Severity of chronic Lyme disease compared to other chronic conditions: a quality of life survey

Overview. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) health-related quality of life (HRQoL) indicators are widely used in the general population to determine the burden of disease, identify health needs, and direct public health policy. These indicators also allow the burden of illness to be compared across different diseases. Although Lyme disease has recently been acknowledged as a major health threat in the USA with more than 300,000 new cases per year, no comprehensive assessment of the health burden of this tickborne disease is available. This study assesses the HRQoL of patients with chronic Lyme disease (CLD) and compares the severity of CLD to other chronic conditions.Methods. Of 5,357 subjects who responded to an online survey, 3,090 were selected for the study. Respondents were characterized as having CLD if they were clinically diagnosed with Lyme disease and had persisting symptoms lasting more than 6 months following antibiotic treatment. HRQoL of CLD patients was assessed using the CDC 9-item metric. The HRQoL analysis for CLD was compared to published analyses for the general population and other chronic illnesses using standard statistical methods.Results. Compared to the general population and patients with other chronic diseases reviewed here, patients with CLD reported significantly lower health quality status, more bad mental and physical health days, a significant symptom disease burden, and greater activity limitations. They also reported impairment in their ability to work, increased utilization of healthcare services, and greater out of pocket medical costs.Conclusions. CLD patients have significantly impaired HRQoL and greater healthcare utilization compared to the general population and patients with other chronic diseases. The heavy burden of illness associated with CLD highlights the need for earlier diagnosis and innovative treatment approaches that may reduce the burden of illness and concomitant costs posed by this illness

The determinants of inward foreign direct investment into the English Premier League

This paper analyses the inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (IFDI) into the English Premier League. IFDI into the English Premier League is a relatively new phenomenon, only commencing in 1997, but by 2013 over half the English Premier League clubs were under foreign ownership. This foreign ownership is almost equally divided between developed market investors and those from emerging markets. There is at present a dearth of work investigating the motivations or determinants behind this IFDI. Using questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and other documentary evidence, these motivations were explored. The results indicate that the determinants of IFDI into the English Premier League encompass factors which fit well with both mainstream FDI theory and that used to analyse emerging markets, nonetheless respondents also provided additional key factors such as that of conspicuous consumption, positional good theory and that of a trophy asset, suggesting an extension of the theoretical models underpinning IFDI in this sector

The determinants of services FDI location in the UK regions

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Inderscience in International Journal of Management Practice on 28/10/2020, available online: https://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=110695 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.This paper contributes to scholarly knowledge and understanding of the way in which economic conditions and government policy affect foreign direct investment (FDI) location in the United Kingdom (UK) regions. It does so by exploring their impact on inbound services FDI location in a sample of the UKs core (the Southeast) and non-core (West Midlands; Wales; Scotland and the Northwest) regions. Use is made of multiple regression techniques to analyse a set of official, longitudinal data gathered for the period from 1980 to 2015 as a means to this end. The findings offer new insights into the relative influence of the search for markets, efficiencies and strategic assets and government policy over the location of services FDI in all five regions. The resultant implications for future inward investment policy development after the UK leaves the EU are also considered, including the potential benefits of increasing policy variations from region to region

Explaining manufacturing and non-manufacturing inbound FDI location in five UK regions

This paper extends the analysis of foreign direct investment (FDI) location in the UK by exploring the determinants of manufacturing and non-manufacturing inbound FDI location within and between the UK's core (the Southeast) and non-core (West Midlands; Wales; Scotland and the Northwest) regions. Use is made of multiple regression techniques to analyse a set of official, longitudinal data gathered for the period from 1980 to 2005 as a means to this end. The findings offer new insights into the relative influence of regional, national and EU level factors and government policy over FDI location at the UK regional level, and into their variation between regions and sectors of industry. The resultant implications for government policies towards inbound FDI are also considered, including the desirability of allowing them to vary from region to region, if FDI inflows are to be maximised

Core Stability and Athletic Performance in Male and Female Lacrosse Players

International Journal of Exercise Science 12(4): 1138-1148, 2019. This study determined the relationship of core stability with power production, agility, and dynamic stability of collegiate lacrosse players and whether core stability is more evident in these performance variables in either males or females. Twenty male and female collegiate lacrosse players (20.3 ± 1.0 years, 173.2 ± 11.8 cm, 72.6 ± 13.0 kg) performed the pro-agility shuttle, the countermovement jump (CMJ), the Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT), and prone, right lateral, and left lateral planks on two sessions- familiarization and testing. Independent T-tests were used to compare sexes. SPSS 24.0 was used; significance was accepted at p\u3c 0.05. Pearson correlations were used to compare the relationship of core stability to the performance variables in participants. There was a significant relationship found between the prone plank and pro-agility shuttle in all participants (r = -0.50). No significant relationships were found between core stability and performance variables. A significant difference was found in the pro-agility shuttle (p= 0.001) and the CMJ (p= 0.001) but not in core stability or dynamic stability. Agility, power production, and dynamic stability were not related to core stability in neither male or female lacrosse players. There were no significant differences in core stability and dynamic stability between males and females. A significant difference was found in dynamic stability in the SEBT right leg and left leg composite scores between sexes. From these results, it is suggested that core stability may not directly influence the performance variables in collegiate male and female lacrosse players

The Marker State Space (MSS) Method for Classifying Clinical Samples

The development of accurate clinical biomarkers has been challenging in part due to the diversity between patients and diseases. One approach to account for the diversity is to use multiple markers to classify patients, based on the concept that each individual marker contributes information from its respective subclass of patients. Here we present a new strategy for developing biomarker panels that accounts for completely distinct patient subclasses. Marker State Space (MSS) defines "marker states" based on all possible patterns of high and low values among a panel of markers. Each marker state is defined as either a case state or a control state, and a sample is classified as case or control based on the state it occupies. MSS was used to define multi-marker panels that were robust in cross validation and training-set/test-set analyses and that yielded similar classification accuracy to several other classification algorithms. A three-marker panel for discriminating pancreatic cancer patients from control subjects revealed subclasses of patients based on distinct marker states. MSS provides a straightforward approach for modeling highly divergent subclasses of patients, which may be adaptable for diverse applications. © 2013 Fallon et al

VAST Challenge 2015: Mayhem at Dinofun World

A fictitious amusement park and a larger-than-life hometown football hero provided participants in the VAST Challenge 2015 with an engaging yet complex storyline and setting in which to analyze movement and communication patterns. The datasets for the 2015 challenge were large—averaging nearly 10 million records per day over a three day period—with a simple straightforward structured format. The simplicity of the format belied a complex wealth of features contained in the data that needed to be discovered and understood to solve the tasks and questions that were posed. Two Mini-Challenges and a Grand Challenge compose the 2015 competition. Mini-Challenge 1 contained structured location and date-time data for park visitors, against which participants were to discern groups and their activities. MiniChallenge 2 contained structured communication data consisting of metadata about time-stamped text messages sent between park visitors. The Grand Challenge required participants to use both movement and communication data to hypothesize when a crime was committed and identify the most likely suspects from all the park visitors. The VAST Challenge 2015 received 74 submissions, and the datasets were downloaded, at least partially, from 26 countries

Mapping multidimensional pain experience onto electrophysiological responses to noxious laser heat stimuli

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The origin of the conscious experience of pain in the brain is a continuing enigma in neuroscience. To shed light on the brain representation of a multifaceted pain experience in humans, we combined multivariate analysis of subjective aspects of pain sensations with detailed, single-trial analysis of electrophysiological brain responses. Participants were asked to fully focus on any painful or non-painful sensations occurring in their left hand during an interval surrounding the onset of noxious laser heat stimuli, and to rate their sensations using a set of visual analogue scales. Statistical parametric mapping was used to compute a multivariate regression analysis of subjective responses and single-trial laser evoked potentials (LEPs) at subject and group levels. Standardized Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography method was used to reconstruct sources of LEPs. Factor analysis of subjective responses yielded five factors. Factor 1, representing pain, mapped firstly as a negative potential at the vertex and a positive potential at the fronto-temporal region during the 208–260 ms interval, and secondly as a strong negative potential in the right lateral frontal and prefrontal scalp regions during the 1292–1340 ms interval. Three other factors, labelled “anticipated pain”, “stimulus onset time”, and “body sensations”, represented non-specific aspects of the pain experience, and explained portions of LEPs in the latency range from 200 ms to 700 ms. The subjective space of pain during noxious laser stimulation is represented by one large factor featuring pain intensity, and by other factors accounting for non-specific parts of the sensory experience. Pain is encoded in two separate latency components with different scalp and brain representations

VAST Challenge 2016: Streaming Visual Analytics

The 2016 VAST Challenge returns to the (fictional) island of Kronos to pose three Mini-Challenges. In Mini-Challenge 1, participants must design an innovative interactive visual interface that enables security investigators from the Euybia Island Resort and Conference Center to conduct real-time analysis of streaming data. In Mini-Challenge 2, the GAStech Corporation returns from the 2014 kidnapping disaster more committed than ever to tighten up operations at its new headquarters in Abila. Using data from stationary and mobile sensors of multiple types, participants must help the company to understand both operational issues as well as security issues. In Mini-Challenge 3, participants are asked to try their hand at the most complex VAST Challenge scenario to date: 2.5 days of live, streaming operational data. The VAST Challenge 2016 received 29 submissions and had participation from 72 reviewers

Pleasant and unpleasant odour-face combinations influence face and odour perception: An event-related potential study.

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Odours alter evaluations of concurrent visual stimuli. However, neural mechanisms underlying the effects of congruent and incongruent odours on facial expression perception are not clear. Moreover, the influence of emotional faces on odour perception is not established. We investigated the effects of one pleasant and one unpleasant odour paired with happy and disgusted faces, on subjective ratings and ERP responses to faces. Participants rated the pleasantness of happy and disgusted faces that appeared during 3 s pleasant or unpleasant odour pulses, or without odour. Odour pleasantness and intensity ratings were recorded in each trial. EEG was recorded continuously using a 128-channel system. Happy and disgusted faces paired with pleasant and unpleasant odour were rated as more or less pleasant, respectively, compared to the same faces presented in the other odour conditions. Odours were rated as more pleasant when paired with happy faces, and unpleasant odour was rated more intense when paired with disgusted faces. Unpleasant odour paired with disgusted faces also decreased inspiration. Odour-face interactions were evident in the N200 and N400 components. Our results reveal bi-directional effects of odours and faces, and suggest that odour-face interactions may be represented in ERP components. Pairings of unpleasant odour and disgusted faces resulted in stronger hedonic ratings, ERP changes, increased odour intensity ratings and respiratory adjustment. This finding likely represents heightened adaptive responses to multimodal unpleasant stimuli, prompting appropriate behaviour in the presence of danger