Affect, Interpersonal Behaviour and Interpersonal Perception During Open-Label, Uncontrolled Paroxetine Treatment of People with Social Anxiety Disorder: A Pilot Study

Background: Laboratory-based research with community samples has suggested changes in affective, behavioural and cognitive processes as possible explanations for the effects of serotonergic medications. Examining the effects of serotonergic medications using an ecological momentary measure (such as event-contingent recording) in the daily lives of people with social anxiety disorder would contribute to establishing the effects of these medications on affect, behaviour and one form of cognition: perception of others’ behaviour. Methods: The present study assessed changes in affect, interpersonal behaviour and perception of others’ behaviour in adults with social anxiety disorder using ecological momentary assessment at baseline and over 4 months of a single-arm, uncontrolled, open-label trial of treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor paroxetine. Results: Anxiety and concurrent depressive symptoms decreased. Participants also reported increased positive and decreased negative affect; increased agreeable and decreased quarrelsome behaviour; increased dominant and decreased submissive behaviour; and increased perception that others behaved agreeably toward them. Moreover, participants demonstrated reduced intraindividual variability in affect, interpersonal behaviour and perception of others’ behaviour. Limitations: Limitations included the lack of a placebo group, the inability to identify the temporal order of changes and the restricted assessment of extreme behaviour. Conclusion: The results of the present study demonstrate changes during pharmacotherapy in the manifestation of affect, interpersonal behaviour and interpersonal perception in the daily lives of people with social anxiety disorder. Given the importance of interpersonal processes to social anxiety disorder, these results may guide future research seeking to clarify mechanisms of action for serotonergic medications

Passive States for Essential Observers

The aim of this note is to present a unified approach to the results given in \cite{bb99} and \cite{bs04} which also covers examples of models not presented in these two papers (e.g. $d$-dimensional Minkowski space-time for $d\geq 3$). Assuming that a state is passive for an observer travelling along certain (essential) worldlines, we show that this state is invariant under the isometry group, is a KMS-state for the observer at a temperature uniquely determined by the structure constants of the Lie algebra involved and fulfills (a variant of) the Reeh-Schlieder property. Also the modular objects associated to such a state and the observable algebra of an observer are computed and a version of weak locality is examined.Comment: 27 page

Factors associated with post-arrest withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy.

INTRODUCTION: Most successfully resuscitated cardiac arrest patients do not survive to hospital discharge. Many have withdrawal of life sustaining therapy (WLST) as a result of the perception of poor neurologic prognosis. The characteristics of these patients and differences in their post-arrest care are largely unknown. METHODS: Utilizing the Penn Alliance for Therapeutic Hypothermia Registry, we identified a cohort of 1311 post-arrest patients from 26 hospitals from 2010 to 2014 who remained comatose after return of spontaneous circulation. We stratified patients by whether they had WLST post-arrest and analyzed demographic, arrest, and post-arrest variables. RESULTS: In our cohort, 565 (43%) patients had WLST. In multivariate regression, patients who had WLST were less likely to go to the cardiac catheterization lab (OR 0.40; 95% CI: 0.26-0.62) and had shorter hospital stays (OR 0.93; 95% CI: 0.91-0.95). When multivariate regression was limited to patient demographics and arrest characteristics, patients with WLST were older (OR 1.18; 95% CI: 1.07-1.31 by decade), had a longer arrest duration (OR 1.14; 95% CI: 1.05-1.25 per 10min), more likely to be female (OR: 1.41; 95% CI: 1.01-1.96), and less likely to have a witnessed arrest (OR 0.65; 95% CI: 0.42-0.98). CONCLUSION: Patients with WLST differ in terms of demographic, arrest, and post-arrest characteristics and treatments from those who did not have WLST. Failure to account for this variability could affect both clinical practice and the interpretation of research

Phase Splitting for Periodic Lie Systems

In the context of the Floquet theory, using a variation of parameter argument, we show that the logarithm of the monodromy of a real periodic Lie system with appropriate properties admits a splitting into two parts, called dynamic and geometric phases. The dynamic phase is intrinsic and linked to the Hamiltonian of a periodic linear Euler system on the co-algebra. The geometric phase is represented as a surface integral of the symplectic form of a co-adjoint orbit.Comment: (v1) 15 pages. (v2) 16 pages. Some typos corrected. References and further comments added. Final version to appear in J. Phys. A

Genetic basis of octanoic acid resistance in Drosophila sechellia: functional analysis of a fine‐mapped region

Drosophila sechellia is a species of fruit fly endemic to the Seychelles islands. Unlike its generalist sister species, D. sechellia has evolved to be a specialist on the host plant Morinda citrifolia. This specialization is interesting because the plant’s fruit contains secondary defence compounds, primarily octanoic acid (OA), that are lethal to most other Drosophilids. Although ecological and behavioural adaptations to this toxic fruit are known, the genetic basis for evolutionary changes in OA resistance is not. Prior work showed that a genomic region on chromosome 3R containing 18 genes has the greatest contribution to differences in OA resistance between D. sechellia and D. simulans. To determine which gene(s) in this region might be involved in the evolutionary change in OA resistance, we knocked down expression of each gene in this region in D. melanogaster with RNA interference (RNAi) (i) ubiquitously throughout development, (ii) during only the adult stage and (iii) within specific tissues. We identified three neighbouring genes in the Osiris family, Osiris 6 (Osi6), Osi7 and Osi8, that led to decreased OA resistance when ubiquitously knocked down. Tissue‐specific RNAi, however, showed that decreasing expression of Osi6 and Osi7 specifically in the fat body and/or salivary glands increased OA resistance. Gene expression analyses of Osi6 and Osi7 revealed that while standing levels of expression are higher in D. sechellia, Osi6 expression is significantly downregulated in salivary glands in response to OA exposure, suggesting that evolved tissue‐specific environmental plasticity of Osi6 expression may be responsible for OA resistance in D. sechellia.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136293/1/mec14001_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136293/2/mec14001.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136293/3/mec14001-sup-0001-SupInfo.pd

Human decision making anticipates future performance in motor learning.

It is well-established that people can factor into account the distribution of their errors in motor performance so as to optimize reward. Here we asked whether, in the context of motor learning where errors decrease across trials, people take into account their future, improved performance so as to make optimal decisions to maximize reward. One group of participants performed a virtual throwing task in which, periodically, they were given the opportunity to select from a set of smaller targets of increasing value. A second group of participants performed a reaching task under a visuomotor rotation in which, after performing a initial set of trials, they selected a reward structure (ratio of points for target hits and misses) for different exploitation horizons (i.e., numbers of trials they might be asked to perform). Because movement errors decreased exponentially across trials in both learning tasks, optimal target selection (task 1) and optimal reward structure selection (task 2) required taking into account future performance. The results from both tasks indicate that people anticipate their future motor performance so as to make decisions that will improve their expected future reward

Outcomes in Combined Anterior and Posterior Fusion for 3- and 4-Level Degenerative Lumbar Disc Disease

Introduction. This study reported the clinical and functionaloutcomes in a consecutive series of patients with3- or 4-level degenerative disc disease (DDD) betweenvertebral levels L2 to S1, who were treated with combinedanterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) and posteriorspinal fusion at one-year and two-year follow-ups. Methods. A retrospective chart review was performed on allpatients who underwent long segment fusion for DDD by asingle surgeon between August 2002 and January 2012. Fiftyfivepatients were identified and 32 had complete charts for review(14 had one-year follow-up and 18 two-year follow-up).In addition to demographic data, disability (Oswestry DisabilityIndex, ODI), pain level (Visual Analog Scale, VAS), andflexion-extension range-of-motion were measured pre- andpost-operatively. Operative data also were collected, includingoperative time, blood loss, surgical implants used, surgicalapproach, operative levels treated, and complications.Results. Both VAS and ODI improved significantly postoperatively.The average VAS score improved from 6.5 ± 1.5(range: 4 - 9) to 4.4 ± 1.7 (range: 2 - 7) for one-year follow-up,and 7.0 ± 1.8 (range: 4 - 10) to 4.4 ± 2.6 (range: 1 - 9) for twoyearfollow-up. For one-year follow-up, the average ODI scoreimproved from 53 ± 19% (range: 18 - 70%) to 37 ± 17% (range:12 - 64%), and for two-year follow-up, the average improvedfrom 53 ± 18% (range: 18 - 80%) to 31 ± 24% (range: 2 - 92%).The level of improvement in pain and function was similar topreviously published data for 1- and 2-level fusions, but overallpain and function scores were worse in this study group. Conclusions. Arthrodesis for 3- and 4-level DDD is, on average,a successful surgery that shows clinically significantimprovements in function and pain similar to fusionfor 1- and 2-levels with low rates of re-operation. Patientswith involvement of 3- or 4-levels have higher disabilityand pain both pre- and post-operatively compared to shorterfusion level involvement. KS J Med 2016;9(3):50-53

Noncovalent Interactions by QMC: Speedup by One-Particle Basis-Set Size Reduction

While it is empirically accepted that the fixed-node diffusion Monte-Carlo (FN-DMC) depends only weakly on the size of the one-particle basis sets used to expand its guiding functions, limits of this observation are not settled yet. Our recent work indicates that under the FN error cancellation conditions, augmented triple zeta basis sets are sufficient to achieve a benchmark level of 0.1 kcal/mol in a number of small noncovalent complexes. Here we report on a possibility of truncation of the one-particle basis sets used in FN-DMC guiding functions that has no visible effect on the accuracy of the production FN-DMC energy differences. The proposed scheme leads to no significant increase in the local energy variance, indicating that the total CPU cost of large-scale benchmark noncovalent interaction energy FN-DMC calculations may be reduced.Comment: ACS book chapter, accepte