Functional tomography using a time-gated ICCD camera

We present a system for near infrared functional tomography based on a single pulsed source and a time-gated camera, for non-contact collection over a large area. The mean penetration depth of diffusely reflected photons is dependent on the arrival time of photons, but not on the source–detector distance. Thus, time-encoded data can be used to recover depth information while photon exiting point is exploited for lateral localization. This approach was tested against simulations, demonstrating both detection and localization capabilities. Preliminary measurements on inhomogeneous phantoms showed good detection sensibility, even for a low optical perturbation, and localization capabilities, yet with decreasing spatial resolution for increasing depths. Potential application of this method to in vivo functional studies on the brain is discussed

How to use the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a reference system for comparative evaluation and standardized reporting of rehabilitation interventions

Rehabilitation aims to optimize functioning of persons experiencing functioning limitations. As such the comparative evaluation of rehabilitation interventions relies on the analysis of the differences between the change in patient functioning after a specific rehabilitation intervention versus the change following another intervention. A robust health information reference system that can facilitate the comparative evaluation of changes in functioning in rehabilitation studies and the standardized reporting of rehabilitation interventions is the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). The objective of this paper is to present recommendations that Cochrane Rehabilitation could adopt for using the ICF in rehabilitation studies by: 1) defining the functioning categories to be included in a rehabilitation study; 2) specifying selected functioning categories and selecting suitable data collection instruments; 3) examining aspects of functioning that have been documented in a study; 4) reporting functioning data collected with various data collection instruments; and 5) communicating results in an accessible, meaningful and easily understandable way. The authors provide examples of concrete studies that underscore these recommendations, whereby also em-phasizing the need for future research on the implementation of specific recommendations, e.g. in meta-analysis in systematic literature reviews. Furthermore, the paper outlines how the ICF can complement or be integrated in established Cochrane and rehabilitation research structures and methods, e.g. use of standard mean difference to compare cross-study data collected using different measures, in developing core outcome sets for rehabilitation, and the use of the PICO model. © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

The conventional wisdom about tactical voting is wrong

Have you ever voted for another party because you felt that your party had no chance of winning the seat? If yes, then you might be among the 5 to 10 per cent of tactical voters. In this article, Michael Herrmann, Simon Munzert, and Peter Selb explain how, contrary to popular belief, the Liberal Democrats were the big winners of tactical voting in 1997 and 2001

International classification of functioning, disability and health core sets for children and youth with cerebral palsy: a consensus meeting

AIM: The objective of this article is to report on the Core Sets developed for children and youth aged 0 to 18 years, with cerebral palsy (CP) based on the pediatric International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) by the World Health Organization (WHO).METHOD: A formal decision-making and consensus process integrating evidence gathered from preparatory studies was followed. Preparatory studies included: a systematic literature review; an international expert survey; a qualitative study of children and youth with CP and their caregivers; and a clinical study. Relevant ICF categories were identified in a formal consensus process by international experts from different backgrounds. Twenty-six international experts chosen by WHO region with expertise in CP attended the consensus meeting.RESULTS: Overall, five ICF Core Sets were developed: a Comprehensive Core Set (135 ICF categories); a Common Brief (25 ICF categories); and three age-specific Core Sets: under 6 years (31 ICF categories), from 6 to &lt;14 years (35 ICF categories) and from 14 to 18 years (37 ICF categories).INTERPRETATION: These ICF Core Sets for children and youth with CP are the first ICF-based tools developed for this population. The ICF Core Sets for children and youth with CP can be applied in clinical practice, research, teaching and administration. The application of the ICF Core Sets to this population will standardize the functional assessments of CP worldwide.<br/

Partisan choices in a direct-democratic campaign

Ever since Lazarsfeld and his colleagues' (1944) seminal study, it has become common wisdom that election campaigns, if anything, serve the activation of voters' fundamental predispositions. However, disagreement emerges on the role of partisan orientations. Although some authors consider them as fundamental predispositions, which are activated during the campaign and subsequently act as filters for incoming information, others argue that party attachments are simple running tallies of political assessments, which are constantly updated in response to campaign events, or decision shortcuts for voters innocent of substantial information. In this study, we scrutinize the role of partisan orientations in a direct-democratic campaign using data from a panel survey fielded during the run-up to the 2006 Swiss asylum law referendum. We find that, as voters accumulate knowledge in the course of the campaign, vote intentions dramatically converge on pre-campaign partisan orientations. Moreover, voters, whose earlier issue-specific and partisan orientations collide, tend to resolve their ambivalence in favour of their partisan leanings. These results corroborate the view of partisanship as a fundamental predispositio

Construction of mutants of Natrialba magadii and φCh1

Diese Arbeit beschreibt die Entwicklung der ersten Deletionsmutante eines halo(alkalo)philen Phagen und des daraus hervorgehenden Stammes Nab. magadii L11Δ79. Der offene Leserahmen (ORF) 79 des ins Genom von Nab. magadii integrierten Phagen φCh1 wurde mit Hilfe einer Novobiocin Resistenzkassette unterbrochen. Ein „suicide“ Plasmid, welches den disruptierten ORF79 trägt, wurde in Nab. magadii L11 transformiert, und Rekombination des mutanten Genes mit dem ORF79 Wildtyp Gen konnte nachgewiesen werden. Anschließend wurde die Kultur lysiert um mutante Phagenpartikel zu erhalten. Diese Viren wurden im darauffolgenden Schritt zur Infektion des Stammes Nab. magadii L13 verwendet. Nab. magadii L13 enthält keine virale φCh1 DNA und kann daher infiziert werden. Durch die Infektion des Stammes mit Virenpartikeln, welche die disruptierte Version des ORF79 besitzen, entstand der Stamm Nab. magadii L11Δ79. Die Funktion von ORF79 des Phagen φCh1 ist noch unbekannt, jedoch könnte die in dieser Arbeit entwickelte Mutante bei deren Entschlüsselung eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Deletionsmutanten von weiteren φCh1 ORFs, ORF11 und ORF93, wurden ebenfalls erreicht. Die Entwicklung der entsprechenden Nab. magadii Stämme, welche diese mutanten Viruskopien beinhalten, ist jedoch noch in Arbeit. Der zweite Teil dieser Diplomarbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Versuch zur Entwicklung eines Nab. magadii Stammes, welcher deletierte Versionen der Flagellin Gene enthält. Die Flagellin Gene flaB1 – flaB4 von Nab. magadii sind in einem Operon angeordnet. Durch die Transformation eines Plasmids, welches verkürzte Versionen der Gene flaB2 und flaB3 enthält, und eine darauffolgende Rekombination mit den Wildtyp Flagellin Genen, konnten die mutanten Kopien in den Stamm eingebracht werden. Da Nab. magadii bis zu 25 Chromosomenkopien enthält, ist die Entwicklung einer homozygoten Flagellin-Mutante noch in Arbeit. Der dritte Teil dieser Arbeit beschreibt die Klonierung eins neuen Shuttle- Vektors für Nab. magadii und E. coli. Das Plasmid beinhaltet Replikationsloci für beide Organismen sowie zwei Resistenzgene. Während Mevinolin für die Selektion in Nab. magadii verwendet werden kann, beinhaltet der Vektor weiters ein Ampicillin Resistenzgen für E. coli. Durch eine vorhandene „multipe cloning site“ können auf einfache Weise mehrere Gensequenzen in das Plasmid kloniert werden.This work describes the first ever deletion mutant of a halo(alkali)philic phage and the resulting archaeal strain, Nab. magadii L11Δ79, carrying the mutant virus. The ORF79 of the haloalkaliphilic phage φCh1 was disrupted with a novobiocin resistance cassette. Nab. magadii L11, the wild type strain of the archaeon carrying the phage φCh1 integrated its genome, was transformed with a suicide plasmid harbouring the deleted gene version of ORF79. Recombination of the gene with its wild type counterpart in the viral DNA was achieved. Phage particles carrying the deleted version of ORF79 were harvested and used for infection of Nab. magadii L13, a strain formerly cured of φCh1. This resulted in Nab. magadii L11Δ79, a strain that is infected with phage copies deficient in ORF79 exclusively. The function of ORF79 has yet to be determined, the generated archaeal strain might be a great support to decipher this in the future. Furthermore, deletion mutants of two other ORFs of the phage φCh1, ORF11 and ORF93, were aspired. Deletion mutants of the phage genes were achieved and the work to generate archaeal strains carrying these deletions will continue. The second part of the work at hand describes the attempt to achieve a strain of Nab. magadii L13 deficient in two flagellum genes. The genes flaB1 – flaB4 are arranged in an operon. A suicide plasmid carrying deleted gene versions of the genes flaB2 and flaB3 was constructed and transformed into Nab. magadii. Recombination of the deleted gene versions with their wild type counterparts was achieved. Since Nab. magadii is harbouring up to 25 genome copies, the still ongoing work is concerned with the generation of a homozygote mutant strain. In the third part of this thesis, the cloning of a new shuttle vector for Nab. magadii and E. coli is described. The plasmid is carrying origins of replication for both organisms and a mevinolin and ampicillin resistance gene for selection in Nab. magadii and E. coli, respectively. A multiple cloning site allows easy cloning work and the integration of more than one gene into the plasmid. The fourth part of this work describes the attempt to characterise the nuclease domain of the φCh1 methyltransferase M.NmaφCh1I. Expression of the gene was not successful in E. coli, since the halophilic nuclease protein seems to be active in the Bacteria, being a lethal factor for the cells

Invention of the 1937 Paris Exhibition and the Temps Nouveaux pavilion

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture and Planning, 1994.Includes bibliographical references (p. 342-374).The 1937 Paris Exhibition, the "final European enactment of the ritual of peace and progress before the deluge," remains the least researched and most misunderstood in the history of the World's Exhibitions in France. This study deals primarily with the years that preceded the opening of the Exhibition and with the broad debates that led to its "invention." In order to establish the historical foundations of the Exhibition, attention is given first to the political, aesthetic and economic discourses developed throughout the nineteenth century in France on the occasion of its Expositions Universelles. This analysis reveals the existence of a specific typology of the French Exposition Universelle grounded in the French Enlightenment and in its encyclopedist ideals. The present study claims that this type culminates in the 1867 Exhibition, when, for the first time, the Dideroan encyclopedist ideal and the Saint-Simonian modernist credo--two theoretical premises of these exhibitions-- receive their most convincing spatial translation. Conversely, the 1937 Exhibition appears as the "end" of this long typological development when the specific spatial concept of the Exposition Universelle created in the eighteenth century finally collapses. This evolution reflects two different approaches to the Enlightenment. One stems from an authoritarian interpretation of the encyclopedist universalism which appeals to Napoleon Ill's regime. The other emerges as a populist, and perhaps Voltairian interpretation of the Siecle des Lumieres that reaches its full expression in 1937, hand in hand with the advent of the Front Populaire. The evanescence of the nineteenth century universalist authoritarianism, and its concomitant quest for a controlling style creates an ambiguous space for the emergence of a planned stylistic pluralism. Such relativization of the concept of style, evident in 1937, in turn announces the end of the concept of "style" altogether, or else of modernity understood as an issue of style. The principled openness to "all styles" propounded by the leadership of the 1937 Exhibition alienates from the outset, the most radical proponents of modernism in the arts, on suspicions of cultural fraud. Such accusations set the stage for still enduring misinterpretations of the event, namely for the belief that the leadership of the 1937 Exhibition was part of a conspiracy against "progressive" modernity. Under such circumstances, current scholarship explains the apparently paradoxical presence of many modernist architects and artists at the 1937 Exhibition as the work of the Front Populaire. The present study explains why this was not the case. The central place given here to Le Corbusier reflects the major role the architect played in his militant efforts to take control over the ...by Danilo Udovicki-Selb.Ph.D

TARGETED PRINCIPLE COMPONENT ANALYSIS: A NEW MOTION ARTIFACT CORRECTION APPROACH FOR NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY

As near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) broadens its application area to different age and disease groups, motion artifacts in the NIRS signal due to subject movement is becoming an important challenge. Motion artifacts generally produce signal fluctuations that are larger than physiological NIRS signals, thus it is crucial to correct for them before obtaining an estimate of stimulus evoked hemodynamic responses. There are various methods for correction such as principle component analysis (PCA), wavelet-based filtering and spline interpolation. Here, we introduce a new approach to motion artifact correction, targeted principle component analysis (tPCA), which incorporates a PCA filter only on the segments of data identified as motion artifacts. It is expected that this will overcome the issues of filtering desired signals that plagues standard PCA filtering of entire data sets. We compared the new approach with the most effective motion artifact correction algorithms on a set of data acquired simultaneously with a collodion-fixed probe (low motion artifact content) and a standard Velcro probe (high motion artifact content). Our results show that tPCA gives statistically better results in recovering hemodynamic response function (HRF) as compared to wavelet-based filtering and spline interpolation for the Velcro probe. It results in a significant reduction in mean-squared error (MSE) and significant enhancement in Pearson’s correlation coefficient to the true HRF. The collodion-fixed fiber probe with no motion correction performed better than the Velcro probe corrected for motion artifacts in terms of MSE and Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Thus, if the experimental study permits, the use of a collodion-fixed fiber probe may be desirable. If the use of a collodion-fixed probe is not feasible, then we suggest the use of tPCA in the processing of motion artifact contaminated data

Content comparison and personcenteredness of standards for quality improvement in cardiovascular health care

Background: Quality standards are important for improving health care by providing compelling evidence for best practice. High quality person-centered health care requires information on patients’ experience of disease and of functioning in daily life. Objective: To analyze and compare the content of five Swedish National Quality Registries (NQRs) and two standard sets of the International Consortium of Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) related to cardiovascular diseases. Materials and methods: An analysis of 2588 variables (= data items) of five NQRs—the Swedish Registry of Congenital Heart Disease, Swedish Cardiac Arrest Registry, Swedish Catheter Ablation Registry, Swedish Heart Failure Registry, SWEDEHEART (including four sub-registries) and two ICHOM standard sets–the Heart Failure Standard Set and the Coronary Artery Disease Standard Set. According to the name and definition of each variable, the variables were mapped to Donabedian’s quality criteria, whereby identifying whether they capture health care processes or structures or patients’ health outcomes. Health outcomes were further analyzed whether they were clinician- or patient-reported and whether they capture patients’ physiological functions, anatomical structures or activities and participation. Results: In total, 606 variables addressed process quality criteria (31%), 58 structure quality criteria (3%) and 760 outcome quality criteria (38%). Of the outcomes reported, 85% were reported by clinicians and 15% by patients. Outcome variables addressed mainly ‘Body functions’ (n = 392, 55%) or diseases (n = 209, 29%). Two percent of all documented data captured patients’ lived experience of disease and their daily activities and participation (n = 51, 3% of all variables). Conclusions: Quality standards in the cardiovascular field focus predominately on processes (e.g. treatment) and on body functions-related outcomes. Less attention is given to patients’ lived experience of disease and their daily activities and participation. The results can serve as a starting-point for harmonizing data and developing a common person-centered quality indicator set