A standardised assessment scheme for conventional EEG in preterm infants

Objective: To develop a standardised scheme for assessing normal and abnormal electroencephalography (EEG) features of preterm infants. To assess the interobserver agreement of this assessment scheme. Methods: We created a standardised EEG assessment scheme for 6 different post-menstrual age (PMA) groups using 4 EEG categories. Two experts, not involved in the development of the scheme, evaluated this on 24 infants <32 weeks gestational age (GA) using random 2 hour EEG epochs. Where disagreements were found, the features were checked and modified. Finally, the two experts independently evaluated 2 hour EEG epochs from an additional 12 infants <37 weeks GA. The percentage of agreement was calculated as the ratio of agreements to the sum of agreements plus disagreements. Results: Good agreement in all patients and EEG feature category was obtained, with a median agreement between 80% and 100% over the 4 EEG assessment categories. No difference was found in agreement rates between the normal and abnormal features (p = 0.959). Conclusions: We developed a standard EEG assessment scheme for preterm infants that shows good interobserver agreement. Significance: This will provide information to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) staff about brain activity and maturation. We hope this will prove useful for many centres seeking to use neuromonitoring during critical care for preterm infants

Towards Emotion Recognition: A Persistent Entropy Application

Emotion recognition and classification is a very active area of research. In this paper, we present a first approach to emotion classification using persistent entropy and support vector machines. A topology-based model is applied to obtain a single real number from each raw signal. These data are used as input of a support vector machine to classify signals into 8 different emotions (calm, happy, sad, angry, fearful, disgust and surprised)

The participation paradigm in audience research

As today's media simultaneously converge and diverge, fusing and hybridizing across digital services and platforms, some researchers argue that audiences are dead-long live the user! But for others, it is the complex interweaving of continuities and changes that demands attention, especially now that audiencing has become a vital mode of engaging with all dimensions of daily life. This article asks how we should research audiences in a digital networked age. I argue that, while many avenues are being actively pursued, many researchers are concentrating on the notion of participation, asking, on the one hand, what modes of participation are afforded to people by the particular media and communication infrastructures which mediate social, cultural or political spheres of life? And, on the other hand, how do people engage with, accede to, negotiate or contest this as they explore and invent new ways of connecting with each other through and around media? The features of this emerging participation paradigm of audience research are examined in this article

Seizure burden and neurodevelopmental outcome in neonates with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

Aim: To examine the relationship between electrographic seizures and long-term outcome in neonates with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). Method: Full-term neonates with HIE born in Cork University Maternity Hospital from 2003 to 2006 (pre-hypothermia era) and 2009 to 2012 (hypothermia era) were included in this observational study. All had early continuous electroencephalography monitoring. All electrographic seizures were annotated. The total seizure burden and hourly seizure burden were calculated. Outcome (normal/abnormal) was assessed at 24 to 48 months in surviving neonates using either the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition or the Griffiths Mental Development Scales; a diagnosis of cerebral palsy or epilepsy was also considered an abnormal outcome. Results: Continuous electroencephalography was recorded for a median of 57.1 hours (interquartile range 33.5-80.5h) in 47 neonates (31 males, 16 females); 29 out of 47 (62%) had electrographic seizures and 25 out of 47 (53%) had an abnormal outcome. The presence of seizures per se was not associated with abnormal outcome (p=0.126); however, the odds of an abnormal outcome increased over ninefold (odds ratio [OR] 9.56; 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 2.43-37.67) if a neonate had a total seizure burden of more than 40 minutes (p=0.001), and eightfold (OR: 8.00; 95% CI: 2.06-31.07) if a neonate had a maximum hourly seizure burden of more than 13 minutes per hour (p=0.003). Controlling for electrographic HIE grade or treatment with hypothermia did not change the direction of the relationship between seizure burden and outcome. Interpretation: In HIE, a high electrographic seizure burden is significantly associated with abnormal outcome, independent of HIE severity or treatment with hypothermia

Measuring diet in primary school children aged 8-11 years: validation of the Child and Diet Evaluation Tool (CADET) with an emphasis on fruit and vegetable intake.

Background/Objectives:The Child And Diet Evaluation Tool (CADET) is a 24-h food diary that measures the nutrition intake of children aged 3-7 years, with a focus on fruit and vegetable consumption. Until now CADET has not been used to measure nutrient intake of children aged 8-11 years. To ensure that newly assigned portion sizes for this older age group were valid, participants were asked to complete the CADET diary (the school and home food diary) concurrently with a 1-day weighed record. Subjects/Methods:A total of 67 children with a mean age of 9.3 years (s.d.: ± 1.4, 51% girls) participated in the study. Total fruit and vegetable intake in grams and other nutrients were extracted to compare the mean intakes from the CADET diary and Weighed record using t-tests and Pearson's r correlations. Bland-Altman analysis was also conducted to assess the agreement between the two methods. Results: Correlations comparing the CADET diary to the weighed record were high for fruit, vegetables and combined fruit and vegetables (r=0.7). The results from the Bland-Altman plots revealed a mean difference of 54 g (95% confidence interval: -88, 152) for combined fruit and vegetables intake. CADET is the only tool recommended by the National Obesity Observatory that has been validated in a UK population and provides nutrient level data on children's diets. Conclusions:The results from this study conclude that CADET can provide high-quality nutrient data suitable for evaluating intervention studies now for children aged 3-11 years with a focus on fruit and vegetable intake

3D virtual worlds as environments for literacy learning

Background: Although much has been written about the ways in which new technology might transform educational practice, particularly in the area of literacy learning, there is relatively little empirical work that explores the possibilities and problems - or even what such a transformation might look like in the classroom. 3D virtual worlds offer a range of opportunities for children to use digital literacies in school, and suggest one way in which we might explore changing literacy practices in a playful, yet meaningful context. Purpose: This paper identifies some of the key issues that emerged in designing and implementing virtual world work in a small number of primary schools in the UK. It examines the tensions between different discourses about literacy and literacy learning and shows how these were played out by teachers and pupils in classroom settings.Sources of evidence: Case study data are used as a basis for exploring and illustrating key aspects of design and implementation. The case study material includes views from a number of perspectives including classroom observations, chatlogs, in-world avatar interviews with teachers and also pupils, as well as the author’s field notes of the planning process with accompanying minutes and meeting documents.Main argument: From a Foucauldian perspective, the article suggests that social control of pedagogical practice through the regulation of curriculum time, the normalisation of teaching routines and the regimes of individual assessment restricts teachers’ and pupils’ conceptions of what constitutes literacy. The counternarrative, found in recent work in new litearcies (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006) provides an attractive alternative, but a movement in this direction requires a fundamental shift of emphasis and a re-conceptualisation of what counts as learning.Conclusions: This work on 3D virtual worlds questions the notion of how transformative practice can be achieved with the use of new technologies. It suggests that changes in teacher preparation, continuing professional development as well as wider educational reform may be needed

Towards a Theoretical Framework for Understanding the Development of Media Related Needs

The question of why people select and prefer particular media activities has led to the development of a number of ‘needs’ approaches to media use. Whilst some frameworks have been developed within the context of media use (e.g. uses and gratifications), others (e.g. Tamborini et al, 2011) look to combine general theories of basic human needs, such as Self-Determination Theory (Deci &Ryan, 1985) with hedonic gratifications. Drawing on these approaches, a framework is proposed that maps findings from children’s and adolescents’ media use to four basic human needs: competence, autonomy, relatedness and hedonic needs. The current paper argues that a basic needs approach is useful for understanding how media-related needs emerge and are expressed through development

A Census Of Highly Symmetric Combinatorial Designs

As a consequence of the classification of the finite simple groups, it has been possible in recent years to characterize Steiner t-designs, that is t-(v,k,1) designs, mainly for t = 2, admitting groups of automorphisms with sufficiently strong symmetry properties. However, despite the finite simple group classification, for Steiner t-designs with t > 2 most of these characterizations have remained longstanding challenging problems. Especially, the determination of all flag-transitive Steiner t-designs with 2 < t < 7 is of particular interest and has been open for about 40 years (cf. [11, p. 147] and [12, p. 273], but presumably dating back to 1965). The present paper continues the author's work [20, 21, 22] of classifying all flag-transitive Steiner 3-designs and 4-designs. We give a complete classification of all flag-transitive Steiner 5-designs and prove furthermore that there are no non-trivial flag-transitive Steiner 6-designs. Both results rely on the classification of the finite 3-homogeneous permutation groups. Moreover, we survey some of the most general results on highly symmetric Steiner t-designs.Comment: 26 pages; to appear in: "Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics