Objective Quantification Of Selective Attention In Schizophrenia : A Hybrid TMS-EEG Approach

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that exhibits effects on perception, way of thinking and behavior. Often, schizophrenia patients suffer from attention deficiency. Currently clinical interview is used to diagnose schizophrenia by doctors. There is no alternative way to diagnose schizophrenia in present. Thus, an objective approach by employing transcranial magnetic stimulation combined with electroencephalogram (TMS-EEG) is proposed. The aim of the study is to quantify objectively the neural correlate of selective attention that reflected in auditory late responses (ALRs) using signal processing techniques. TMS provides a means of stimulating neuronal structures within the cortex using brief time-varying magnetic pulses generated by a coil positioned over the scalp. Integrating it with electroencephalogram provides real-time information on cortical reactivity and connectivity through the analysis of TMS evoked potentials or induced oscillations. In this project, auditory oddball paradigm was used throughout the experiment. The experiment involved three sessions; 1) without TMS, 2) single pulse TMS (sTMS) and 3) repetitive TMS (rTMS). All sessions were conducted in attended (attention) and unattended (no attention) conditions. It is found that the amplitude of the grand averaged of ALR (the N1-P2 wave) is higher in control compared to schizophrenia in without TMS session at both conditions. However, the amplitude of ALR in schizophrenia subjects is higher than control subjects in sTMS and rTMS at both conditions. The attention level measure, i.e., the Wavelet Phase Stability (WPS) was used to extract and quantify the neural correlates of auditory selective attention reflected in ALRs. In particular, Complex Morlet was implemented (scales 50-100 corresponding to 4-8Hz). There are significant differences of the ALR between schizophrenia and control groups in without TMS (p<0.05) and sTMS at the attended condition (frontal electrodes). Meanwhile at the unattended condition, Significance difference is found between two groups of the subjects in without TMS but no significant difference in sTMS (frontal electrodes). Particularly, the WPS of controls are larger than schizophrenia patients for without TMS and sTMS at attended for frontal electrodes. These results were consistent for temporal electrodes. It is worth to note that the phase stability of ALR in single pulse TMS is lower than without TMS for controls during attended but showed reversed pattern in unattended. Besides, it is found that a large phase stability difference between without TMS and sTMS in schizophrenia (frontal and temporal electrodes) at unattended compared to attended. For control subjects, this difference is small at frontal and temporal electrodes in both conditions. In a further investigation, the C4.5 decision tree algorithm was implemented to classify the N1-P2 wave of control and schizophrenia subjects elicited by sTMS and rTMS. Four features (energy, power, variance and entropy) were extracted by continuous wavelet transform (CWT). The result shows high classification accuracy which is above 83% in all three sessions at both attended and unattended conditions. In conclusion, the combined TMS-EEG approach shows a promising way to study the selective attention in schizophrenia. By successfully quantifying the neural correlates of auditory selective attention reflected in ALRs using the WPS and discriminating the control and patient groups using C4.5 decision tree provides an objective way to diagnose schizophrenia in compliment to the current subjective method

Construction industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012: a legal review / Mohammad Afiq Abdul Rahim … [et al.]

This paper is about payment on construction industry in Malaysia. This paper is mainly focusing on the cash flow problem in the Malaysian construction industry where there is delay and non-payment to the subcontractor. Prior 2012, there is no specific Act that statutorily governs the disputes of payment in the construction industry. In this paper, the parties concerned such as the employer, main contractor and the subcontractor will be highlighted. Besides that, this paper will further examine the mode of payment in which from those mechanisms, the disputes of payment had arisen. Not only that, the cash flow problem and the factors that led to it can be seen in this paper. Hence, this paper will concentrate on the newly-enacted Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012. This Act is enacted to facilitate regular and timely payment and to provide remedies for the recovery of payment in the construction industry. This paper is set out to see the effectiveness of this newlyenacted Act in solving the disputes of payment to the subcontractor. Finally, an analysis will be made as to see whether the problem of delay and nonpayment to the subcontractor can be solved in pursuance of the provisions provided in the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012. This paper will also provide some possible recommendations in order to lessen the problem of delay and non-payment to the subcontractor

The Effect of Chitosan Type and Concentration on Physical Characteristics and Drug Release Behavior of Andrographolide-Chitosan Microparticles Prepared by Ionic Gelation – Freeze Drying

Andrographolide is low in solubility and bioavailability, with short half-life (t1/2 = 1.5-2 hours), with chitosan micro-particles expected to improve its dissolution. Therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate the effect of chitosan concentration and the in vitro release of andrographolide from micro-particles prepared by ionic gelation using sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) as cross-linker. Furthermore, the micro-particles used were prepared with two different concentration of chitosan namely 19 cPs and 50 cPs. The result showed that the micro-particles obtained were spherical in shape and heterogeneous in size, with Infrared spectra indicating ionic bonding between chitosan and TPP. The DTA thermogram and XRD diffractogram exhibited a change in crystal structure to a more amorphous form. The entrapment efficiency (EE) of andrographolide in micro-particles was about 78%, with no impact on the chitosan concentrations (19 cPs and 50 cPs) affected by EE. The kinetics released was followed by the Higuchi model in phosphate buffer, with pH 7 ± 0,05 higher than the andrographolide substance. It was investigated that andrographolide-chitosan micro-particles had the ability to enhance its dissolution rate

Wavelet Feature Extraction And J48 Decision Tree Classification Of Auditory Late Response (ALR) Elicited By Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Nowadays, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been used to treat major depression and migraine. Integrating transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalogram (TMS - EEG) may provide beneficial information. This paper introduces the experimental design, experimental setup and experimental procedures to differentiate the repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and without TMS over N100 (N1) and P200 (P2) peaks with regards to auditory attention. New experimental design, setup and procedures are developed to elicit N1 and P2 through the recording of EEG signal with the excitation of neurons from TMS and pure tones. Wavelet transform is implemented as feature extraction for the selected data. Four features are used for the classification. The classification is based on J48 decision tree performed using WEKA to distinguish between without TMS and rTMS. The result between without TMS and rTMS (in attention condition) showed 98.85% accuracy meanwhile between without TMS and rTMS (no attention condition) showed 99.46% accuracy

Numerical simulation of flow within a storage area of HDPE modular pavement

The development of stromwater management usually promote to provide the safe passage of stromwater. However physical modelling need expensive laboratory experiments. Due to that this numerical study is performed to study the flow within storage area of HDPE modular pavement. This paper studied and compared the infiltration rate of diagonal modular and conventional pavement (control), determined the velocity magnitude and pressure of modular pavement at various rainfall intensities. FLOW-3D was used to run a simulation on a porous media flow model using the Navier-Stokes equation. Real rainfall data of Malaysia was used as the model inputs to get better analysis of pavement design. The present findings showed that storage area modular pavement has lower fraction of fluid than control, which means that it has greater holding capacity and capable to capture all the rainfall volume from 5mm/h to 85mm/h. Besides, rainfall intensity has a strong influence on velocity magnitude and pressure. The HDPE diagonal modular pavement strong enough to sustain with an increasing of velocity magnitude and pressure during extreme rainfall. Therefore, HDPE modular pavement indicates a better water interception capacity than conventional pavement. FLOW-3D helps the critical analysis of pavement design process and useful as supplementary tool

Plasmodium knowlesi exhibits distinct in vitro drug susceptibility profiles from those of Plasmodium falciparum.

New antimalarial agents are identified and developed after extensive testing on Plasmodium falciparum parasites that can be grown in vitro. These susceptibility studies are important to inform lead optimisation and support further drug development. Until recently, little was known about the susceptibility of non-falciparum species as these had not been adapted to in vitro culture. The recent culture adaptation of P. knowlesi has therefore offered an opportunity to routinely define the drug susceptibility of this species, which is phylogenetically closer to all other human malarias than is P. falciparum. We compared the in vitro susceptibility of P. knowlesi and P. falciparum to a range of established and novel antimalarial agents under identical assay conditions. We demonstrated that P. knowlesi is significantly less susceptible than P. falciparum to six of the compounds tested; and notably these include three ATP4 inhibitors currently under development as novel antimalarial agents, and one investigational antimalarial, AN13762, which is 67 fold less effective against P. knowlesi. For the other compounds there was a less than two-fold difference in susceptibility between species. We then compared the susceptibility of a recent P. knowlesi isolate, UM01, to that of the well-established, older A1-H.1 clone. This recent isolate showed similar in vitro drug susceptibility to the A1-H.1 clone, supporting the ongoing use of the better characterised clone to further study drug susceptibility. Lastly, we used isobologram analysis to explore the interaction of a selection of drug combinations and showed similar drug interactions across species. The species differences in drug susceptibility reported by us here and previously, support adding in vitro drug screens against P. knowlesi to those using P. falciparum strains to inform new drug discovery and lead optimisation

Reduced red blood cell deformability in Plasmodium knowlesi malaria

The simian parasite Plasmodium knowlesi can cause severe and fatal human malaria. However, little is known about the pathogenesis of this disease. In falciparum malaria, reduced red blood cell deformability (RBC-D) contributes to microvascular obstruction and impaired organ perfusion. In P knowlesi infection, impaired microcirculatory flow has been observed in Macaca mulatta (rhesus macaques), unnatural hosts who develop severe and fatal disease. However, RBC-D has not been measured in human infection or in the natural host M fascicularis (long-tailed macaques). Using ektacytometry, we measured RBC-D in adults with severe and non-severe knowlesi and falciparum malaria and in healthy controls. In addition, we used micropipette aspiration to determine the relative stiffness of infected RBCs (iRBCs) and uninfected RBCs (uRBCs) in P knowlesi-infected humans and M fascicularis. Ektacytometry demonstrated that RBC-D overall was reduced in human knowlesi malaria in proportion to disease severity, and in severe knowlesi malaria, it was comparable to that of severe falciparum malaria. RBC-D correlated inversely with parasitemia and lactate in knowlesi malaria and HRP2 in falciparum malaria, and it correlated with hemoglobin nadir in knowlesi malaria. Micropipette aspiration confirmed that in humans, P knowlesi infection increased stiffness of both iRBCs and uRBCs, with the latter mostly the result of echinocytosis. In contrast, in the natural host M fascicularis, echinocyte formation was not observed, and the RBC-D of uRBCs was unaffected. In unnatural primate hosts of P knowlesi, including humans, reduced deformability of iRBCs and uRBCs may represent a key pathogenic mechanism leading to microvascular accumulation, impaired organ perfusion, and anemia

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Using the Job Demands-Resources Model to Predict Job Satisfaction of Employees in Indonesia

Although the job demands-resources model (JD-R) is getting much attention in the literature, there is limited, if any, empirical research in Indonesia. This study used the JD-R model to predict job satisfaction in Indonesia with a sample of 17,177 employees. Using data from the 5th wave of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM) were performed for data analysis. The main findings revealed a positive relationship between job resources and job satisfaction, and a negative relationship between challenging job demands and job satisfaction beyond the contribution of gender, age, education, marital status, and job type. The findings of this study suggest that managers should provide employees with more resources and engage them in crafting behaviors

Parents’ experience in taking care of critically ill children while hospitalization

The objective of the study is to explore the experiences of parents taking care of their critically ill child at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or the Paediatric Intensive care unit (PICU) in the Malaysian hospital. A total of ten parents were interviewed and selected for purposive sampling. The data were analyzed using a thematic analysis based on the Colaizzi’sapproach. The study identified four emerging themes from data that included participation in care, participation in decision-making, challenges, and coping mechanisms throughout the child's hospitalization. Parents have emphasized the importance of their participation in the care and decision-making of their children. They also have their own coping mechanisms that would make their journey less traumatic. Nurses need to enhance their communication skills and improve nurse-parent relationships