1992) 941) and Patient Preferences for Control measure (Bradley et al.. Fam. Med. 28 (1996) 496), both phrased in the past tense to assess roles played. The women explained why they had picked particular role descriptions. We compared the women's selections from the two measures and considered the relationship between their narrative descriptions and the role descriptors they picked. Several women found it hard to find an appropriate role description among those they were offered. Some picked apparently conflicting statements from the two measures. The role classifications that would be made on the basis of the women's chosen role descriptions did not always seem appropriate when compared with their narrative descriptions of how treatment decisions were reached. Women gave a range of explanations for choosing the role descriptors that they did, and some women who picked different role descriptions gave similar explanations for doing so. These findings suggest that there are problems with the validity of some currently used measures of patients' participation in health care decision-making. Researchers need to pay more attention to the key features of participation in decision-making and develop measures that can distinguish between these.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Functional imaging of vocal fold vibration: digital multislice high-speed kymography.

For the diagnosis of voice disorders, and especially for the classification of hoarseness, direct observation of vocal fold vibration is essential. Furthermore, a quantitative description of the movement of the vocal fold becomes increasingly necessary to document and compare findings as well as the progression of speech therapy. On the base of digital high-speed sequences of vocal fold vibration, multiple "functional images"-also called digital kymograms-are obtained using image- and signal-processing algorithms. Digital kymograms can serve as a powerful aid for visualization, description, and classification of vocal fold vibration and as an intermediate step for image interpretation by biomechanical modeling. This visualization technique will be discussed and compared to other techniques currently available: videokymography and videostroboscopy. The technique is applied to several clinical examples: aperiodic processes (phonation onset), irregular vocal fold vibration (paralysis of the recurrent nerve), particular vibration modes (anterior-posterior modes), and running speech.

Humans↗

PubMed2003

The comparative psychology of uncertainty monitoring and metacognition.

Researchers have begun to explore animals' capacities for uncertainty monitoring and metacognition. This exploration could extend the study of animal self-awareness and establish the relationship of self-awareness to other-awareness. It could sharpen descriptions of metacognition in the human literature and suggest the earliest roots of metacognition in human development. We summarize research on uncertainty monitoring by humans, monkeys, and a dolphin within perceptual and metamemory tasks. We extend phylogenetically the search for metacognitive capacities by considering studies that have tested less cognitively sophisticated species. By using the same uncertainty-monitoring paradigms across species, it should be possible to map the phylogenetic distribution of metacognition and illuminate the emergence of mind. We provide a unifying formal description of animals performances and examine the optimality of their decisional strategies. Finally, we interpret animals' and humans' nearly identical performances psychologically. Low-level, stimulus-based accounts cannot explain the phenomena. The results suggest granting animals a higher-level decision-making process that involves criterion setting using controlled cognitive processes. This conclusion raises the difficult question of animal consciousness. The results show that animals have functional features of or parallels to human conscious cognition. Remaining questions are whether animals also have the phenomenal features that are the feeling/knowing states of human conscious cognition, and whether the present paradigms can be extended to demonstrate that they do. Thus, the comparative study of metacognition potentially grounds the systematic study of animal consciousness.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

Analysis of proton-proton transfer dynamics in rotating solids and their use for 3D structure determination.

A detailed analysis of proton-proton-transfer dynamics under magic angle spinning NMR is presented. Results obtained on model compounds are evaluated under different experimental conditions and NMR mixing schemes. It is shown that the resulting buildup rates can be interpreted in terms of internuclear proton-proton distances provided that an appropriate theoretical description is chosen. As demonstrated in two test applications, these dependencies can be used in the context of a three-dimensional structure determination in the solid state.

Alanine↗

PubMed1996

Nonlinear oscillating structures in the earthquake and seaquake dynamics.

The article deals with the problem of parametric excitation of oscillating structures during an earthquake and a seaquake associated with external forces. Tidal forces and their linear and nonlinear components are considered as possible causes of earthquakes. A seaquake is regarded as a typical large-scale structural disturbance of the water surface resulting from the ocean bottom earthquake. There are given results of original laboratory seaquake modeling where wave structures with hexagonal and square cells appeared. The received wave lattices were similar to Faraday ripples, but with the size of cells from 15 to 120 mm. These experiments provided parameters on transition from a wave structure to chaos. Comparison of laboratory experimental data with descriptions of full-scale seaquakes and parametric wave theory has confirmed the submitted interpretation of the phenomenon. (c) 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2002

Immunohistochemical distribution of oestrogen and progesterone receptors and tissue concentrations of oestrogens in the cervix of non-pregnant cows.

An immunohistochemical study of the expression of oestrogen (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR) in different regions along the longitudinal and vertical axes of the cervix of non-pregnant cows was performed. Animals were separated into two groups depending on the presence or absence of a functional corpus luteum in their ovaries, as indicated by blood progesterone concentrations. The high progesterone group (HP4) had serum progesterone concentrations > 2.0 ng mL(-1) (n = 6) and the low progesterone group (LP4) had serum progesterone concentrations < or = 0.5 ng mL(-1) (n = 4). Significantly higher concentrations of oestrogen were found in the cervical tissue of animals in the LP4 group than those in the HP4 group (473 +/- 53 v.149 +/- 46 pg g(-1) wet weight; P < 0.01). Furthermore, there was a significant effect of tissue layer (epithelium to deep stroma) on the number of ER (P < 0.01) and PR (P < 0.05) immunoreactive nuclei per 1000 cells. For both ER and PR the proportion of cells expressing the receptor increased from epithelium to subepithelial stroma (P < 0.01) and from subepithelium to deep stroma (ER P < 0.05; PR P =0.061). When the number of receptor-positive cells were expressed per mm2 tissue, differences between the subepithelial stroma and the deep stroma became even more marked. In addition, the vaginal part of the cervix had significantly more (P < 0.01) ER and PR immunoreactive nuclei per 1000 cells than the uterine part, but these differences were no longer apparent when a correction was made for cell density. There was no relationship between progesterone status of the animals, nor local tissue oestrogen concentrations and ER or PR immunoreactivity in the cervix of these non-pregnant cows. Instead, a strong relationship between both longitudinal and vertical positioning of tissue in the cervix and expression of both receptor types was shown. In addition, a strong correlation between ER and PR expression in the subepithelial stroma (R = 0.85, P < 0.01) and the deep stroma (R = 0.83 P < 0.01) was evident. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that in studies of steroid hormone receptor expression in the cervix, careful description of sampling site and depth are necessary if the results are to be interpreted meaningfully.

Animals↗