Verbal short-term memory deficits in Down syndrome: phonological, semantic, or both?

The current study examined the phonological and semantic contributions to the verbal short-term memory (VSTM) deficit in Down syndrome (DS) by experimentally manipulating the phonological and semantic demands of VSTM tasks. The performance of 18 individuals with DS (ages 11–25) and 18 typically developing children (ages 3–10) matched pairwise on receptive vocabulary and gender was compared on four VSTM tasks, two tapping phonological VSTM (phonological similarity, nonword discrimination) and two tapping semantic VSTM (semantic category, semantic proactive interference). Group by condition interactions were found on the two phonological VSTM tasks (suggesting less sensitivity to the phonological qualities of words in DS), but not on the two semantic VSTM tasks. These findings suggest that a phonological weakness contributes to the VSTM deficit in DS. These results are discussed in relation to the DS neuropsychological and neuroanatomical phenotype

Operationalizing frailty among older residents of assisted living facilities

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Frailty in later life is viewed as a state of heightened vulnerability to poor outcomes. The utility of frailty as a measure of vulnerability in the assisted living (AL) population remains unexplored. We examined the feasibility and predictive accuracy of two different interpretations of the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) frailty criteria in a population-based sample of AL residents.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>CHS frailty criteria were operationalized using two different approaches in 928 AL residents from the Alberta Continuing Care Epidemiological Studies (ACCES). Risks of one-year mortality and hospitalization were estimated for those categorized as frail or pre-frail (compared with non-frail). The prognostic significance of individual criteria was explored, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was calculated for select models to assess the utility of frailty in predicting one-year outcomes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Regarding feasibility, complete CHS criteria could not be assessed for 40% of the initial 1,067 residents. Consideration of supplementary items for select criteria reduced this to 12%. Using absolute (CHS-specified) cut-points, 48% of residents were categorized as frail and were at greater risk for death (adjusted risk ratio [RR] 1.75, 95% CI 1.08-2.83) and hospitalization (adjusted RR 1.54, 95% CI 1.20-1.96). Pre-frail residents defined by absolute cut-points (48.6%) showed no increased risk for mortality or hospitalization compared with non-frail residents. Using relative cut-points (derived from AL sample), 19% were defined as frail and 55% as pre-frail and the associated risks for mortality and hospitalization varied by sex. Frail (but not pre-frail) women were more likely to die (RR 1.58 95% CI 1.02-2.44) and be hospitalized (RR 1.53 95% CI 1.25-1.87). Frail and pre-frail men showed an increased mortality risk (RR 3.21 95% CI 1.71-6.00 and RR 2.61 95% CI 1.40-4.85, respectively) while only pre-frail men had an increased risk of hospitalization (RR 1.58 95% CI 1.15-2.17). Although incorporating either frailty measure improved the performance of predictive models, the best AUCs were 0.702 for mortality and 0.633 for hospitalization.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Application of the CHS criteria for frailty was problematic and only marginally improved the prediction of select adverse outcomes in AL residents. Development and validation of alternative approaches for detecting frailty in this population, including consideration of female/male differences, is warranted.</p

Methane production in ruminant animals

Agriculture is a significant source of GHGs globally and ruminant livestock animals are one of the largest contributors to these emissions, responsible for an estimated 14% of GHGs (CH4 and N2O combined) worldwide. A large portion of GHG fluxes from agricultural activities is related to CH4 emissions from ruminants. Both direct and indirect methods are available. Direct methods include enclosure techniques, artificial (e.g. SF6) or natural (e.g. CO2) tracer techniques, and micrometeorological methods using open-path lasers. Under the indirect methods, emission mechanisms are understood, where the CH4 emission potential is estimated based on the substrate characteristics and the digestibility (i.e. from volatile fatty acids). These approximate methods are useful if no direct measurement is possible. The different systems used to quantify these emission potentials are presented in this chapter. Also, CH4 from animal waste (slurry, urine, dung) is an important source: methods pertaining to measuring GHG potential from these sources are included

Economic Valuation for Information Security Investment: A Systematic Literature Review

Research on technological aspects of information security risk is a well-established area and familiar territory for most information security professionals. The same cannot be said about the economic value of information security investments in organisations. While there is an emerging research base investigating suitable approaches measuring the value of investments in information security, it remains difficult for practitioners to identify key approaches in current research. To address this issue, we conducted a systematic literature review on approaches used to evaluate investments in information security. Following a defined review protocol, we searched several databases for relevant primary studies and extracted key details from the identified studies to answer our research questions. The contributions of this work include: a comparison framework and a catalogue of existing approaches and trends that would help researchers and practitioners navigate existing work; categorisation and mapping of approaches according to their key elements and components; and a summary of key challenges and benefits of existing work, which should help focus future research efforts

Measures of frailty in population-based studies: An overview

Although research productivity in the field of frailty has risen exponentially in recent years, there remains a lack of consensus regarding the measurement of this syndrome. This overview offers three services: first, we provide a comprehensive catalogue of current frailty measures; second, we evaluate their reliability and validity; third, we report on their popularity of use