Detecting early signs of depressive and manic episodes in patients with bipolar disorder using the signature-based model

Recurrent major mood episodes and subsyndromal mood instability cause substantial disability in patients with bipolar disorder. Early identification of mood episodes enabling timely mood stabilisation is an important clinical goal. Recent technological advances allow the prospective reporting of mood in real time enabling more accurate, efficient data capture. The complex nature of these data streams in combination with challenge of deriving meaning from missing data mean pose a significant analytic challenge. The signature method is derived from stochastic analysis and has the ability to capture important properties of complex ordered time series data. To explore whether the onset of episodes of mania and depression can be identified using self-reported mood data.Comment: 12 pages, 3 tables, 10 figure

THEMES OF POWE:R AND TRUST IN EDI RELATIONSHIPS

The findings reported in this research focus on the role of power and trust in adopting and using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). EDI refers to the use of computer networks to exchange standardized business transactions (e. g., purchase orders) between customers and suppliers. As of December, 1992, there were 161 transaiction sets approved for publication by the American National Standards Institute X. 12 Committee, which is responsible for developing EDI standards in the U.S. The effective use of EDI requires expenditures in the computing and networking infrastructures of participating firms, as well as investments in managerial resources required to facilitate the redesign of information processing procedures and roles. Moreover, current and potential coordination benefits associated with EDI may be related to access methods and data exchange regarded as sensitive. For these reasons, some firms may resist using EDI. Resistance by some market partners has negative economic implications for firms that use EDI: until all partners are EDI partners, redundant information processing systems must be supported. Our investigation sought to provide evidence of the role of power in influencing partners to adopt EDI and the role of trust in information exchange. Data were collected from both telephone interviews and written questionnaires among suppliers of a major chemical company and a large office supply firm. Measures of dependence, power, and level of trust were adopted from items in a previous study (Saunders and Clark 1991). Preliminary analysis shows that among firms adopting EDI, dependence is highly correlated with exercised power (r=.60, p \u3c .01), which is consistent with the findings reported by Prekumar, Ramamurthy, and Nilakanta (1992). More interestingly, perceptions of a continuing relationship are positively related to trust (r=.63, p \u3c .05), and trust is positively related to information sharing (r=.60, p \u3c .05). These findings provide preliminary support for the recommendation that effective EDI implementation, which requires the opportunity for greater information sharing, must be based on trust. The corollary is that when trust is not developed, effective use of EDI, and thus the opportunity for greater coordination benefits, are less likely. More long term relationships with specific market partners are more likely to provide the context for greater information sharing. These preliminary findings suggest that EDI used by customer and supplier firms may more likely support electronic hierarchies (i.e., inter-organizational relationships with specific markets partners), rather than electronic markets (i.e., relationships based on short term opportunities)

The Southern 2MASS AGN Survey: spectroscopic follow-up with 6dF

The Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) has provided a uniform photometric catalog to search for previously unknown red AGN and QSOs. We have extended the search to the southern equatorial sky by obtaining spectra for 1182 AGN candidates using the 6dF multifibre spectrograph on the UK Schmidt Telescope. These were scheduled as auxiliary targets for the 6dF Galaxy Redshift Survey. The candidates were selected using a single color cut of J - Ks > 2 to Ks ~ 15.5 and a galactic latitude of |b|>30 deg. 432 spectra were of sufficient quality to enable a reliable classification. 116 sources (or ~27%) were securely classified as type 1 AGN, 20 as probable type 1s, and 57 as probable type 2 AGN. Most of them span the redshift range 0.05<z<0.5 and only 8 (or ~6%) were previously identified as AGN or QSOs. Our selection leads to a significantly higher AGN identification rate amongst local galaxies (>20%) than in any previous galaxy survey. A small fraction of the type 1 AGN could have their optical colors reddened by optically thin dust with A_V<2 mag relative to optically selected QSOs. A handful show evidence for excess far-IR emission. The equivalent width (EW) and color distributions of the type 1 and 2 AGN are consistent with AGN unified models. In particular, the EW of the [OIII] emission line weakly correlates with optical--near-IR color in each class of AGN, suggesting anisotropic obscuration of the AGN continuum. Overall, the optical properties of the 2MASS red AGN are not dramatically different from those of optically-selected QSOs. Our near-IR selection appears to detect the most near-IR luminous QSOs in the local universe to z~0.6 and provides incentive to extend the search to deeper near-IR surveys.Comment: 57 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables, to appear in vol.27/4 of Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA

Fragile antiferromagnetism in the heavy-fermion compound YbBiPt

We report results from neutron scattering experiments on single crystals of YbBiPt that demonstrate antiferromagnetic order characterized by a propagation vector, $\tau_{\rm{AFM}}$ = ($\frac{1}{2} \frac{1}{2} \frac{1}{2}$), and ordered moments that align along the [1 1 1] direction of the cubic unit cell. We describe the scattering in terms of a two-Gaussian peak fit, which consists of a narrower component that appears below $T_{\rm{N}}~\approx 0.4$ K and corresponds to a magnetic correlation length of $\xi_{\rm{n}} \approx$ 80 $\rm{\AA}$, and a broad component that persists up to $T^*\approx$ 0.7 K and corresponds to antiferromagnetic correlations extending over $\xi_{\rm{b}} \approx$ 20 $\rm{\AA}$. Our results illustrate the fragile magnetic order present in YbBiPt and provide a path forward for microscopic investigations of the ground states and fluctuations associated with the purported quantum critical point in this heavy-fermion compound.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

The Use of Telemedicine Access to Schools to Facilitate Expert Assessment of Children with Asthma

Research has shown that access to an asthma specialist improves asthma outcomes. We hypothesized that we could improve access to expert asthma care through a telemedicine link between an asthma specialist and a school-based asthma program. We conducted a prospective cohort study in 3 urban schools to ascertain the feasibility of using an asthma-focused telemedicine solution. Each subject was seen by an asthma expert at 0, 8, and 32 weeks. The assessment and recommendations for care were sent to the primary care physician (PCP) and parents were told to contact their physician for follow-up care. Eighty three subjects participated in the study. Subjects experienced improvement (P < .05) in family social activities and the number of asthma attacks. Ninety four percent of subjects rated the program as good or excellent. This study demonstrates the feasibility and acceptance of a school-based asthma program using a telemedicine link to an asthma specialist

Contact Investigation of Bus Travelers Exposed to a Passenger with Contagious Tuberculosis

Multiple barriers exist to conducting contact investigations for tuberculosis after bus travel, and the degree of transmission risk to bus contacts is uncertain. We describe a patient with active infectious tuberculosis and the contact investigation that took place following her 5 hour bus trip across the United States-Canadian border

How Shall We Manage Our Journals in the Future? A Discussion of Richard T. Watson\u27s Proposals at ICIS 2004

Journals are the lifeblood of all academic professions, including information systems. At the 2004 International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Rick Watson, then President of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), presented proposals for improving IS journal management that included accrediting reviewers, creating a market for journal articles, and moving our journals to the next level of Internet sophistication. This paper reports on a panel of journal editors convened at ICIS 2005 to discuss the Watson proposals and their implications. The editors were those of the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, the Journal of MIS, and Management Information Systems Quarterly in the United States and the Journal of Information and Technology in the United Kingdom. The paper presents their views and a reply by Watson

Murine Surf4 is essential for early embryonic development

Newly synthesized proteins co-translationally inserted into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) lumen may be recruited into anterograde transport vesicles by their association with specific cargo receptors. We recently identified a role for the cargo receptor SURF4 in facilitating the secretion of PCSK9 in cultured cells. To examine the function of SURF4 in vivo, we used CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing to generate mice with germline loss-of-function mutations in Surf4. Heterozygous Surf4+/- mice exhibit grossly normal appearance, behavior, body weight, fecundity, and organ development, with no significant alterations in circulating plasma levels of PCSK9, apolipoprotein B, or total cholesterol, and a detectable accumulation of intrahepatic apoliprotein B. Homozygous Surf4-/- mice exhibit embryonic lethality, with complete loss of all Surf4-/- offspring between embryonic days 3.5 and 9.5. In contrast to the milder murine phenotypes associated with deficiency of known SURF4 cargoes, the embryonic lethality of Surf4-/- mice implies the existence of additional SURF4 cargoes or functions that are essential for murine early embryonic development

Microwave observations of spinning dust emission in NGC6946

We report new cm-wave measurements at five frequencies between 15 and 18GHz of the continuum emission from the reportedly anomalous "region 4" of the nearby galaxy NGC6946. We find that the emission in this frequency range is significantly in excess of that measured at 8.5GHz, but has a spectrum from 15-18GHz consistent with optically thin free-free emission from a compact HII region. In combination with previously published data we fit four emission models containing different continuum components using the Bayesian spectrum analysis package radiospec. These fits show that, in combination with data at other frequencies, a model with a spinning dust component is slightly preferred to those that possess better-established emission mechanisms.Comment: submitted MNRA