Individual Variability of Functional Connectivity in Resting-State and Naturalistic fMRI Paradigms

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies are criticized for their lack of control over cognitive states of individuals during observation, which may lead to increased variability in estimates of functional connectivity (FC). Engaging movies have been used in an attempt to synchronize the cognitive states of individuals during the scan, potentially reducing intersubject variability in connectivity estimates. The objective of this study was to investigate the differences in intersubject variability of FC between rest and movie conditions in a healthy cohort. The results demonstrate widespread reductions of intersubject variability of FC in the movie condition compared to the resting-state condition. These differences were pronounced in regions of the frontal, auditory, and visual cortex, suggesting effects on sensory areas as well as areas responsible for higher-order functioning. Because of its potential as a biomarker, less variable normative estimates of FC are beneficial for developing more sensitive tests for clinical use

Extraordinary Item Classification Eliminated from the Income Statement: Some Supportive Evidence

Accounting Standards Update 2015-01 formally eliminated the reporting of extraordinary items in the income statement for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2015. Gains and losses previously reported as extraordinary items and presented separately below income from continuing operations, are now reported as other gains and losses and included in income from continuing operations. The use of the extraordinary item classification fell sharply after 2002 when gains and losses from the early extinguishment of debt were no longer required to be reported as extraordinary items. By 2003 less than 100 publicly traded firms reported extraordinary items and in 2011 the number was only in the single digits. Finally, in 2013 and 2014 not a single firm in our sample, drawn from the Compustat database, reported an extraordinary item

Posterior Segment Ophthalmic Drug Delivery: Role of Muco-Adhesion with a Special Focus on Chitosan.

Posterior segment eye diseases (PSEDs) including age macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy (DR) are amongst the major causes of irreversible blindness worldwide. Due to the numerous barriers encountered, highly invasive intravitreal (IVT) injections represent the primary route to deliver drugs to the posterior eye tissues. Thus, the potential of a more patient friendly topical route has been widely investigated. Mucoadhesive formulations can decrease precorneal clearance while prolonging precorneal residence. Thus, they are expected to enhance the chances of adherence to corneal and conjunctival surfaces and as such, enable increased delivery to the posterior eye segment. Among the mucoadhesive polymers available, chitosan is the most widely explored due to its outstanding mucoadhesive characteristics. In this review, the major PSEDs, their treatments, barriers to topical delivery, and routes of topical drug absorption to the posterior eye are presented. To enable the successful design of mucoadhesive ophthalmic drug delivery systems (DDSs), an overview of mucoadhesion, its theory, characterization, and considerations for ocular mucoadhesion is given. Furthermore, chitosan-based DDs that have been explored to promote topical drug delivery to the posterior eye segment are reviewed. Finally, challenges of successful preclinical to clinical translation of these DDSs for posterior eye drug delivery are discussed

Mechanism of injury and special considerations as predictive of serious injury: A systematic review.

Objectives: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u27s field triage guidelines (FTG) are routinely used by emergency medical services personnel for triaging injured patients. The most recent (2011) FTG contains physiologic, anatomic, mechanism, and special consideration steps. Our objective was to systematically review the criteria in the mechanism and special consideration steps that might be predictive of serious injury or need for a trauma center. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of the predictive utility of mechanism and special consideration criteria for predicting serious injury. A research librarian searched in Ovid Medline, EMBASE, and the Cochrane databases for studies published between January 2011 and February 2021. Eligible studies were identified using a priori inclusion and exclusion criteria. Studies were excluded if they lacked an outcome for serious injury, such as measures of resource use, injury severity scores, mortality, or composite measures using a combination of outcomes. Given the heterogeneity in populations, measures, and outcomes, results were synthesized qualitatively focusing on positive likelihood ratios (LR+) whenever these could be calculated from presented data or adjusted odds ratios (aOR

Multisite Comparison of MRI Defacing Software Across Multiple Cohorts

With improvements to both scan quality and facial recognition software, there is an increased risk of participants being identified by a 3D render of their structural neuroimaging scans, even when all other personal information has been removed. To prevent this, facial features should be removed before data are shared or openly released, but while there are several publicly available software algorithms to do this, there has been no comprehensive review of their accuracy within the general population. To address this, we tested multiple algorithms on 300 scans from three neuroscience research projects, funded in part by the Ontario Brain Institute, to cover a wide range of ages (3–85 years) and multiple patient cohorts. While skull stripping is more thorough at removing identifiable features, we focused mainly on defacing software, as skull stripping also removes potentially useful information, which may be required for future analyses. We tested six publicly available algorithms (afni_refacer, deepdefacer, mri_deface, mridefacer, pydeface, quickshear), with one skull stripper (FreeSurfer) included for comparison. Accuracy was measured through a pass/fail system with two criteria; one, that all facial features had been removed and two, that no brain tissue was removed in the process. A subset of defaced scans were also run through several preprocessing pipelines to ensure that none of the algorithms would alter the resulting outputs. We found that the success rates varied strongly between defacers, with afni_refacer (89%) and pydeface (83%) having the highest rates, overall. In both cases, the primary source of failure came from a single dataset that the defacer appeared to struggle with - the youngest cohort (3–20 years) for afni_refacer and the oldest (44–85 years) for pydeface, demonstrating that defacer performance not only depends on the data provided, but that this effect varies between algorithms. While there were some very minor differences between the preprocessing results for defaced and original scans, none of these were significant and were within the range of variation between using different NIfTI converters, or using raw DICOM files

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

EFFECT OF LOCAL HEAT APPLICATION DURING EXERCISE ON GENE EXPRESSION RELATED TO MITOCHONDRIAL HOMEOSTASIS

PURPOSE: Determine the impact of local muscle heating during endurance exercise on human skeletal muscle mitochondrial-related gene expression. METHODS: Fourteen subjects (25±6 yrs, 177±8 cm, 78±16 kg, and VO2 45±8 ml·kg-1·min-1) cycled with one leg heated (HOT) and the other kept at room temperature (CON). Skin and intramuscular temperatures were taken at Pre, Post-HOT, Post-Exercise and 4h-Post-Exercise. Muscle biopsies were taken from each leg at Pre and 4h-Post-Exercise for gene expression analyses. RESULTS: Intramuscular temperature increased within HOT (34.43±0.69ºC to 36.14±0.51ºC, pCONCLUSION: TFAM is enhanced by local heat application whereas other genes related to mitochondrial homeostasis were unaffected

Comparisons of fast repetition rate fluorescence estimated primary production and \u3csup\u3e14\u3c/sup\u3eC uptake by phytoplankton

Comparisons of primary productivity measured by 14C uptake and fast repetition rate fluorescence (FRRF) for samples taken from Massachusetts Bay and Narragansett Bay demonstrated a linear relationship between the 2 techniques. The slope of the regression for different phytoplankton samples ranged between 0.23 and 1.04, with most between 0.4 and 0. The r2 was usually high and \u3e0.9 in the best cases. The results indicated that the FRRF usually underestimated primary productivity relative to 14C. The variability in the relationship between 14C uptake and the FRRF productivity estimates indicates that FRRF field measurements should be calibrated against other productivity measurement techniques such as 14C uptake or oxygen production if they are to be compared to historical productivity estimates. The Kolber & Falkowski (1993; Limnol Oceanogr 38:1646-1665) and the Smyth et al. (2004; J Plankton Res 19:1637-1670) models for estimating productivity by variable fluorescence were compared, and agreed very well with an r2 of 0.99 for the linear relationship between the 2 techniques. © Inter-Research 2006