Effects of memory load and distraction on performance and event-related slow potentials in a visuospatial working memory task

Brain electrical activity related to working memory was recorded at 15 scalp electrodes during a visuospatial delayed response task. Participants (N = 18) touched the remembered position of a target on a computer screen after either a 1 or 8 sec delay. These memory trials were compared to sensory trials in which the target remained present throughout the delay and response periods. Distracter stimuli identical to the target were briefly presented during the delay on 30% of trials. Responses were less accurate in memory than sensory trials, especially after the long delay. During the delay slow potentials developed that were significantly more negative in memory than sensory trials. The difference between memory and sensory trials was greater at anterior than posterior electrodes. On trials with distracters, the slow potentials generated by memory trials showed further enhancement of negativity whereas there were minimal effects on accuracy of performance. The results provide evidence that engagement of visuospatial working memory generates slow wave negativity with a timing and distribution consistent with frontal activation. Enhanced brain activity associated with working memory is required to maintain performance in the presence of distraction. © 1997 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog

Treatment goals and changes over time in older patients with non-curable cancer

PURPOSE: To investigate the treatment goals of older patients with non-curable cancer, whether those goals changed over time, and if so, what triggered those changes. METHODS: We performed a descriptive and qualitative analysis using the Outcome Prioritization Tool (OPT) to assess patient goals across four conversations with general practitioners (GPs) over 6 months. Text entries from electronic patient records (hospital and general practice) were then analyzed qualitatively for this period. RESULTS: Of the 29 included patients, 10 (34%) rated extending life and 9 (31%) rated maintaining independence as their most important goals. Patients in the last year before death (late phase) prioritized extending life less often (3 patients; 21%) than those in the early phase (7 patients; 47%). Goals changed for 16 patients during follow-up (12 in the late phase). Qualitative analysis revealed three themes that explained the baseline OPT scores (prioritizing a specific goal, rating a goal as unimportant, and treatment choices related to goals). Another three themes related to changes in OPT scores (symptoms, disease course, and life events) and stability of OPT scores (stable situation, disease-unrelated motivation, and stability despite symptoms). CONCLUSION: Patients most often prioritized extending life as the most important goal. However, priorities differed in the late phase of the disease, leading to changed goals. Triggers for change related to both the disease (e.g., symptoms and course) and to other life events. We therefore recommend that goals should be discussed repeatedly, especially near the end of life. TRIAL REGISTRATION: OPTion study: NTR5419

Nationwide Real-world Cohort Study of First-line Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Treatment in Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-mutated Non-small-cell Lung Cancer

Most trials regarding tyrosine kinase inhibitors in patients with advanced epidermal growth factor receptor-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer comprised selected series from Asian populations. We found that Western European patients with epidermal growth factor receptor-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer who received first-line treatment with regular tyrosine kinase inhibitors have a median overall survival of 20.2 months in our large nationwide real-world cohort. In patients with brain metastasis, erlotinib showed superior results compared with gefitinib and was similar to afatinib. Background: Only a few randomized trials directly compared the relative efficacy of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in patients with advanced epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and most trials comprised selected series from Asian populations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the overall survival (OS) of advanced EGFR-mutated NSCLC in a large white population and to evaluate variation between different TKIs and identify predictors of survival. Patients and Methods: Information about clinical characteristics, treatment, and survival for 873 patients with stage IV EGFR + NSCLC, diagnosed from 2015 through 2017, was derived from the Netherlands Cancer Registry. OS was evaluated by actuarial analysis and multivariable Cox regression. Prognostic factors are reported as hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Results: A total of 596 (68%) patients received first-line treatment with regular TKIs, providing a median survival of 20.2 months. Forty-five percent of patients were 70 years and older, and 54% of patients had distant metastasis in multiple organs. In the multivariate analysis, survival was significantly worse for men, and patients with higher age, poorer performance, and >= 3 organs with metastasis. Compared with erlotinib, OS was worse for gefitinib users (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.30; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-1.64), predominantly in patients with brain metastasis. Conclusion: Dutch patients with EGFR-mutated NSCLC who received first-line treatment with regular TKIs have a median OS of 20.2 months in a nationwide real-world cohort. In patients with brain metastasis, erlotinib showed superior results compared with gefitinib and was similar to afatinib. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Biochemical characterization of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase variants reveals differences in protein stability

Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Rhodes Trust (UK); a Clarendon Scholarship; a St Hugh's College W. Louey Scholarship; the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC); a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship; and the Medical Research Council (MRC)/Canadian Grant G1100135

Strong ellipticity and spectral properties of chiral bag boundary conditions

We prove strong ellipticity of chiral bag boundary conditions on even dimensional manifolds. From a knowledge of the heat kernel in an infinite cylinder, some basic properties of the zeta function are analyzed on cylindrical product manifolds of arbitrary even dimension.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, References adde

Two Photon Contribution to Polarization in K+→π+μ+μ−K^+ \rightarrow \pi^+ \mu^+ \mu^-

Short distance physics involving virtual top and charm quarks contributes to $\mu^+$ (and $\mu^-$) polarization in the decay $K^+ \rightarrow \pi^+ \mu^+ \mu^-$. Measurement of the parity violating asymmetry $(\Gamma_R - \Gamma_L)/(\Gamma_R + \Gamma_L)$, where $\Gamma_R$ and $\Gamma_L$ are the rates to produce right and left-handed $\mu^+$, may provide valuable information on the unitarity triangle. The parity violating asymmetry also gets a contribution from Feynman diagrams with two photon intermediate states. We estimate this two photon contribution to the asymmetry and discuss briefly the two photon contribution to time reversal odd asymmetries that involve both the $\mu^+$ and $\mu^-$ polarizations.Comment: (19 pages, 5 figures available on request. Uses phyzzx), CALT-68-1798, UCSD/PTH 92-2

TEMIS UV product validation using NILU-UV ground-based measurements in Thessaloniki, Greece

This study aims to cross-validate ground-based and satellite-based models of three photobiological UV effective dose products: the Commission Internationale del’Éclairage (CIE) erythemal UV, the production of vitamin D in the skin, and DNA damage, using high-temporal resolution surface-based measurements of solar UV spectral irradiances from a synergy of instruments and models. The satellite-based Tropospheric Emission Monitoring Internet Service (TEMIS; version 1.4) UV daily dose data products were evaluated over the period 2009 to 2014 with ground-based data from a Norsk Institutt for Luftforskning (NILU)-UV multifilter radiometer located at the northern midlatitude super-site of the Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (LAP/AUTh), in Greece. For the NILU-UV effective dose rates retrieval algorithm, a neural network (NN) was trained to learn the nonlinear functional relation between NILU-UV irradiances and collocated Brewer-based photobiological effective dose products. Then the algorithm was subjected to sensitivity analysis and validation. The correlation of the NN estimates with target outputs was high (r = 0.988 to 0.990) and with a very low bias (0.000 to 0.011 in absolute units) proving the robustness of the NN algorithm. For further evaluation of the NILU NN-derived products, retrievals of the vitamin D and DNA-damage effective doses from a collocated Yankee Environmental Systems (YES) UVB-1 pyranometer were used. For cloud-free days, differences in the derived UV doses are better than 2 % for all UV dose products, revealing the reference quality of the ground-based UV doses at Thessaloniki from the NILU-UV NN retrievals. The TEMIS UV doses used in this study are derived from ozone measurements by the SCIAMACHY/Envisat and GOME2/MetOp-A satellite instruments, over the European domain in combination with SEVIRI/Meteosat-based diurnal cycle of the cloud cover fraction per 0.5◦ × 0.5◦ (lat × long) grid cells. TEMIS UV doses were found to be ∼ 12.5 % higher than the NILU NN estimates but, despite the presence of a visually apparent seasonal pattern, the R 2 values were found to be robustly high and equal to 0.92–0.93 for 1588 all-sky coincidences. These results significantly improve when limiting the dataset to cloud-free days with differences of 0.57 % for the erythemal doses, 1.22 % for the vitamin D doses, and 1.18 % for the DNA-damage doses, with standard deviations of the order of 11–13 %. The improvement of the comparative statistics under cloud-free cases further testifies to the importance of the appropriate consideration of the contribution of clouds in the UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface. For the urban area of Thessaloniki, with highly variable aerosol, the weakness of the implicit aerosol information introduced to the TEMIS UV dose algorithm was revealed by comparison of the datasets to aerosol optical depths at 340 nm as reported by a collocated CIMEL sun photometer, operating in Thessaloniki at LAP/AUTh as part of the NASA Aerosol Robotic Network