Executive Dysfunction following Traumatic Brain Injury and Factors Related to Impairment

Deficits in executive function are commonly reported following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and are important for establishing functional impairments. Understanding the nature of executive dysfunction following TBI is often complicated by secondary factors that can impact measured ability. This study sought to clarify the persistent effects of TBI on executive function, as measured by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), while accounting for effort given during testing, as measured by the Portland Digit Recognition Test. Results suggested a dose-response relationship between TBI severity and subsequent WCST deficits. Mild TBI patients who provided good effort during testing showed no observable differences from locally matched controls on WCST performance. Effort during testing was found to have a larger overall effect on WCST performance than moderate-to-severe TBI or dementia. The present study highlights the need to account for secondary factors, such as effort during testing, to accurately measure cognitive dysfunction following compensable injuries

Microarray analysis of pathways involved in bladder cancer invasion and metastasis.

MDHypoxia-inducible genes have been linked to the aggressive phenotype of cancer. However, nearly all work on hypoxia-regulated genes has been conducted in vitro on cell lines. Here the hypoxia transcriptome in primary human bladder cancer was investigated using cIDNA microarrays to compare genes induced by hypoxia in vitro in bladder cancer cell line EJ28 with genes upregulated on an in vivo array of 39 bladder tumours (27 Ta/T1 12 T2-T4). mRNA array fold-changes were correlated with carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX) staining and necrosis of tumours as surrogate markers of hypoxia. Of 6000 genes 32 were repeatedly hypoxia-inducible in vitro more than 2-fold, five of which were novel, including lactate transporter SLC16A3 and RNAse 4. Eight of 32 hypoxia-inducible genes in vitro were also upregulated on the vivo array. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA was upregulated 2-fold by hypoxia and 2 to 18-fold in 31/39 tumours. Also up regulated on both arrays was GLUT 1 mRNA, and fold changes on the in vivo genearray significantly correlated with CA IX staining of tumours (p=0.008). However Insulin-like growth factor binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3) mRNA was the most strongly differentially expressed gene in both arrays and its upregulation was confirmed in the urine of bladder cancer patients (n=157, p<0.01) and in cell line supernatants. Angiogenin was also upregulated in urine of bladder cancer patients. Selected genes upregulated by hypoxia (HIF la, HIF 2a, CA IX and NIP3) were studied by immunohistochemistry for their prognostic significance and association with necrosis in 98 cystectomy specimens. Normal human urothelial cells were also grown in culture and a hypoxia genearray profile compared with EJ28, peripheral blood monocytes and T-cells. This thesis studies the prevalence of hypoxia and necrosis in bladder cancer, its relationship with prognosis, genes associated with the hypoxic phenotype and hypoxia related molecular pathways

Biopsychosocial Factors in Chronic Spine-Related Pain: Contributions to Pain Intensity and Perceived Disability

Psychological and contextual factors play an important role in the development and maintenance of chronic spine-related pain, and effective treatment of pain-related conditions requires an understanding of how these factors contribute to pain and disability. The present study examined the relative contributions of spine pathology, psychological complications, and demographic factors to perceived pain intensity and disability in patients with chronic spine-related pain. Because most patients were assessed in the context of a compensable injury, exaggeration of symptoms and disability was systematically controlled for using multiple validity indicators. A high prevalence of psychological complications was observed in the present sample. Analysis indicated that psychological factors were not significantly related to pain intensity, but were significantly related to reported pain-related disability. Further, psychological factors were found to predict pain-related disability beyond demographics, medical findings, and pain intensity. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed

Biopsychosocial Factors in Chronic Spine-Related Pain: Contributions to Pain Intensity and Perceived Disability

Psychological and contextual factors play an important role in the development and maintenance of chronic spine-related pain, and effective treatment of pain-related conditions requires an understanding of how these factors contribute to pain and disability. The present study examined the relative contributions of spine pathology, psychological complications, and demographic factors to perceived pain intensity and disability in patients with chronic spine-related pain. Because most patients were assessed in the context of a compensable injury, exaggeration of symptoms and disability was systematically controlled for using multiple validity indicators. A high prevalence of psychological complications was observed in the present sample. Analysis indicated that psychological factors were not significantly related to pain intensity, but were significantly related to reported pain-related disability. Further, psychological factors were found to predict pain-related disability beyond demographics, medical findings, and pain intensity. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed

Independent origin of plasmodium falciparum antifolate super-resistance, Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.

Super-resistant Plasmodium falciparum threatens the effectiveness of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in intermittent preventive treatment for malaria during pregnancy. It is characterized by the A581G Pfdhps mutation on a background of the double-mutant Pfdhps and the triple-mutant Pfdhfr. Using samples collected during 2004-2008, we investigated the evolutionary origin of the A581G mutation by characterizing microsatellite diversity flanking Pfdhps triple-mutant (437G+540E+581G) alleles from 3 locations in eastern Africa and comparing it with double-mutant (437G+540E) alleles from the same area. In Ethiopia, both alleles derived from 1 lineage that was distinct from those in Uganda and Tanzania. Uganda and Tanzania triple mutants derived from the previously characterized southeastern Africa double-mutant lineage. The A581G mutation has occurred multiple times on local Pfdhps double-mutant backgrounds; however, a novel microsatellite allele incorporated into the Tanzania lineage since 2004 illustrates the local expansion of emergent triple-mutant lineages

The Murchison Widefield Array: Design Overview

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a dipole-based aperture array synthesis telescope designed to operate in the 80-300 MHz frequency range. It is capable of a wide range of science investigations, but is initially focused on three key science projects. These are detection and characterization of 3-dimensional brightness temperature fluctuations in the 21cm line of neutral hydrogen during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) at redshifts from 6 to 10, solar imaging and remote sensing of the inner heliosphere via propagation effects on signals from distant background sources,and high-sensitivity exploration of the variable radio sky. The array design features 8192 dual-polarization broad-band active dipoles, arranged into 512 tiles comprising 16 dipoles each. The tiles are quasi-randomly distributed over an aperture 1.5km in diameter, with a small number of outliers extending to 3km. All tile-tile baselines are correlated in custom FPGA-based hardware, yielding a Nyquist-sampled instantaneous monochromatic uv coverage and unprecedented point spread function (PSF) quality. The correlated data are calibrated in real time using novel position-dependent self-calibration algorithms. The array is located in the Murchison region of outback Western Australia. This region is characterized by extremely low population density and a superbly radio-quiet environment,allowing full exploitation of the instrumental capabilities.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Proceedings of the IEE

A new accuracy measure based on bounded relative error for time series forecasting

Many accuracy measures have been proposed in the past for time series forecasting comparisons. However, many of these measures suffer from one or more issues such as poor resistance to outliers and scale dependence. In this paper, while summarising commonly used accuracy measures, a special review is made on the symmetric mean absolute percentage error. Moreover, a new accuracy measure called the Unscaled Mean Bounded Relative Absolute Error (UMBRAE), which combines the best features of various alternative measures, is proposed to address the common issues of existing measures. A comparative evaluation on the proposed and related measures has been made with both synthetic and real-world data. The results indicate that the proposed measure, with user selectable benchmark, performs as well as or better than other measures on selected criteria. Though it has been commonly accepted that there is no single best accuracy measure, we suggest that UMBRAE could be a good choice to evaluate forecasting methods, especially for cases where measures based on geometric mean of relative errors, such as the geometric mean relative absolute error, are preferred

Evolution of Anolis Lizard Dewlap Diversity

BACKGROUND: The dewlaps of Anolis lizards provide a classic example of a complex signaling system whose function and evolution is poorly understood. Dewlaps are flaps of skin beneath the chin that are extended and combined with head and body movements for visual signals and displays. They exhibit extensive morphological variation and are one of two cladistic features uniting anoles, yet little is known regarding their function and evolution. We quantified the diversity of anole dewlaps, investigated whether dewlap morphology was informative regarding phylogenetic relationships, and tested two separate hypotheses: (A) similar Anolis habitat specialists possess similar dewlap configurations (Ecomorph Convergence hypothesis), and (B) sympatric species differ in their dewlap morphologies to a greater extent than expected by chance (Species Recognition hypothesis). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We found that dewlap configurations (sizes, patterns and colors) exhibit substantial diversity, but that most are easily categorized into six patterns that incorporate one to three of 13 recognizable colors. Dewlap morphology is not phylogenetically informative and, like other features of anoles, exhibits convergence in configurations. We found no support for the Ecomorph Convergence hypothesis; species using the same structural habitat were no more similar in dewlap configuration than expected by chance. With one exception, all sympatric species in four communities differ in dewlap configuration. However, this provides only weak support for the Species Recognition hypothesis because, due to the great diversity in dewlap configurations observed across each island, few cases of sympatric species with identical dewlaps would be expected to co-occur by chance alone. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Despite previous thought, most dewlaps exhibit easily characterizable patterns and colorations. Nevertheless, dewlap variation is extensive and explanations for the origin and evolution of this diversity are lacking. Our data do not support two hypothesized explanations for this diversity, but others such as sexual selection remain to be tested

First spectroscopic imaging observations of the sun at low radio frequencies with the Murchison Widefield Array Prototype

We present the first spectroscopic images of solar radio transients from the prototype for the Murchison Widefield Array, observed on 2010 March 27. Our observations span the instantaneous frequency band 170.9- 201.6 MHz. Though our observing period is characterized as a period of "low" to "medium" activity, one broadband emission feature and numerous short-lived, narrowband, non-thermal emission features are evident. Our data represent a significant advance in low radio frequency solar imaging, enabling us to follow the spatial, spectral, and temporal evolution of events simultaneously and in unprecedented detail. The rich variety of features seen here reaffirms the coronal diagnostic capability of low radio frequency emission and provides an early glimpse of the nature of radio observations that will become available as the next generation of low-frequency radio interferometers come online over the next few years