The tower of London (tol) in Italy. standardization of the tol test in an Italian population

Deficit in planning and problem-solving, affecting a wide range of neuropsychological patients, has been widely investigated using the Tower of London (ToL) test, as developed by Shallice (Philos Trans R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci 298:199-209, 1). The ToL taps on several executive functions (EF), such as planning, time for planning or rule breaks, which may be usefully indexed by different ToL measurements. However, in its original version, the different aspects involved in ToL are not evaluated in a specific way.Here, we report the standardization of the ToL, on 896 individuals aged 15-86 years, taking in account individual factors (i.e. gender, age, years of education) which may affect performances on ToL. We computed several indexes on the ToL including score, planning and execution times, perseverations, rule breaks and self-monitoring. We found that these indexes were affected by individual factors such as gender, age and education. Present results not only provide extensive normative data according to gender, as well as different age and education ranges, but also represent a very useful instrument for a more fine-grained diagnosis of EF deficits in a wide range of neuropsychological patients, including traumatic brain injury and brain-damaged patients, as well as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease patients

The assessment of hemineglect syndrome with cancellation tasks. A comparison between the bells test and the Apples test

Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) is a frequent consequence of acquired brain injury, especially following right hemisphere damage. Traditionally, unilateral spatial neglect is assessed with cancellation tests such as the Bells test. Recently, a new cancellation test, the Apples test, has been proposed. The present study aims at comparing the accuracy of these two tests in detecting hemispatial neglect, on a sample of 56 right hemisphere stroke patients with a diagnosis of USN. In order to evaluate the agreement between the Apples and Bells tests, Cohen's kappa and McNemar's test were used to assess differences between the two methods of evaluation. Poor agreement and statistically significant differences emerged between the Apples and Bells tests. Overall, the Apples test was significantly more sensitive than the Bells test in detecting USN. Based on these results, the use of the Apples test for peripersonal neglect assessment is therefore highly recommende

Artificial Neural Network Detects Hip Muscle Forces as Determinant for Harmonic Walking in People after Stroke

Many recent studies have highlighted that the harmony of physiological walking is based on a specific proportion between the durations of the phases of the gait cycle. When this proportion is close to the so-called golden ratio (about 1.618), the gait cycle assumes an autosimilar fractal structure. In stroke patients this harmony is altered, but it is unclear which factor is associated with the ratios between gait phases because these relationships are probably not linear. We used an artificial neural network to determine the weights associable to each factor for determining the ratio between gait phases and hence the harmony of walking. As expected, the gait ratio obtained as the ratio between stride duration and stance duration was found to be associated with walking speed and stride length, but also with hip muscle forces. These muscles could be important for exploiting the recovery of energy typical of the pendular mechanism of walking. Our study also highlighted that the results of an artificial neural network should be associated with a reliability analysis, being a non-deterministic approach. A good level of reliability was found for the findings of our study

Neuropsychological Phenotype in Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome

The Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome (WHS) is a rare genetic disorder that causes a range of intellectual disability from mild to severe. In this study, we used standard tools to psychometrically characterize the specific neuropsychological phenotype of WHS. We studied 57 individuals with WHS, ranging in age from 2.6 to 28.6 years representing 70% of the certified Italian WHS population. Results obtained by administering Griffiths' Mental Developmental Scales and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale revealed a typical WHS neuropsychological phenotype characterized by specific strengths and weaknesses. Despite their severe cognitive impairment, in both scales, patients showed better communication and social interaction skills compared to visuo-motor abilities. Results of our study could bring to the development of new and more effective treatments for individuals affected by WHS: based on neuropsychological phenotype description, it should be possible to design specific rehabilitation programs. These programs would then be aimed at improving rehabilitation protocols to optimize the developmental potential and personal independence of individuals with WHS and thus to improve their quality of life

Chapter A bibliometric study of global research activity in relation to the use of partial least squares for policy evaluation

Structural equation modeling (SEM), especially partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) has become a mainstream method in many fields of research. In the last years it has been increasingly disseminated in a variety of disciplines. The researchers have been promoting this new statistical methods for the evaluation of policies. Generally, policy evaluation applies evaluation principles and methods to examine the content, implementation or impact of a policy. To better understand and characterize this trend, a bibliometric study of international papers on this subject has been developed in order to describe the use of SEM and PLS-PM approaches in the policy evaluation in the almost last 20 years. A total of 450 articles from 2000 to 2020 have been selected and analyzed in order to discover the research trends in this field and the main dimensions and words related to the terms “decision making” and “SEM-PLS” approach, that are most commonly employed in the scientific literature. The research has been conducted in theWeb of Science from ISI Web of Knowledge database and Scopus database, with the aim of identifying the major themes, authors, areas, types of the sources, titles, years of publication and countries of these publications, as well as the main themes related to the two topic analyze

Antioxidant capacity of Rigenase®, a specific aqueous extract of triticum vulgare

Reactive species of oxygen (ROS), responsible for oxidative stress, accumulate in various tissues damaged by burns, decubitus ulcers, and vascular lesions. Antioxidants play an important and well-documented role in healing of chronic and acute wounds. Rigenase®, a specific extract of Triticum vulgare manufactured by Farmaceutici Damor, is employed in products used for the regeneration of tissue injuries. In this work, we show that Rigenase® exhibits a scavenging effect toward free radicals, thus pointing to its relevant antioxidant activity

Higher-Order PLS-PM Approach for Different Types of Constructs

AbstractPartial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) has become very popular in recent years, for measuring concepts that depend on different aspects and that are based on different types of relationships. PLS-PM represents a useful tool to explore relationships and to analyze the influence of the different aspects on the complex phenomenon analyzed. In particular, the use of higher-order constructs has allowed researchers to extend the application of PLS-PM to more advanced and complex models. In this work, our attention is focused on higher-order constructs that include reflective or formative relationships. Even if the dispute between formative models and reflective models is not exactly recent, it is still alive in current literature, for the most part within the context of structural equation models. This paper focuses attention on theoretical and mathematical differences between formative and reflective measurement models within the context of the PLS-PM approach. A simulation study is proposed in order to show how these approaches fit well in different modeling situations. The approaches have been compared using empirical application in a sustainability context. The findings from the simulation and the empirical application can help researchers to estimate and to use the higher-order PLS-PM approach in reflective and formative type models

Artificial neural network analyzing wearable device gait data for identifying patients with stroke unable to return to work

A potential dramatic effect of long-term disability due to stroke is the inability to return to work. An accurate prognosis and the identification of the parameters inflating the possibility of return to work after neurorehabilitation are crucial. Many factors may influence it, such as mobility and, in particular, walking ability. In this pilot study, two emerging technologies have been combined with the aim of developing a prognostic tool for identifying patients able to return to work: a wearable inertial measurement unit for gait analysis and an artificial neural network (ANN). Compared with more conventional statistics, the ANN showed a higher accuracy in identifying patients with respect to healthy subjects (90.9 vs. 75.8%) and also in identifying the subjects unable to return to work (93.9 vs. 81.8%). In this last analysis, the duration of double support phase resulted the most important input of the ANN. The potentiality of the ANN, developed also in other fields such as marketing on social networks, could allow a powerful support for clinicians that today should manage a large amount of instrumentally recorded parameters in patients with stroke