Evidence for the late MMN as a neurophysiological endophenotype for dyslexia.

Dyslexia affects 5-10% of school-aged children and is therefore one of the most common learning disorders. Research on auditory event related potentials (AERP), particularly the mismatch negativity (MMN) component, has revealed anomalies in individuals with dyslexia to speech stimuli. Furthermore, candidate genes for this disorder were found through molecular genetic studies. A current challenge for dyslexia research is to understand the interaction between molecular genetics and brain function, and to promote the identification of relevant endophenotypes for dyslexia. The present study examines MMN, a neurophysiological correlate of speech perception, and its potential as an endophenotype for dyslexia in three groups of children. The first group of children was clinically diagnosed with dyslexia, whereas the second group of children was comprised of their siblings who had average reading and spelling skills and were therefore "unaffected" despite having a genetic risk for dyslexia. The third group consisted of control children who were not related to the other groups and were also unaffected. In total, 225 children were included in the study. All children showed clear MMN activity to/da/-/ba/contrasts that could be separated into three distinct MMN components. Whilst the first two MMN components did not differentiate the groups, the late MMN component (300-700 ms) revealed significant group differences. The mean area of the late MMN was attenuated in both the dyslexic children and their unaffected siblings in comparison to the control children. This finding is indicative of analogous alterations of neurophysiological processes in children with dyslexia and those with a genetic risk for dyslexia, without a manifestation of the disorder. The present results therefore further suggest that the late MMN might be a potential endophenotype for dyslexia

Recent Improvements of PLACET

PLACET[1] is a program used to simulate the dynamics, including wakefields, of a beam in the main accelerating or decelerating part of a linac. It allows for the investigation of single- and multi-bunch effects, the simulation of normal RF cavities with relatively low group velocities, as well as transfer structures specific to CLIC. Recent improvements, including the possibility to simulate bunch compressors, ground motion, and the use of parallel computer systems, are presented in this paper

Der 2. Milchmolar und der 2. Prämolar: Risikofaktoren der regelrechten Dentition

Ziel der Studie ist, Dentitionsvariationen der 2. WG-Periode unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des unteren 2. PM festzustellen und Störanfälligkeiten zu überprüfen. Es wurden die Daten von 1.465 Kindern zwischen 6 und 15 Jahren analysiert. Besonders im UK wechselt die Durchbruchsfolge zwischen 2. PM und 2. M. Erste Wurzelresorptionen treten im 8. Lebensjahr auf. Der Resorptionsstand unterer 2. Milchmolaren (MM) ist bei 70%, der Mineralisationsstand unterer 2. PM bei 80% symmetrisch. Bei 10% der Kinder persistiert mindestens ein unterer 2. MM. Bei Aplasie des Zahnes 45 treten bei Jungen zu 90% und bei Mädchen zu 73% weitere Nichtanlagen auf

Evaluating the Impact of an Accountable Care Organization on Population Health: The Quasi-Experimental Design of the German Gesundes Kinzigtal.

A central goal of accountable care organizations (ACOs) is to improve the health of their accountable population. No evidence currently links ACO development to improved population health. A major challenge to establishing the evidence base for the impact of ACOs on population health is the absence of a theoretically grounded, robust, operationally feasible, and meaningful research design. The authors present an evaluation study design, provide an empirical example, and discuss considerations for generating the evidence base for ACO implementation. A quasi-experimental study design using propensity score matching in combination with small-scale exact matching is implemented. Outcome indicators based on claims data were constructed and analyzed. Population health is measured by using a range of mortality indicators: mortality ratio, age at time of death, years of potential life lost/gained, and survival time. The application is assessed using longitudinal data from Gesundes Kinzigtal, one of the leading population-based ACOs in Germany. The proposed matching approach resulted in a balanced control of observable differences between the intervention (ACO) and control groups. The mortality indicators used indicate positive results. For example, 635.6 fewer years of potential life lost (2005.8 vs. 2641.4; t-test: sig. P < 0.05*) in the ACO intervention group (n = 5411) attributable to the ACO, also after controlling for a potential (indirect) immortal time bias by excluding the first half year after enrollment from the outcome measurement. This empirical example of the impact of a German ACO on population health can be extended to the evaluation of ACOs and other integrated delivery models of care

Deep Near-IR Surface Photometry of 57 Galaxies in the Local Sphere of Influence

We present H-band surface photometry of 57 galaxies drawn from the Local Sphere of Influence (LSI) with distances of less than 10 Mpc from the Milky Way. The images with a typical surface brightness limit 4 mag fainter than 2MASS (24.5 mag arcsec^-2 < sb_lim < 26 mag arcsec ^-2) have been obtained with IRIS2 on the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope. A total of 22 galaxies that remained previously undetected in the near-IR and potentially could have been genuinely young galaxies were found to have an old stellar population with a star density 1-2 magnitudes below the 2MASS detection threshold. The cleaned near-IR images reveal the morphology and extent of many of the galaxies for the first time. For all program galaxies, we derive radial luminosity profiles, ellipticities, and position angles, together with global parameters such as total magnitude, mean effective surface brightness and half-light radius. Our results show that 2MASS underestimates the total magnitude of galaxies with _eff between 18-21 mag arcsec^-2 by up to 2.5 mag. The Sersic parameters best describing the observed surface brightness profiles are also presented. Adopting accurate galaxy distances and a H-band mass-to-light ratio of Upsilon_H=1.0 +/- 0.4, the LSI galaxies are found to cover a stellar mass range of 5.6 < log_10 (M_stars) < 11.1. The results are discussed along with previously obtained optical data. Our sample of low luminosity galaxies is found to follow closely the optical-infrared B versus H luminosity relation defined by brighter galaxies with a slope of 1.14 +/- 0.02 and scatter of 0.3 magnitudes. Finally we analyse the luminosity - surface brightness relation to determine an empirical mass-to-light ratio of Upsilon_H=0.78 +/- 0.08 for late-type galaxies in the H-band.Comment: Accepted by AJ. High resolution version available at http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~emma/KirbyHband.pd

A clustering approach to automatic verb classification incorporating selectional preferences: model, implementation, and user manual

This report presents two variations of an innovative, complex approach to semantic verb classes that relies on selectional preferences as verb properties. The underlying linguistic assumption for this verb class model is that verbs which agree on their selectional preferences belong to a common semantic class. The model is implemented as a soft-clustering approach, in order to capture the polysemy of the verbs. The training procedure uses the Expectation-Maximisation (EM) algorithm (Baum, 1972) to iteratively improve the probabilistic parameters of the model, and applies the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle (Rissanen, 1978) to induce WordNet-based selectional preferences for arguments within subcategorisation frames. One variation of the MDL principle replicates a standard MDL approach by Li and Abe (1998), the other variation presents an improved pruning strategy that outperforms the standard implementation considerably. Our model is potentially useful for lexical induction (e.g., verb senses, subcategorisation and selectional preferences, collocations, and verb alternations), and for NLP applications in sparse data situations. We demonstrate the usefulness of the model by a standard evaluation (pseudo-word disambiguation), and three applications (selectional preference induction, verb sense disambiguation, and semi-supervised sense labelling)

ONE | Organisations- & Netzwerkentwicklung. Beratungskonzept zur Deckung des Unterstützungsbedarfs von Netzwerkkooperationenin Nordrhein-Westfalen

Angetrieben durch technische Innovationen und den Prozess der Globalisierung tendieren Organisationen seit rund einem Jahrzehnt dazu, Kooperationsnetzwerke mit anderen Unternehmen höher zu gewichten als die Arbeit in monobetrieblichen Strukturen. Diese Tendenz zeigt sich sowohl in bedarfswirtschaftlichen als auch erwerbswirtschaftlichen Organisationen. Beide „organisationalen Felder“ sind in verschiedene organisationale Kontexte eingebettet und verfolgen Kooperationsstrategien, die zu unterschiedlichen Kooperationsmustern führen. Um das Fachwissen über netzwerkorientierte Organisationsentwicklung weiter zu entwickeln und marktfähig zu machen, wurde an der Fachhochschule Köln ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt initiiert. An dem Forschungsvorhaben sind die Fakultäten für angewandte Sozialwissenschaften, für Wirtschaftswissen-schaften und für Fahrzeugsysteme und Produktion beteiligt, die unterschiedliche organisationale Felder repräsentieren. Die Fakultät für angewandte Sozial-wissenschaften fokussiert auf bedarfswirtschaftliche Organisationen im Feld der Sozialwirtschaft. Im Blickfeld der Fakultäten für Wirtschaftswissenschaften und für Fahrzeugsysteme und Produktion stehen erwerbswirtschaftliche Organisationen aus den Feldern der mittelständischen Wirtschaft und der Mobilitätswirtschaft. Im Verlauf des Forschungsprozesses wurden (1) im Rahmen einer Situationsanalyse eine quantitative Befragung von Profit- und Non-Profit-Organisationen in Nordrhein-Westfalen durchgeführt und Ergebnisse zum Stellenwert der Netzwerk-organisation in den aktuellen Organisationsstrategien und -konzepten gewonnen. Durch vertiefende qualitative Fallanalysen in Form von Bedarfsanalysen (2) sind Erfolgsfaktoren und Unterstützungsbedarfe bei einer Einbindung von Organisationen in eine Netzwerkkooperation aufgedeckt worden. In diesem Bericht erfolgt (3) die Beschreibung und Begründung induktiv abgeleiteter Beratungs-instrumente. Dafür werden zunächst relevante Forschungsergebnisse zusammengefasst und anschließend die von ihnen abgeleiteten Erfolgsfaktoren sowie Beratungs- und Unterstützungsbedarfe tabellarisch geclustert. Auf dieser Grundlage werden die Entwicklung von Beratungs- und Unterstützungsinstrumenten und die Modifizierung bestehender Ansätze für die Netzwerkberatung - differenziert nach den besonderen Anforderungen des bedarfswirtschaftlichen und des erwerbs-wirtschaftlichen Bereiches - theoretisch begründet. Die entwickelten Beratungsinstrumente werden nach Netzwerkentwicklungsphasen katalogisiert. Zusätzlich wird angegeben, was das jeweilige Instrument leistet und wo seine Grenzen sind. Zudem erfolgt für jedes Instrument die detaillierte Beschreibung der Ziele und des Anwendungsprozesses. Schließlich werden ausgewählte Module Beratungsinstrumente in zwei der drei organisationalen Felder zur Anwendung gebracht. Ziel ist die Beschreibung eines Best-Practice-Beratungsprozesses

Электрооборудование тепловой насосной станции

В данной работе выполнен расчет электроснабжения тепловой насосной станции №2 города Саяногорска. В работе так же рассмотрен механизм управления сетевым насосом при помощи преобразователя частоты с целью снижения потребляемой электрической энергии.In this paper, the power supply to the heat pump station No. 2 in Sayanogorsk has been calculated. In work the mechanism of management of the network pump by means of the frequency converter with the purpose of decrease in consumed electric energy is also considered

Dysfunctions in brain networks supporting empathy: An fMRI study in adults with autism spectrum disorders

The present study aimed at identifying dysfunctions in brain networks that may underlie disturbed empathic behavior in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). During functional magnetic resonance imaging, subjects were asked to identify the emotional state observed in a facial stimulus (other-task) or to evaluate their own emotional response (self-task). Behaviorally, ASD subjects performed equally to the control group during the other-task, but showed less emotionally congruent responses in the self-task. Activations in brain regions related to theory of mind were observed in both groups. Activations of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) were located in dorsal subregions in ASD subjects and in ventral areas in control subjects. During the self-task, ASD subjects activated an additional network of frontal and inferior temporal areas. Frontal areas previously associated with the human mirror system were activated in both tasks in control subjects, while ASD subjects recruited these areas during the self-task only. Activations in the ventral MPFC may provide the basis for one's “emotional bond” with other persons’ emotions. Such atypical patterns of activation may underlie disturbed empathy in individuals with ASD. Subjects with ASD may use an atypical cognitive strategy to gain access to their own emotional state in response to other people's emotions