Mindful breath awareness meditation facilitates efficiency gains in brain networks: A steady-state visually evoked potentials study

The beneficial effects of mindfulness-based therapeutic interventions have stimulated a rapidly growing body of scientific research into underlying psychological processes. Resulting evidence indicates that engaging with mindfulness meditation is associated with increased performance on a range of cognitive tasks. However, the mechanisms promoting these improvements require further investigation. We studied changes in behavioural performance of 34 participants during a multiple object tracking (MOT) task that taps core cognitive processes, namely sustained selective visual attention and spatial working memory. Concurrently, we recorded the steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP), an EEG signal elicited by the continuously flickering moving objects, and indicator of attentional engagement. Participants were tested before and after practicing eight weeks of mindful breath awareness meditation or progressive muscle relaxation as active control condition. The meditation group improved their MOT-performance and exhibited a reduction of SSVEP amplitudes, whereas no such changes were observed in the relaxation group. Neither group changed in self-reported positive affect and mindfulness, while a marginal increase in negative affect was observed in the mindfulness group. This novel way of combining MOT and SSVEP provides the important insight that mindful breath awareness meditation may lead to refinements of attention networks, enabling more efficient use of attentional resources

Clinical implications and dynamics of clonal hematopoiesis in anti-CD19 CAR T-cell treated patients

Recent evidence revealed important interactions between clonal hematopoiesis (CH) and cellular therapies established for the treatment of hematologic malignancies. The impact of CH on safety, efficacy, and outcome of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is currently under investigation. We analyzed 110 patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (n = 105) or acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) (n = 5), treated with Axicabtagene-Ciloleucel (39%), Tisagenlecleucel (51%), or Brexucabtagene autoleucel (10%). Using error-corrected targeted sequencing, a high CH prevalence of 56.4% (variant allele frequency [VAF] ≥1%) at the time of CAR T-cell infusion was detected. The most frequently mutated gene was PPM1D followed by DNMT3A, TET2, ASXL1, and TP53. Variant allele frequencies were significantly lower in B and T cells compared with monocytes and granulocytes. CH did not increase the risk of CAR T-related toxicities. The incidences of cytokine release syndrome and immune effector-cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome were similar between CH(pos) and CH(neg) patients, regardless of clone size, age, or CAR T product. Prolonged cytopenias were not associated with CH. Best overall response rates (ORRs) were numerically but not significantly higher in CH(pos) patients (ORR 76.7% versus 62.2%; P = 0.13). Furthermore, CH status did not predict progression-free survival or overall survival. Lastly, sequential analysis showed a modest VAF increase of 1.3% and acquisition of novel mutations within 100 days postinfusion. CH was frequent in large B-cell lymphoma/ALL patients receiving CAR T-cells but did not affect toxicity nor treatment response or outcome

Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters

We present results based on full-mission Planck observations of temperature and polarization anisotropies of the CMB. These data are consistent with the six-parameter inflationary LCDM cosmology. From the Planck temperature and lensing data, for this cosmology we find a Hubble constant, H0= (67.8 +/- 0.9) km/s/Mpc, a matter density parameter Omega_m = 0.308 +/- 0.012 and a scalar spectral index with n_s = 0.968 +/- 0.006. (We quote 68% errors on measured parameters and 95% limits on other parameters.) Combined with Planck temperature and lensing data, Planck LFI polarization measurements lead to a reionization optical depth of tau = 0.066 +/- 0.016. Combining Planck with other astrophysical data we find N_ eff = 3.15 +/- 0.23 for the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom and the sum of neutrino masses is constrained to < 0.23 eV. Spatial curvature is found to be |Omega_K| < 0.005. For LCDM we find a limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio of r <0.11 consistent with the B-mode constraints from an analysis of BICEP2, Keck Array, and Planck (BKP) data. Adding the BKP data leads to a tighter constraint of r < 0.09. We find no evidence for isocurvature perturbations or cosmic defects. The equation of state of dark energy is constrained to w = -1.006 +/- 0.045. Standard big bang nucleosynthesis predictions for the Planck LCDM cosmology are in excellent agreement with observations. We investigate annihilating dark matter and deviations from standard recombination, finding no evidence for new physics. The Planck results for base LCDM are in agreement with BAO data and with the JLA SNe sample. However the amplitude of the fluctuations is found to be higher than inferred from rich cluster counts and weak gravitational lensing. Apart from these tensions, the base LCDM cosmology provides an excellent description of the Planck CMB observations and many other astrophysical data sets

EAI 2005 - Proceedings of the 2nd GI-Workshop on Enterprise Application Integration

Die heutige Flut von Informationsquellen im betrieblichen Umfeld bestimmt die immer weiter zunehmende Notwendigkeit der Integration von Anwendungssystemen und Datenbanken innerhalb der betrieblichen Datenverarbeitung und über Unternehmensgrenzen hinweg. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) bezeichnet in diesem Kontext die Planung, die Methoden und die Software, um heterogene, autonome Anwendungssysteme unternehmensweit oder -übergreifend zu integrieren. Der EAI-Workshop findet zum zweiten Mal nach der erfolgreichen Auftaktveranstaltung am OFFIS-Institut in Oldenburg im vergangenen Jahr statt. Der Workshop EAI’05 ist eine gemeinsame Veranstaltung der GI-Arbeitskreise „Enterprise Architecture“ und „Software Architekturen“, der GMDS-/GI-Arbeitsgruppe „KIS -Informationssysteme im Gesundheitswesen“ sowie des Klinikums der Philipps-Universität Marburg. Das Thema EAI soll auf dem Workshop aus übergreifender, ganzheitlicher Sicht betrachtet werden. Sowohl die grundlegenden Problemstellungen, wie semantische Integration und Wissensmanagement in verteilten heterogenen Systemen, als auch pragmatische Lösungsansätze und Vorgehensmodelle auf der Basis von Integrationswerkzeugen und innovativen IT-Infrastrukturen stehen im Fokus. Berichte aus spezifischen Anwendungsbereichen, wie Bankwesen, Bauwirtschaft und Gesundheitswesen zeigen Anforderungsprofile und konkrete Lösungen auf. Einen Schwerpunkt bildet die integrierte Gesundheitsversorgung mit Beiträgen zur Anwendungsintegration im Krankenhaus sowie zu verschiedenen Fragestellungen im Zusammenhang mit der Integration in Gesundheitsnetzen. Darüber hinaus werden mit verschiedenen Beiträgen zur prozessorientierten Integration aktuelle Bestrebungen thematisiert, die in verschiedenen Anwendungsdomänen von Interesse sind