Persistent Homology Over Directed Acyclic Graphs

We define persistent homology groups over any set of spaces which have inclusions defined so that the corresponding directed graph between the spaces is acyclic, as well as along any subgraph of this directed graph. This method simultaneously generalizes standard persistent homology, zigzag persistence and multidimensional persistence to arbitrary directed acyclic graphs, and it also allows the study of more general families of topological spaces or point-cloud data. We give an algorithm to compute the persistent homology groups simultaneously for all subgraphs which contain a single source and a single sink in $O(n^4)$ arithmetic operations, where $n$ is the number of vertices in the graph. We then demonstrate as an application of these tools a method to overlay two distinct filtrations of the same underlying space, which allows us to detect the most significant barcodes using considerably fewer points than standard persistence.Comment: Revised versio

Explicit Logic Circuits Predict Local Properties of the Neocortex's Physiology and Anatomy

Background: Two previous articles proposed an explicit model of how the brain processes information by its organization of synaptic connections. The family of logic circuits was shown to generate neural correlates of complex psychophysical phenomena in different sensory systems. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here it is shown that the most cost-effective architectures for these networks produce correlates of electrophysiological brain phenomena and predict major aspects of the anatomical structure and physiological organization of the neocortex. The logic circuits are markedly efficient in several respects and provide the foundation for all of the brain’s combinational processing of information. Conclusions/Significance: At the local level, these networks account for much of the physical structure of the neocortex as well its organization of synaptic connections. Electronic implementations of the logic circuits may be more efficient than current electronic logic arrays in generating both Boolean and fuzzy logic

Healthy Living after Cancer: A dissemination and implementation study evaluating a telephone-delivered healthy lifestyle program for cancer survivors

© 2015 Eakin et al. Background: Given evidence shows physical activity, a healthful diet and weight management can improve cancer outcomes and reduce chronic disease risk, the major cancer organisations and health authorities have endorsed related guidelines for cancer survivors. Despite these, and a growing evidence base on effective lifestyle interventions, there is limited uptake into survivorship care. Methods/Design: Healthy Living after Cancer (HLaC) is a national dissemination and implementation study that will evaluate the integration of an evidence-based lifestyle intervention for cancer survivors into an existing telephone cancer information and support service delivered by Australian state-based Cancer Councils. Eligible participants (adults having completed cancer treatment with curative intent) will receive 12 health coaching calls over 6 months from Cancer Council nurses/allied health professionals targeting national guidelines for physical activity, healthy eating and weight control. Using the RE-AIM evaluation framework, primary outcomes are service-level indicators of program reach, adoption, implementation/costs and maintenance, with secondary (effectiveness) outcomes of patient-reported anthropometric, behavioural and psychosocial variables collected at pre- and post-program completion. The total participant accrual target across four participating Cancer Councils is 900 over 3 years. Discussion: The national scope of the project and broad inclusion of cancer survivors, alongside evaluation of service-level indicators, associated costs and patient-reported outcomes, will provide the necessary practice-based evidence needed to inform future allocation of resources to support healthy living among cancer survivors. Trial registration: Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) - ACTRN12615000882527(registered on 24/08/2015

Impact of concomitant thyroid pathology on preoperative workup for primary hyperparathyroidism

BACKGROUND: The former standard surgical treatment in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT) has been bilateral cervical exploration. New localization techniques and the possibility of intraoperative measurement of intact parathormone (iPTH) permit a focused, minimally invasive parathyroidectomy (MIP). The introduction of MIP without complete neck exploration leads to the potential risk of missing thyroid pathology. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the value of MIP in respect to coexisting thyroid findings and their impact on preoperative workup for primary hyperparathyroidism. METHODS: This is a prospective study including 30 consecutive patients with pHPT (median age 65 years; 17 females, 13 males). In all patients preoperative localization was performed by ultrasonography and 99m Tc-MIBI scintigraphy- Intraoperative iPTH monitoring was routinely done. RESULTS: Ten patients (33%) had a concurrent thyroid finding requiring additional thyroid surgery, and two patients (7%) with negative localization results underwent bilateral neck exploration. Therefore, MIP was attempted in 18 (60%) patients. The conversion rate to a four gland exploration was 6% (1/18). The sensitivities of 99m Tc-MIBI scanning and ultrasonography were 83.3% and 76.6%, respectively. The respective accuracy rates were 83.3% and 76.6%. Of note, the combination of the two modalities did not improve the sensitivity and accuracy in our patient population. During a median follow-up of 40 months, none of the patients developed persistent or recurrent hypocalcaemia, resulting in a 100% cure rate. CONCLUSION: Coexisting thyroid pathology is relatively frequent in patients with pHPT in our region. Among patients having pHPT without any thyroid pathology, the adenoma localization is correct with either ultrasonography or 99m Tc-MIBI scintigraphy in the majority of cases. MIP with iPTH monitoring are highly successful in this group of patients and this operative technique should be the method of choice

Evidence for handheld electronic medical records in improving care: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Handheld electronic medical records are expected to improve physician performance and patient care. To confirm this, we performed a systematic review of the evidence assessing the effects of handheld electronic medical records on clinical care. METHODS: To conduct the systematic review, we searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and the Cochrane library from 1966 through September 2005. We included randomized controlled trials that evaluated effects on practitioner performance or patient outcomes of handheld electronic medical records compared to either paper medical records or desktop electronic medical records. Two reviewers independently reviewed citations, assessed full text articles and abstracted data from the studies. RESULTS: Two studies met our inclusion criteria. No other randomized controlled studies or non-randomized controlled trials were found that met our inclusion criteria. Both studies were methodologically strong. The studies examined changes in documentation in orthopedic patients with handheld electronic medical records compared to paper charts, and both found an increase in documentation. Other effects noted with handheld electronic medical records were an increase in time to document and an increase in wrong or redundant diagnoses. CONCLUSION: Handheld electronic medical records may improve documentation, but as yet, the number of studies is small and the data is restricted to one group of patients and a small group of practitioners. Further study is required to determine the benefits with handheld electronic medical records especially in assessing clinical outcomes

Usability of a barcode scanning system as a means of data entry on a PDA for self-report health outcome questionnaires: a pilot study in individuals over 60 years of age

BACKGROUND: Throughout the medical and paramedical professions, self-report health status questionnaires are used to gather patient-reported outcome measures. The objective of this pilot study was to evaluate in individuals over 60 years of age the usability of a PDA-based barcode scanning system with a text-to-speech synthesizer to collect data electronically from self-report health outcome questionnaires. METHODS: Usability of the system was tested on a sample of 24 community-living older adults (7 men, 17 women) ranging in age from 63 to 93 years. After receiving a brief demonstration on the use of the barcode scanner, participants were randomly assigned to complete two sets of 16 questions using the bar code wand scanner for one set and a pen for the other. Usability was assessed using directed interviews with a usability questionnaire and performance-based metrics (task times, errors, sources of errors). RESULTS: Overall, participants found barcode scanning easy to learn, easy to use, and pleasant. Participants were marginally faster in completing the 16 survey questions when using pen entry (20/24 participants). The mean response time with the barcode scanner was 31 seconds longer than traditional pen entry for a subset of 16 questions (p = 0.001). The responsiveness of the scanning system, expressed as first scan success rate, was less than perfect, with approximately one-third of first scans requiring a rescan to successfully capture the data entry. The responsiveness of the system can be explained by a combination of factors such as the location of the scanning errors, the type of barcode used as an answer field in the paper version, and the optical characteristics of the barcode scanner. CONCLUSION: The results presented in this study offer insights regarding the feasibility, usability and effectiveness of using a barcode scanner with older adults as an electronic data entry method on a PDA. While participants in this study found their experience with the barcode scanning system enjoyable and learned to become proficient in its use, the responsiveness of the system constitutes a barrier to wide-scale use of such a system. Optimizing the graphical presentation of the information on paper should significantly increase the system's responsiveness

What we talk about when we talk about "global mindset": managerial cognition in multinational corporations

Recent developments in the global economy and in multinational corporations have placed significant emphasis on the cognitive orientations of managers, giving rise to a number of concepts such as “global mindset” that are presumed to be associated with the effective management of multinational corporations (MNCs). This paper reviews the literature on global mindset and clarifies some of the conceptual confusion surrounding the construct. We identify common themes across writers, suggesting that the majority of studies fall into one of three research perspectives: cultural, strategic, and multidimensional. We also identify two constructs from the social sciences that underlie the perspectives found in the literature: cosmopolitanism and cognitive complexity and use these two constructs to develop an integrative theoretical framework of global mindset. We then provide a critical assessment of the field of global mindset and suggest directions for future theoretical and empirical research

Development of a longitudinal integrated clerkship at an academic medical center

In 2005, medical educators at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), began developing the Parnassus Integrated Student Clinical Experiences (PISCES) program, a year-long longitudinal integrated clerkship at its academic medical center. The principles guiding this new clerkship were continuity with faculty preceptors, patients, and peers; a developmentally progressive curriculum with an emphasis on interdisciplinary teaching; and exposure to undiagnosed illness in acute and chronic care settings. Innovative elements included quarterly student evaluation sessions with all preceptors together, peer-to-peer evaluation, and oversight advising with an assigned faculty member. PISCES launched with eight medical students for the 2007/2008 academic year and expanded to 15 students for 2008/2009. Compared to UCSF's traditional core clerkships, evaluations from PISCES indicated significantly higher student satisfaction with faculty teaching, formal didactics, direct observation of clinical skills, and feedback. Student performance on discipline-specific examinations and United States Medical Licensing Examination step 2 CK was equivalent to and on standardized patient examinations was slightly superior to that of traditional peers. Participants' career interests ranged from primary care to surgical subspecialties. These results demonstrate that a longitudinal integrated clerkship can be implemented successfully at a tertiary care academic medical center

Categorial Compositionality III: F-(co)algebras and the Systematicity of Recursive Capacities in Human Cognition

Human cognitive capacity includes recursively definable concepts, which are prevalent in domains involving lists, numbers, and languages. Cognitive science currently lacks a satisfactory explanation for the systematic nature of such capacities (i.e., why the capacity for some recursive cognitive abilities–e.g., finding the smallest number in a list–implies the capacity for certain others–finding the largest number, given knowledge of number order). The category-theoretic constructs of initial F-algebra, catamorphism, and their duals, final coalgebra and anamorphism provide a formal, systematic treatment of recursion in computer science. Here, we use this formalism to explain the systematicity of recursive cognitive capacities without ad hoc assumptions (i.e., to the same explanatory standard used in our account of systematicity for non-recursive capacities). The presence of an initial algebra/final coalgebra explains systematicity because all recursive cognitive capacities, in the domain of interest, factor through (are composed of) the same component process. Moreover, this factorization is unique, hence no further (ad hoc) assumptions are required to establish the intrinsic connection between members of a group of systematically-related capacities. This formulation also provides a new perspective on the relationship between recursive cognitive capacities. In particular, the link between number and language does not depend on recursion, as such, but on the underlying functor on which the group of recursive capacities is based. Thus, many species (and infants) can employ recursive processes without having a full-blown capacity for number and language

A simple and rapid flow cytometry-based assay to identify a competent embryo prior to embryo transfer

Multiple pregnancy is a risk for prematurity and preterm birth. The goal of assisted reproduction is to achieve a single pregnancy, by transferring a single embryo. This requires improved methods to identify the competent embryo. Here, we describe such a test, based on flow cytometric determination of the nucleic acid (PI+) containing extracellular vesicle (EV) count in day 5 embryo culture media. 88 women undergoing IVF were included in the study. More than 1 embryos were transferred to most patients. In 58 women, the transfer resulted in clinical pregnancy, whereas in 30 women in implantation failure. In 112 culture media of embryos from the "clinical pregnancy" group, the number of PI+ EVs was significantly lower than in those of 49 embryos, from the "implantation failure" group. In 14 women, transfer of a single embryo resulted in a singleton pregnancy, or, transfer of two embryos in twin pregnancy. The culture media of 19 out of the 20 "confirmed competent" embryos contained a lower level of PI+ EVs than the cut off level, suggesting that the competent embryo can indeed be identified by low PI+ EV counts. We developed a noninvasive, simple, inexpensive, quick test, which identifies the embryos that are most likely to implant