Naming treatment in semantic and logopenic variant PPA

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is an acquired impairment of language caused by neurodegenerative disease affecting language regions in the brain. Unlike aphasia caused by stroke, the language impairments in PPA gradually worsen over time as atrophy spreads. Current consensus criteria for diagnosis identify three clinical variants, each of which is associated with a different pathological entity: a semantic variant, with verbal and nonverbal semantic deficits; a logopenic variant, with anomia and phonological working memory problems; and a nonfluent variant, with agrammatism and/or apraxia of speech (Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011; Gorno-Tempini et al., 2004)

The Influence Of Protean Career Attitude On Proactive Work Behavior With Passion For Work And Career Self Management As Mediator Milennial Employees Dki Jakarta Provincial Government

The purpose of this study is to determine and analyze the influence of protean career attitude toward proactive work behavior with passion for work and career self management as a mediators. The sample determination uses purposive sampling technique. There are 389 respondents used as the samples in this research and are analyzed using Structural Equation Model (SEM). The result from this research is that protean career attitude has a significant positive effect to proactive work behavior. Protean career attitude has a significant positive effect to the passion for work. Passion for work has a significant positive effect to proactive work behavior. Protean career attitude has a significant positive effect to career self management. Career self management has a significant positive effect to proactive work behavior. Protean career attitude has a significant effect to proactive work behavior through passion for work. Protean career attitude has a significant effect to proactive work behavior through career self management. Keywords : Proactive Work Behavior, Passion For Work, Protean Career Attitude Career Self Management

A Framework to Guide Treatment Planning in Aphasia

Approximately 700 empirical research studies have been conducted that examine treatment outcomes in adults with acquired language impairment. This rich body of literature provides guidance regarding the therapeutic value of interventions that target skills across communication modalities. What appears to be lacking, however, is a comprehensive, integrated framework for treatment planning that might serve as a guide for clinical decision-making. Such a heuristic framework is proposed here for consideration. The schema is not intended to be prescriptive in a rigid sense, but rather should help to guide clinical practice and to invite further refinement and evaluation

A Framework to Guide Treatment Planning in Aphasia

Approximately 700 empirical research studies have been conducted that examine treatment outcomes in adults with acquired language impairment. This rich body of literature provides guidance regarding the therapeutic value of interventions that target skills across communication modalities. What appears to be lacking, however, is a comprehensive, integrated framework for treatment planning that might serve as a guide for clinical decision-making. Such a heuristic framework is proposed here for consideration. The schema is not intended to be prescriptive in a rigid sense, but rather should help to guide clinical practice and to invite further refinement and evaluation

Minnesota Reading Corps Pre-K Program Cost Analysis

The Minnesota Reading Corps (MRC) program is a statewide AmeriCorps early literacy initiative that aims to foster emergent literacy skills of children to ensure reading proficiency by the end of grade 3. MRC and its host organization, Reading & Math, Inc. (RMI), aim to address the resource gaps within under-resourced schools by bringing AmeriCorps members into Pre-K classrooms to provide literacy enrichment for the whole class and tutoring services for specific at-risk students. An impact evaluation of the program conducted in 2013-2014 by the University of Chicago-based research center, NORC, showed positive impacts on emergent literacy outcomes for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (Markovitz et al., 2015). Building on the existing evidence on the program effectiveness, this study estimates the costs of providing the MRC Pre-K program that are associated with the impact measured by the 2013-2014 impact evaluation. Rigorous economic evaluations of educational interventions provide important information about the resources necessary to implement a program. Such evaluations bridge the gap between knowledge on program implementation and program impact by identifying the resources utilized to generate outcomes of interest. As such, cost analyses intend to inform policymakers facing decisions to replicate or scale up a program, or trade-offs related to limited resources. Our study used the ingredients method—an approach widely applied to examine costs of educational interventions—to estimate the MRC Pre-K program’s cost (Levin, McEwan, Belfield, Bowden & Shand, 2018). We conducted interviews, surveys, and classroom observations, as well as reviews of program documents, administrative records and past research in order to collect data on all resources utilized to derive program impact based on its theory of change. Wherever important data were missing, we used a Monte Carlo simulation strategy to explore site-level variation on resource use and costs. Overall, the costs of MRC were identified as $1.5 million per year to serve 1,261 students across twenty-five schools, or$1,210 per pupil on average. Costs were found to vary substantially by site, by ingredient category and by who bears the burden of the costs across the 25 sites evaluated. Our analyses of the distribution of who bears the costs suggest that the average cost per student per site borne by schools ranges from $680 to$210, or approximately 25% of the total costs per student. Comparable cost estimates are limited by a lack of similar Pre-K programs that have conducted both impact and cost analysis evaluations. Our study is one of the few rigorous cost analyses in Pre-K programs conducted alongside effectiveness research on a supplemental Pre-K literacy program to date. Nevertheless, these results suggest the Minnesota Reading Corps program leverages a substantial amount of resources into Pre-K classrooms in a way that feasibly distributes costs

Contrasting Static and Contextualised Embeddings in the use of Semantic Feature Vectors in Neurophysiological Prediction

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome leading to the progressive loss of speech/language. There are three PPA subtypes with unique deficits and underlying brain atrophy. We used temporal response function (TRF) modelling to examine semantic processing across PPA subtypes and age-matched controls (n = 10 per group). TRF modelling is a sophisticated regression approach that maps acoustic and/or linguistic features of a continuous stimulus to continuously collected neurophysiological data (e.g., EEG). This approach allows for examination of acoustic/linguistic processing without the need for overt responses and has shown promise for use in PPA 1. EEG responses were collected while participants listened to an audiobook. For each word in the audiobook, feature vectors were derived using word2vec and GPT2; word2vec uses static embeddings whereas GPT2 uses contextualized embeddings, accounting for polysemy and potentially leading to a better approximation of a word’s semantic features2. Currently, it is not clear whether GPT2 is a better approximation of humans’ semantic processing. Thus, we sought to contrast the TRFs produced by word2vec and GPT2. For each model, we derived semantic dissimilarity values for the current word given its context by calculating one minus the Pearson correlation coefficient between the current word’s feature vector and the mean of the previous words’ feature vectors 3. To estimate the extent to which EEG responses could be modelled as a function of semantic dissimilarity, we used the MATLAB Multivariate Temporal Response Function (mTRF) Toolbox 4.Subsequently, TACC was utilized to estimate the null distribution for the TRFs between EEG signals and semantic dissimilarity values. Despite their contrasting embeddings, no significant differences were observed in the TRF’s predictive accuracy between word2vec and GPT2. Ongoing work seeks to disambiguate these models’ similar TRFs. Future research will investigate the utility of TRF modelling in differential diagnosis of PPA subtype

Nutrition and Physical Activity in Relation to Mental Resilience

This study focuses on the relationship between nutrition and physical activity in relation to mental resilience. By assessing diet quality as healthy or unhealthy diet, as well as exercise frequency, this study aims to examine the relationship between dietary pattern, mental resilience in respect to depression, anxiety, and stress. The effects of diet and stress were assessed in relation to mental health and resilience. The purpose of this research was conducted to unveil the relationship between diet and neurobehaviors. This includes the way they respond to stressful situations as well as their eating patterns. An anonymous online survey was administered through word of mouth, text message, and groupme. A total of 121 responses were collected. The survey included basic demographic questions and questions on participants’ diets, mindset, stress, and physical activity level. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 25.0. Results suggest that whole grain consumption is linked to self confidence, regular exercise is linked with a better diet, and decreased fast food consumption is linked to better stress management. These findings supported our hypothesis as well as reports in the literature. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that a diet rich in vegetables, nuts, and fruits, namely a Mediterranean diet, along with frequent exercise can lead to an improvement in mental wellbeing and psychological resilience. Findings of this study show the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle as a solution for those who struggle with their mental health.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1052/thumbnail.jp

Progressive Aphasia: Patterns of Language Behavior and Regional Cortical Atrophy

Individuals with progressive aphasia may demonstrate impairments of syntax, semantics, phonology, and orthography, and can provide important insight into the role of specific cortical regions in these language processing domains. In this study, eleven individuals with progressive aphasia underwent comprehensive language testing and structural MRI scanning. Voxel-based morphometry was used to examine the relation between cortical atrophy and behavioral measures. Results confirm the critical role of left perisylvian cortex for phonological processes involved in spoken and written communication and also for syntactic processing, whereas left temporal regions are critically involved in semantic processing common to spoken and written language

Phonological processing in primary progressive aphasia

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a debilitating condition wherein speech and language deteriorate as a result of neurodegenerative disease. Three variants of PPA are now recognized, each of which shows a unique constellation of speech-language deficits and pattern of underlying atrophy in the brain (Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011). The variants include a nonfluent/agrammatic type (nfvPPA), characterized by syntactic and motor speech deficits and fronto-insular atrophy in the left hemisphere. The semantic variant (svPPA) shows degradation of semantic knowledge in the context of anterior and inferior temporal lobe atrophy (left hemisphere greater than right). Finally, the more recently characterized logopenic variant (lvPPA) shows impairments in naming and repetition that are thought to be phonological in nature. This variant, associated with atrophy of temporoparietal regions in the left hemisphere, has also been referred to as the “phonological” variant of PPA due to observed deficits on tasks that require phonological storage (i.e., the “phonological loop”) and to the presence of phonological paraphasias in connected speech (Gorno-Tempini et al., 2008). Impaired phonological processing has been considered a unique feature of the logopenic variant of PPA, however, phonological skills have not been thoroughly characterized across the three variants. Recent models of the functional neuroanatomy of language propose two pathways by which speech is processed in the brain (Hickok & Poeppel, 2007). A dorsal pathway involving temporoparietal and posterior frontal structures is thought to be involved in mapping phonological representations onto articulatory representations. A ventral pathway located in the middle and inferior temporal lobes is considered crucial for mapping phonological representations onto lexical-semantic representations. Both the dorsal and ventral streams emanate from a common cortical region in posterior, superior temporal cortex/sulcus that appears critical to the mental representation of phonology. We investigated phonological processing in PPA, with the goal of identifying whether patterns of performance in the different variants support this functional-anatomical framework. Based on our knowledge of the locus of anatomical damage in the subtypes of PPA, we hypothesized that patients with damage to dorsal route structures (nonfluent and logopenic variants) would show greater impairment on phonological processing tasks, whereas patients with damage to ventral route structures (semantic variant) would show relative preservation of phonological abilities

ExpiSf™: A chemically-defined baculovirus-based expression system for enhanced Protein production in Sf9 cells

The Baculovirus Expression Vector System (BEVS) is one of the major platforms for recombinant protein production and the last decade has become a preferred platform for vaccine development. Unlike mammalian expression systems that have long since transitioned to serum-free, chemically-defined culture media, relatively little innovation has taken place in insect expression systems, with insect cells continuing to rely on undefined, yeastolate-containing culture media that can exhibit significant lot-to-lot variability in terms of both cell growth and protein expression. Here, we present the development of a novel Sf9-based Baculovirus expression system based on a high-density, chemically-defined culture medium, a high-expressing Sf9 cell line, improved transfection reagent to faster generation of baculoviruses and expression enhancer that allow for consistent production of recombinant proteins with two-fold or greater improvements in protein titers compared to traditional BEVS workflows