Individual Differences in Decision-Making

When making decisions, most people tend to avoid uncertain outcomes or risks. However, individual differences, such as optimism versus pessimism and liberalism versus conservatism, may lead to variable approaches and outcomes in the decision-making process. Thus, the goal of this research is to examine individual differences in decision-making preferences and whether these associate with personality characteristics (i.e., optimism/pessimism and conservative/liberal views). To test this, the current study involves a probabilistic gambling task, adapted from behavioral judgment and decision-making research. Participants are shown “wheel-of-fortune-like” spinner wheel stimuli divided into green, red, and gray sections. The relative proportion of each color represents the respective probability of a win, loss, or no change in a bank of points, and participants’ task is to choose between two simultaneously presented wheels. In a key set of trials, participants are presented with truly ambiguous choices, in which the relative win-to-loss ratios are objectively identical, though the likelihood of neutral outcomes vary. In addition, participants complete the Revised Life Orientation Test, which measures optimistic versus pessimistic views, and the Liberal-Conservative Self-Report Scale

Development Toward a Ground-Based Interferometric Phased Array for Radio Detection of High Energy Neutrinos

The in-ice radio interferometric phased array technique for detection of high energy neutrinos looks for Askaryan emission from neutrinos interacting in large volumes of glacial ice, and is being developed as a way to achieve a low energy threshold and a large effective volume at high energies. The technique is based on coherently summing the impulsive Askaryan signal from multiple antennas, which increases the signal-to-noise ratio for weak signals. We report here on measurements and a simulation of thermal noise correlations between nearby antennas, beamforming of impulsive signals, and a measurement of the expected improvement in trigger efficiency through the phased array technique. We also discuss the noise environment observed with an analog phased array at Summit Station, Greenland, a possible site for an interferometric phased array for radio detection of high energy neutrinos.Comment: 13 Pages, 14 Figure

Terrorism Preparedness in State Health Departments --- United States, 2001--2003

The anthrax attacks in fall 2001 highlighted the role of infectious disease (ID) epidemiologists in terrorism preparedness and response. Beginning in 2002, state health departments (SHDs) received approximately $1 billion in new federal funding to prepare for and respond to terrorism, infectious disease outbreaks, and other public health threats and emergencies (1). This funding is being used in part to improve epidemiologic and surveillance capabilities. To determine how states have used a portion of their new funding to increase ID epidemiology capacity, the Iowa Department of Public Health\u27s Center for Acute Disease Epidemiology and the Iowa State University Department of Microbiology conducted two surveys of U.S. state epidemiologists during September 2000--August 2001 and October 2002--June 2003. This report summarizes the results of these surveys, which determined that although the number of SHD epidemiology workers assigned to ID and terrorism preparedness increased by 132%, concerns remained regarding the ability of SHDs to hire qualified personnel. These findings underscore the need to develop additional and more diverse training venues for current and future ID epidemiologists

Pain and temperature processing in dementia: a clinical and neuroanatomical analysis

Symptoms suggesting altered processing of pain and temperature have been described in dementia diseases and may contribute importantly to clinical phenotypes, particularly in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration spectrum, but the basis for these symptoms has not been characterized in detail. Here we analysed pain and temperature symptoms using a semi-structured caregiver questionnaire recording altered behavioural responsiveness to pain or temperature for a cohort of patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (n = 58, 25 female, aged 52–84 years, representing the major clinical syndromes and representative pathogenic mutations in the C9orf72 and MAPT genes) and a comparison cohort of patients with amnestic Alzheimer’s disease (n = 20, eight female, aged 53–74 years). Neuroanatomical associations were assessed using blinded visual rating and voxel-based morphometry of patients’ brain magnetic resonance images. Certain syndromic signatures were identified: pain and temperature symptoms were particularly prevalent in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (71% of cases) and semantic dementia (65% of cases) and in association with C9orf72 mutations (6/6 cases), but also developed in Alzheimer’s disease (45% of cases) and progressive non-fluent aphasia (25% of cases). While altered temperature responsiveness was more common than altered pain responsiveness across syndromes, blunted responsiveness to pain and temperature was particularly associated with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (40% of symptomatic cases) and heightened responsiveness with semantic dementia (73% of symptomatic cases) and Alzheimer’s disease (78% of symptomatic cases). In the voxel-based morphometry analysis of the frontotemporal lobar degeneration cohort, pain and temperature symptoms were associated with grey matter loss in a right-lateralized network including insula (P < 0.05 corrected for multiple voxel-wise comparisons within the prespecified anatomical region of interest) and anterior temporal cortex (P < 0.001 uncorrected over whole brain) previously implicated in processing homeostatic signals. Pain and temperature symptoms accompanying C9orf72 mutations were specifically associated with posterior thalamic atrophy (P < 0.05 corrected for multiple voxel-wise comparisons within the prespecified anatomical region of interest). Together the findings suggest candidate cognitive and neuroanatomical bases for these salient but under-appreciated phenotypic features of the dementias, with wider implications for the homeostatic pathophysiology and clinical management of neurodegenerative diseases

Long-term outcomes of catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: In the past decade, catheter ablation has become an established therapy for symptomatic atrial fibrillation (AF). Until very recently, few data have been available to guide the clinical community on the outcomes of AF ablation at ≥3 years of follow‐up. We aimed to systematically review the medical literature to evaluate the long‐term outcomes of AF ablation. Methods and Results: A structured electronic database search (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane) of the scientific literature was performed for studies describing outcomes at ≥3 years after AF ablation, with a mean follow‐up of ≥24 months after the index procedure. The following data were extracted: (1) single‐procedure success, (2) multiple‐procedure success, and (3) requirement for repeat procedures. Data were extracted from 19 studies, including 6167 patients undergoing AF ablation. Single‐procedure freedom from atrial arrhythmia at long‐term follow‐up was 53.1% (95% CI 46.2% to 60.0%) overall, 54.1% (95% CI 44.4% to 63.4%) in paroxysmal AF, and 41.8% (95% CI 25.2% to 60.5%) in nonparoxysmal AF. Substantial heterogeneity (I2>50%) was noted for single‐procedure outcomes. With multiple procedures, the long‐term success rate was 79.8% (95% CI 75.0% to 83.8%) overall, with significant heterogeneity (I2>50%).The average number of procedures per patient was 1.51 (95% CI 1.36 to 1.67). Conclusions: Catheter ablation is an effective and durable long‐term therapeutic strategy for some AF patients. Although significant heterogeneity is seen with single procedures, long‐term freedom from atrial arrhythmia can be achieved in some patients, but multiple procedures may be required.Anand N. Ganesan, Nicholas J. Shipp, Anthony G. Brooks, Pawel Kuklik, Dennis H. Lau, Han S. Lim, Thomas Sullivan, Kurt C. Roberts‐Thomson and Prashanthan Sander

Deterministic Classifiers Accuracy Optimization for Cancer Microarray Data

The objective of this study was to improve classification accuracy in cancer microarray gene expression data using a collection of machine learning algorithms available in WEKA. State of the art deterministic classification methods, such as: Kernel Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine, Stochastic Gradient Descent and Logistic Model Trees were applied on publicly available cancer microarray datasets aiming to discover regularities that provide insights to help characterization and diagnosis correctness on each cancer typology. The implemented models, relying on 10-fold cross-validation, parameterized to enhance accuracy, reached accuracy above 90%. Moreover, although the variety of methodologies, no significant statistic differences were registered between them, at significance level 0.05, confirming that all the selected methods are effective for this type of analysis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio