Adults with High-functioning Autism Process Web Pages With Similar Accuracy but Higher Cognitive Effort Compared to Controls

To accommodate the needs of web users with high-functioning autism, a designer's only option at present is to rely on guidelines that: i) have not been empirically evaluated and ii) do not account for the di erent levels of autism severity. Before designing effective interventions, we need to obtain an empirical understanding of the aspects that speci c user groups need support with. This has not yet been done for web users at the high ends of the autism spectrum, as often they appear to execute tasks effortlessly, without facing barriers related to their neurodiverse processing style. This paper investigates the accuracy and efficiency with which high-functioning web users with autism and a control group of neurotypical participants obtain information from web pages. Measures include answer correctness and a number of eye-tracking features. The results indicate similar levels of accuracy for the two groups at the expense of efficiency for the autism group, showing that the autism group invests more cognitive effort in order to achieve the same results as their neurotypical counterparts

Autism detection based on eye movement sequences on the web: a scanpath trend analysis approach

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by ACM in W4A '20: Proceedings of the 17th International Web for All Conference on 20/04/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1145/3371300.3383340 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Autism diagnostic procedure is a subjective, challenging and expensive procedure and relies on behavioral, historical and parental report information. In our previous, we proposed a machine learning classifier to be used as a potential screening tool or used in conjunction with other diagnostic methods, thus aiding established diagnostic methods. The classifier uses eye movements of people on web pages but it only considers non-sequential data. It achieves the best accuracy by combining data from several web pages and it has varying levels of accuracy on different web pages. In this present paper, we investigate whether it is possible to detect autism based on eye-movement sequences and achieve stable accuracy across different web pages to be not dependent on specific web pages. We used Scanpath Trend Analysis (STA) which is designed for identifying a trending path of a group of users on a web page based on their eye movements. We first identify trending paths of people with autism and neurotypical people. To detect whether or not a person has autism, we calculate the similarity of his/her path to the trending paths of people with autism and neurotypical people. If the path is more similar to the trending path of neurotypical people, we classify the person as a neurotypical person. Otherwise, we classify her/him as a person with autism. We systematically evaluate our approach with an eye-tracking dataset of 15 verbal and highly-independent people with autism and 15 neurotypical people on six web pages. Our evaluation shows that the STA approach performs better on individual web pages and provides more stable accuracy across different pages

Predictability dynamics of emerging sovereign CDS markets

We compare the time-varying weak-form efficiency of Credit Default Swap (CDS) markets of 15 emerging countries by using permutation entropy approach. We find that CDS markets have different degrees of time-varying efficiency. Using several robustness test, we find that Thailand, China, South Korea and Malaysia have the most efficient CDS markets while South Africa, Colombia and Turkey are the least efficient. Our results show that CDS markets can be efficient even in the crisis episodes. Our findings also suggest a strong negative relation between sovereign risk and CDS market efficiency. © 2017 Elsevier B.V

Coccidian Infection Causes Oxidative Damage in Greenfinches

The main tenet of immunoecology is that individual variation in immune responsiveness is caused by the costs of immune responses to the hosts. Oxidative damage resulting from the excessive production of reactive oxygen species during immune response is hypothesized to form one of such costs. We tested this hypothesis in experimental coccidian infection model in greenfinches Carduelis chloris. Administration of isosporan coccidians to experimental birds did not affect indices of antioxidant protection (TAC and OXY), plasma triglyceride and carotenoid levels or body mass, indicating that pathological consequences of infection were generally mild. Infected birds had on average 8% higher levels of plasma malondialdehyde (MDA, a toxic end-product of lipid peroxidation) than un-infected birds. The birds that had highest MDA levels subsequent to experimental infection experienced the highest decrease in infection intensity. This observation is consistent with the idea that oxidative stress is a causative agent in the control of coccidiosis and supports the concept of oxidative costs of immune responses and parasite resistance. The finding that oxidative damage accompanies even the mild infection with a common parasite highlights the relevance of oxidative stress biology for the immunoecological research

Effects of hospital facilities on patient outcomes after cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational study

Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and processes on early outcomes after cancer surgery worldwide.Methods A multimethods analysis was performed as part of the GlobalSurg 3 study-a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study of patients who had surgery for breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer. The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality and 30-day major complication rates. Potentially beneficial hospital facilities were identified by variable selection to select those associated with 30-day mortality. Adjusted outcomes were determined using generalised estimating equations to account for patient characteristics and country-income group, with population stratification by hospital.Findings Between April 1, 2018, and April 23, 2019, facility-level data were collected for 9685 patients across 238 hospitals in 66 countries (91 hospitals in 20 high-income countries; 57 hospitals in 19 upper-middle-income countries; and 90 hospitals in 27 low-income to lower-middle-income countries). The availability of five hospital facilities was inversely associated with mortality: ultrasound, CT scanner, critical care unit, opioid analgesia, and oncologist. After adjustment for case-mix and country income group, hospitals with three or fewer of these facilities (62 hospitals, 1294 patients) had higher mortality compared with those with four or five (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3.85 [95% CI 2.58-5.75]; p<0.0001), with excess mortality predominantly explained by a limited capacity to rescue following the development of major complications (63.0% vs 82.7%; OR 0.35 [0.23-0.53]; p<0.0001). Across LMICs, improvements in hospital facilities would prevent one to three deaths for every 100 patients undergoing surgery for cancer.Interpretation Hospitals with higher levels of infrastructure and resources have better outcomes after cancer surgery, independent of country income. Without urgent strengthening of hospital infrastructure and resources, the reductions in cancer-associated mortality associated with improved access will not be realised

Integrated analysis of environmental and genetic influences on cord blood DNA methylation in new-borns

Epigenetic processes, including DNA methylation (DNAm), are among the mechanisms allowing integration of genetic and environmental factors to shape cellular function. While many studies have investigated either environmental or genetic contributions to DNAm, few have assessed their integrated effects. Here we examine the relative contributions of prenatal environmental factors and genotype on DNA methylation in neonatal blood at variably methylated regions (VMRs) in 4 independent cohorts (overall n = 2365). We use Akaike’s information criterion to test which factors best explain variability of methylation in the cohort-specific VMRs: several prenatal environmental factors (E), genotypes in cis (G), or their additive (G + E) or interaction (GxE) effects. Genetic and environmental factors in combination best explain DNAm at the majority of VMRs. The CpGs best explained by either G, G + E or GxE are functionally distinct. The enrichment of genetic variants from GxE models in GWAS for complex disorders supports their importance for disease ris

Integrated analysis of environmental and genetic influences on cord blood DNA methylation in new-borns

Epigenetic processes, including DNA methylation (DNAm), are among the mechanisms allowing integration of genetic and environmental factors to shape cellular function. While many studies have investigated either environmental or genetic contributions to DNAm, few have assessed their integrated effects. Here we examine the relative contributions of prenatal environmental factors and genotype on DNA methylation in neonatal blood at variably methylated regions (VMRs) in 4 independent cohorts (overall n = 2365). We use Akaike’s information criterion to test which factors best explain variability of methylation in the cohort-specific VMRs: several prenatal environmental factors (E), genotypes in cis (G), or their additive (G + E) or interaction (GxE) effects. Genetic and environmental factors in combination best explain DNAm at the majority of VMRs. The CpGs best explained by either G, G + E or GxE are functionally distinct. The enrichment of genetic variants from GxE models in GWAS for complex disorders supports their importance for disease risk

Integrated analysis of environmental and genetic influences on cord blood DNA methylation in new-borns

Epigenetic processes, including DNA methylation (DNAm), are among the mechanisms allowing integration of genetic and environmental factors to shape cellular function. While many studies have investigated either environmental or genetic contributions to DNAm, few have assessed their integrated effects. Here we examine the relative contributions of prenatal environmental factors and genotype on DNA methylation in neonatal blood at variably methylated regions (VMRs) in 4 independent cohorts (overall n = 2365). We use Akaike's information criterion to test which factors best explain variability of methylation in the cohort-specific VMRs: several prenatal environmental factors (E), genotypes in cis (G), or their additive (G + E) or interaction (GxE) effects. Genetic and environmental factors in combination best explain DNAm at the majority of VMRs. The CpGs best explained by either G, G + E or GxE are functionally distinct. The enrichment of genetic variants from GxE models in GWAS for complex disorders supports their importance for disease risk.Peer reviewe