A Comparison of Perinatal Care Providers\u27 use of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Standardized Terminology in Documentation of Intrapartal Fetal Heart Rate Patterns

The purpose of this study was to determine if perinatal team members; nurses (RN) and primary care providers (PCP), were using the NICHD standardized terminology to document Fetal Heart Rate patterns during labor. Agreement in documentation of FHR and agreement in concept between the RN and PCP was also studied. A descriptive, comparative research design was used. Cohen?s Kappa statistics measured agreement in documentation of FHR patterns and Chi square measured agreement in concept, p\u3c 0.05 for each. A retrospective medical records chart review was performed on 400 charts, meeting inclusion criteria, from three community hospitals. There were three data collection points and four criteria reviewed. This study found the use of NICHD terminology to document FHR alarmingly low (RN=51%; PCP=13%). It was used most often for decelerations (81%) RN, (22%) PCP, and least often for variability (19%) RN, (3%) PCP. Incomplete documentation was extremely high for the PCP (69%) and 81 charts (20%) had no FHR documentation. Agreement in documentation varied between the RN and PCP. They agreed most often on accelerations (81.4%) and least often on baseline rate (41.5%). When looking at all there points in time the RN and PCP agreed in documentation 59% but agreed in concept 78%. There were four areas where the RN and PCP agreed in their use of NICHD terminology: Accelerations on admission n=151, Kappa=0.091, p=0.007; variability during labor n=68, Kappa=0.27, p=0.015; variability prior to delivery n=33 Kappa=0.33, p=0.010, and decelerations during labor n=103, Kappa=0.16, p=0.018. Data from this study supports expanding this research, to identifying barriers to documentation. It also appears that education in use of NICHD terminology is needed

Parametric study of ion heating in a burnout device (HIP-1)

Results of further studies on the Lewis Research Center hot-ion plasma source (HIP-1) are reported. Changes have been made in both the electrode geometry and materials to produce higher ion temperatures. Ion temperature increased significantly with increased vacuum pumping speed. The best ion temperatures achieved, so far, for H(+), D(+), and He(+) plasmas are estimated to be equal to, or greater than 0.6, equal to, or greater than 0.9, and equal to, greater than 2.0 keV, respectively. Electrode pairs produced high ion temperatures whether on the magnetic axis or off it by 5.5 cm. Multiple sources, one on-axis and one off-axis, were run simultaneously from a single power supply by using independent gas feed rates. A momentum analyzer has been added to the charge-exchange neutral particle analyzer to identify particles according to mass, as well as energy. Under any given plasma condition, the higher mass ions have higher average energies but not by as much as the ratio of their respective masses

Inducing Language Networks from Continuous Space Word Representations

Recent advancements in unsupervised feature learning have developed powerful latent representations of words. However, it is still not clear what makes one representation better than another and how we can learn the ideal representation. Understanding the structure of latent spaces attained is key to any future advancement in unsupervised learning. In this work, we introduce a new view of continuous space word representations as language networks. We explore two techniques to create language networks from learned features by inducing them for two popular word representation methods and examining the properties of their resulting networks. We find that the induced networks differ from other methods of creating language networks, and that they contain meaningful community structure.Comment: 14 page

On a common circle: natural scenes and Gestalt rules

To understand how the human visual system analyzes images, it is essential to know the structure of the visual environment. In particular, natural images display consistent statistical properties that distinguish them from random luminance distributions. We have studied the geometric regularities of oriented elements (edges or line segments) present in an ensemble of visual scenes, asking how much information the presence of a segment in a particular location of the visual scene carries about the presence of a second segment at different relative positions and orientations. We observed strong long-range correlations in the distribution of oriented segments that extend over the whole visual field. We further show that a very simple geometric rule, cocircularity, predicts the arrangement of segments in natural scenes, and that different geometrical arrangements show relevant differences in their scaling properties. Our results show similarities to geometric features of previous physiological and psychophysical studies. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of early vision.Comment: 3 figures, 2 large figures not include

Avoiding catastrophic failure in correlated networks of networks

Networks in nature do not act in isolation but instead exchange information, and depend on each other to function properly. An incipient theory of Networks of Networks have shown that connected random networks may very easily result in abrupt failures. This theoretical finding bares an intrinsic paradox: If natural systems organize in interconnected networks, how can they be so stable? Here we provide a solution to this conundrum, showing that the stability of a system of networks relies on the relation between the internal structure of a network and its pattern of connections to other networks. Specifically, we demonstrate that if network inter-connections are provided by hubs of the network and if there is a moderate degree of convergence of inter-network connection the systems of network are stable and robust to failure. We test this theoretical prediction in two independent experiments of functional brain networks (in task- and resting states) which show that brain networks are connected with a topology that maximizes stability according to the theory.Comment: 40 pages, 7 figure

The validity of observational measures in detecting optimal maternal communication styles: Evidence from European Americans and Latinos

This study examined the sensitivity of an observational coding system for assessing positive and negative maternal behaviors of Latino and European American mothers toward their adolescent children. Ninety Latino (54 Spanish speaking and 35 English speaking) and 20 European American mother-adolescent dyads participated in an observational study of conversations about sexuality, AIDS, and conflicts. Associations were examined between observed maternal positive and negative behaviors and adolescent-reported relationship quality. Results indicated that maternal negative responsiveness was negatively associated with relationship quality for all ethnic/language groups. However, maternal positive responsiveness was related to relationship quality for European Americans but not for Latinos. These findings suggest a need for a broader definition of positive parenting in Latino families. © Copyright © 2007, Society for Research on Adolescence.postprin

Noise in neurons is message-dependent

Neuronal responses are conspicuously variable. We focus on one particular aspect of that variability: the precision of action potential timing. We show that for common models of noisy spike generation, elementary considerations imply that such variability is a function of the input, and can be made arbitrarily large or small by a suitable choice of inputs. Our considerations are expected to extend to virtually any mechanism of spike generation, and we illustrate them with data from the visual pathway. Thus, a simplification usually made in the application of information theory to neural processing is violated: noise {\sl is not independent of the message}. However, we also show the existence of {\sl error-correcting} topologies, which can achieve better timing reliability than their components.Comment: 6 pages,6 figures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (in press