Mapping Cultural Participation in Chicago

Charts the household income, educational level, race, and ethnicity of all neighborhoods in Chicago's metropolitan area and explores whether smaller, ethnic, and diverse organizations reach a different audience than the larger institutions

An investigation of response variance in sample surveys.

The dissertation considers response variance in sample surveys in the broader context of survey quality and survey error. Following a historical review of the evolution of both the terms and the concepts a brief overview is given of earlier research in the area. The principal content of the dissertation draws on investigations carried out by the author over the last thirty years. There are three separate strands of argument, each associated with a particular approach to the analysis. First there is the descriptive (simple diagnostic) orientation of establishing the circumstances under which (or if) response variance arises, the associated issue of how it should be accommodated in analysis - primarily estimating the impact on the variance of univariate statistics - and an assessment of its likely order of magnitude. Second, there is the model-assisted orientation which attempts to decompose the effects into their constituent parts: one approach is to incorporate the correlating source (cluster or interviewer for example) as a term or terms in other models that we are estimating so that the effect is incorporated into the estimation of these models; the other is to model the response error itself -- in doing this we are trying to decompose it into its constituent parts. Third, and most radical, is to view error as information. By conceptualizing the process that generated the errors as a substantive process rather than as a set of nuisance effects we can extract from the results of the process information about both the process and the subject matter. Any particular piece of analysis may include any combination of these three approaches. The dissertation draws on special studies incorporated into a number of major sample surveys. Two principal data sets are involved. The first arises from a special investigation of response error carried out in conjunction with the World Fertility Survey; the second is the reinterview data set from the Current Population Survey carried out by the US Bureau of the Census. Four other surveys are used; an absenteeism survey in Ireland, two cross-sectional British surveys (one on Noise Annoyance, the other on Physical Handicap), and a British panel survey (the British Household Panel Survey)

Thalamotemporal impairment in temporal lobe epilepsy: A combined MRI analysis of structure, integrity and connectivity

Objective Thalamic abnormality in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE ) is well known from imaging studies, but evidence is lacking regarding connectivity profiles of the thalamus and their involvement in the disease process. We used a novel multisequence magnetic resonance imaging (MRI ) protocol to elucidate the relationship between mesial temporal and thalamic pathology in TLE . Methods For 23 patients with TLE and 23 healthy controls, we performed T 1‐weighted (for analysis of tissue structure), diffusion tensor imaging (tissue connectivity), and T 1 and T 2 relaxation (tissue integrity) MRI across the whole brain. We used connectivity‐based segmentation to determine connectivity patterns of thalamus to ipsilateral cortical regions (occipital, parietal, prefrontal, postcentral, precentral, and temporal). We subsequently determined volumes, mean tractography streamlines, and mean T 1 and T 2 relaxometry values for each thalamic segment preferentially connecting to a given cortical region, and of the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. Results As expected, patients had significant volume reduction and increased T 2 relaxation time in ipsilateral hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. There was bilateral volume loss, mean streamline reduction, and T 2 increase of the thalamic segment preferentially connected to temporal lobe, corresponding to anterior, dorsomedial, and pulvinar thalamic regions, with no evidence of significant change in any other thalamic segments. Left and right thalamotemporal segment volume and T 2 were significantly correlated with volume and T 2 of ipsilateral (epileptogenic), but not contralateral (nonepileptogenic), mesial temporal structures. Significance These convergent and robust data indicate that thalamic abnormality in TLE is restricted to the area of the thalamus that is preferentially connected to the epileptogenic temporal lobe. The degree of thalamic pathology is related to the extent of mesial temporal lobe damage in TLE

Thalamic volume reduction in drug-naive patients with new-onset genetic generalized epilepsy

OBJECTIVE: Patients with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE) have subtle morphologic abnormalities of the brain revealed with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), particularly in the thalamus. However, it is unclear whether morphologic abnormalities of the brain in GGE are a consequence of repeated seizures over the duration of the disease, or are a consequence of treatment with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), or are independent of these factors. Therefore, we measured brain morphometry in a cohort of AED-naive patients with GGE at disease onset. We hypothesize that drug-naive patients at disease onset have gray matter changes compared to age-matched healthy controls. METHODS: We performed quantitative measures of gray matter volume in the thalamus, putamen, caudate, pallidum, hippocampus, precuneus, prefrontal cortex, precentral cortex, and cingulate in 29 AED-naive patients with new-onset GGE and compared them to 32 age-matched healthy controls. We subsequently compared the shape of any brain structures found to differ in gray matter volume between the groups. RESULTS: The thalamus was the only structure to show reduced gray matter volume in AED-naive patients with new-onset GGE compared to healthy controls. Shape analysis revealed that the thalamus showed deflation, which was not uniformly distributed, but particularly affected a circumferential strip involving anterior, superior, posterior, and inferior regions with sparing of medial and lateral regions. SIGNIFICANCE: Structural abnormalities in the thalamus are present at the initial onset of GGE in AED-naive patients, suggesting that thalamic structural abnormality is an intrinsic feature of GGE and not a consequence of AEDs or disease duration

Thalamic volume reduction in drug-naive patients with new-onset genetic generalized epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE: Patients with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE) have subtle morphologic abnormalities of the brain revealed with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), particularly in the thalamus. However, it is unclear whether morphologic abnormalities of the brain in GGE are a consequence of repeated seizures over the duration of the disease, or are a consequence of treatment with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), or are independent of these factors. Therefore, we measured brain morphometry in a cohort of AED-naive patients with GGE at disease onset. We hypothesize that drug-naive patients at disease onset have gray matter changes compared to age-matched healthy controls. METHODS: We performed quantitative measures of gray matter volume in the thalamus, putamen, caudate, pallidum, hippocampus, precuneus, prefrontal cortex, precentral cortex, and cingulate in 29 AED-naive patients with new-onset GGE and compared them to 32 age-matched healthy controls. We subsequently compared the shape of any brain structures found to differ in gray matter volume between the groups. RESULTS: The thalamus was the only structure to show reduced gray matter volume in AED-naive patients with new-onset GGE compared to healthy controls. Shape analysis revealed that the thalamus showed deflation, which was not uniformly distributed, but particularly affected a circumferential strip involving anterior, superior, posterior, and inferior regions with sparing of medial and lateral regions. SIGNIFICANCE: Structural abnormalities in the thalamus are present at the initial onset of GGE in AED-naive patients, suggesting that thalamic structural abnormality is an intrinsic feature of GGE and not a consequence of AEDs or disease duration