Neurocognitive findings in adults who played youth football

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) has been linked to contact sports, most notably boxing and American football, due to their propensity for repetitive head impacts. Concerns in the community for the safety of athletes in all contact sports has driven a significant amount of research into concussions, their long term effects, and strategies for treatment and prevention. Knowledge of long term brain health in response to neurotrauma is limited, a gap especially noticeable in the literature on non-catastrophic brain injuries sustained as a child. Concussion is a common injury that is often self-resolving with no lasting neurologic or cognitive deficits. Although repetitive brain trauma is hypothesized to be necessary and sufficient to lead to CTE, no human or animal models have definitively demonstrated the pathophysiologic connection or confirmed the mechanism of symptoms. The research to date has been case based, lacking prospective cohorts, with data complicated by convenience sampling. These factors limit the generalizability of conclusions. CTE is neuropathologically defined with variable symptoms; however, it is only diagnosable at postmortem autopsy making the etiology and prevalence difficult to understand. As more research is published to understand if there is an association between a neurocognitive degenerative disease and contact sports, the concentration is on professional athletes. Yet professional athletes do not represent the overwhelming majority of all contact sport participants. The proposed study will compare adults who participated in youth football, but not beyond the high school level, to a control group of adults who did not play contact sports. Evaluating their cognitive function with an online assessment, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function – Adult Version (BRIEF-A), data will be analyzed for signs of clinical cognitive impairment. The objective is to measure adults who represent the high percentage of youth football players who do not continue to the advanced levels. Data obtained from this study will help communities make informed decisions, and create the foundation for future studies on long term benefits and risks of contact sports for children

Fast O(1) bilateral filtering using trigonometric range kernels

It is well-known that spatial averaging can be realized (in space or frequency domain) using algorithms whose complexity does not depend on the size or shape of the filter. These fast algorithms are generally referred to as constant-time or O(1) algorithms in the image processing literature. Along with the spatial filter, the edge-preserving bilateral filter [Tomasi1998] involves an additional range kernel. This is used to restrict the averaging to those neighborhood pixels whose intensity are similar or close to that of the pixel of interest. The range kernel operates by acting on the pixel intensities. This makes the averaging process non-linear and computationally intensive, especially when the spatial filter is large. In this paper, we show how the O(1) averaging algorithms can be leveraged for realizing the bilateral filter in constant-time, by using trigonometric range kernels. This is done by generalizing the idea in [Porikli2008] of using polynomial range kernels. The class of trigonometric kernels turns out to be sufficiently rich, allowing for the approximation of the standard Gaussian bilateral filter. The attractive feature of our approach is that, for a fixed number of terms, the quality of approximation achieved using trigonometric kernels is much superior to that obtained in [Porikli2008] using polynomials.Comment: Accepted in IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. Also see addendum: https://sites.google.com/site/kunalspage/home/Addendum.pd

On The Continuous Steering of the Scale of Tight Wavelet Frames

In analogy with steerable wavelets, we present a general construction of adaptable tight wavelet frames, with an emphasis on scaling operations. In particular, the derived wavelets can be "dilated" by a procedure comparable to the operation of steering steerable wavelets. The fundamental aspects of the construction are the same: an admissible collection of Fourier multipliers is used to extend a tight wavelet frame, and the "scale" of the wavelets is adapted by scaling the multipliers. As an application, the proposed wavelets can be used to improve the frequency localization. Importantly, the localized frequency bands specified by this construction can be scaled efficiently using matrix multiplication

Evaluation of the Effects of Various Exercise Interventions on Parkinson’s Disease

The overall purpose of the current thesis was to evaluate the influence of various exercise strategies on Parkinson’s disease (PD). While countless exercise interventions have been investigated by PD, results have been weak and inconclusive at best. As such, there are currently no scientifically-validated recommendations for an optimal exercise intervention. The four studies comprising this thesis have attempted to address the shortcomings of previous literature, namely, inconsistent use of outcome measures, lack of PD symptomatic measures, varying lengths of exercise interventions, absence of a non-exercise control group, continued assessment of participants after exercise has ended, and verifying replicabilty of findings. The first study was focused on identifying objective outcome measures that are predictive or reflective of the classic symptoms associated with PD. Symptomatic assessment was conducted using the Unified Parkinson’s disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), the current gold standard for assessment of PD symptom severity. Objective outcome measures included the timed-up-and-go (TUG), grooved pegboard (GP), and spatiotemporal aspects of self-paced gait (velocity, step length). Backward elimination regression analysis demonstrated that the place phase of the GP was the most predictive of UPDRS score. Interestingly, no objective outcome measures were strongly correlated with change on the symptomatic subsets that they were believed to be theoretically evaluating. The results point to the continued need to identify objective outcome measures reflective of symptomatic assessment. Further, exercise rehabilitation trials should combine outcome measures with symptomatic assessment to ensure that improvements are reflective of symptomatic improvement. The second study compared the influence of four exercise interventions (in contrast to a non-exercising control group) on the symptoms of PD. The exercise interventions included aquatic exercise, aerobic training, strength training and sensory focused exercise (PD SAFEx). Each participant exercised three times per week for a twelve week period and the same trained evaluator (blinded to group assignment) performed symptomatic assessment of all participants before exercise began (pre-test), after exercise ended (post-test) and following a minimum six week non-exercise period (washout). Results displayed that the strength training and PD SAFEx interventions had the greatest symptomatic benefit from pre-test to post-test. The aerobic intervention had no apparent change to symptom severity across all three testing periods. Overall, the current study suggests that PD SAFEx and strength training are more beneficial for individuals with PD than aerobic or aquatic exercise. The third study attempted to determine the influence of increased focus on sensory feedback by comparing two identical exercise interventions that differed only in the presence (PD SAFEx) or absence (non-SAFE) of increased attention on sensory (specifically proprioceptive) feedback. Symptomatic assessment was combined with objective outcome measures that assessed upper limb motor control, functional gait and spatiotemporal aspects of self-paced gait. Findings suggested that both exercise interventions resulted in similar benefits on the objective outcome measures, including upper limb motor control (assessed using the grooved pegboard), functional gait (assessed using the timed-up-and-go) and velocity and step length of self-paced gait. Interestingly, only the PD SAFEx intervention resulted in improved PD symptoms assessed using the UPDRS and symptomatic improvement was maintained after a six week non-exercise period. Thus, the increased focus on sensory feedback present in the PD SAFEx intervention appears to have an important additional influence on the symptoms of PD. The final study assessed whether improved PD symptoms following a sensory attention focused exercise (PD SAFEx) intervention could be replicated across multiple administrations and secondly, whether the effect could be replicated when administered by minimally trained individuals in the community. The PD SAFEx intervention was administered to four separate groups at the Movement Disorders Research and Rehabilitation Center (MDRC) and twice at an exercise facility in the community (YMCA). Over the six administrations of the PD SAFEx intervention, similar symptomatic improvements were realized by participants. Interestingly, the community based intervention appeared to gain a greater symptomatic benefit than the PD SAFEx intervention administered by leaders knowledgeable in movement disorders and the underlying neurological deficits focused on in the PD SAFEx intervention suggests that the feasibility of global distribution of the PD SAFEx intervention would be a logical direction for future research. The methodological improvements employed in the current thesis allowed for detailed and thorough comparisons to be drawn between various exercise interventions. It has been shown that strength training and PD SAFEx interventions have the greatest symptomatic benefit for individuals with PD. Further, the beneficial effect of increased focus on sensory feedback and the simplicity of application of the PD SAFEx intervention suggest that the PD SAFEx intervention should be further explroed for its ability to be globally implemented

From Footsteps to Data to Art: Seeing (through) a Bridge

While the guiding vision for IoT (Internet of Things) suggests that technology withdraws to the background, this paper explores the case of a physically visible, IoT-enabled footbridge to be placed in Amsterdam in summer 2020. The question is, how do aesthetic relationships with the bridge shift as knowledge of its IoT capabilities increase? The outcomes of user observation and two community design workshops are discussed, focusing on 1) what individuals desire to know about the bridge’s IoT capabilities, 2) how to best inform users that the bridge is collecting data, and 3) what capabilities people would want a smart bridge to possess and be made explicit. It is found that a post phenomenological lens might help address changing aesthetic relationships between people and the bridge. This revelation might be useful to apply to other “smart” infrastructures

From Footsteps to Data to Art: Seeing (through) a Bridge

While the guiding vision for IoT (Internet of Things) suggests that technology withdraws to the background, this paper explores the case of a physically visible, IoT-enabled footbridge to be placed in Amsterdam in summer 2020. The question is, how do aesthetic relationships with the bridge shift as knowledge of its IoT capabilities increase? The outcomes of user observation and two community design workshops are discussed, focusing on 1) what individuals desire to know about the bridge’s IoT capabilities, 2) how to best inform users that the bridge is collecting data, and 3) what capabilities people would want a smart bridge to possess and be made explicit. It is found that a post phenomenological lens might help address changing aesthetic relationships between people and the bridge. This revelation might be useful to apply to other “smart” infrastructures

Mindfulness Meditation Activates Altruism.

Clinical evidence suggests that mindfulness meditation reduces anxiety, depression, and stress, and improves emotion regulation due to modulation of activity in neural substrates linked to the regulation of emotions and social preferences. However, less was known about whether mindfulness meditation might alter pro-social behavior. Here we examined whether mindfulness meditation activates human altruism, a component of social cooperation. Using a simple donation game, which is a real-world version of the Dictator's Game, we randomly assigned 326 subjects to a mindfulness meditation online session or control and measured their willingness to donate a portion of their payment for participation as a charitable donation. Subjects who underwent the meditation treatment donated at a 2.61 times higher rate than the control (p = 0.005), after controlling for socio-demographics. We also found a larger treatment effect of meditation among those who did not go to college (p < 0.001) and those who were under 25 years of age (p < 0.001), with both subject groups contributing virtually nothing in the control condition. Our results imply high context modularity of human altruism and the development of intervention approaches including mindfulness meditation to increase social cooperation, especially among subjects with low baseline willingness to contribute

Efficacité comparée du lavage pulmonaire thérapeutique par ventilation liquidienne totale et par solution diluée de surfactant exogène dans un modèle ovin de syndrome d’inhalation méconiale

Introduction : Le syndrome d’aspiration méconiale (SAM) est une pathologie respiratoire du nouveau-né qui, dans les cas les plus sévères, peut rester réfractaire aux traitements couramment utilisés et nécessiter in fine le recours à une oxygénation membranaire extracorporelle. Le développement d’un ventilateur liquidien par l’équipe Inolivent a ouvert une nouvelle voie thérapeutique en rendant possible l’utilisation de la ventilation liquidienne totale (VLT) qui utilise un perfluorocarbone liquide afin d’assurer les échanges gazeux tout en effectuant un lavage pulmonaire thérapeutique. En 2011, l’équipe Inolivent a montré la supériorité de la VLT pour retirer le méconium et assurer les échanges gazeux de façon plus efficace que le traitement contrôle, le lavage thérapeutique avec une solution diluée de surfactant exogène (S-LBA). À ce jour, il n’a jamais été montré la possibilité de ramener des agneaux en respiration spontanée au décours d’une VLT pour le traitement d’un SAM sévère. Les objectifs de cette étude sont i) montrer la possibilité de ramener des agneaux nouveau-nés en respiration spontanée sans aide respiratoire après le traitement d’un SAM sévère par VLT, ii) comparer l’efficacité avec le lavage par S-LBA. Méthodes : 12 agneaux nouveau-nés anesthésiés et curarisés ont été instrumentés chirurgicalement. Après l’induction d’un SAM sévère, les agneaux ont subi un lavage pulmonaire thérapeutique soit par VLT (n = 6) ou par S-LBA (n = 6). Les agneaux ont été sevrés de toute ventilation mécanique et suivit en respiration spontanée durant 36 h. Résultats : Il est possible de ramener en respiration spontanée des agneaux nouveau-nés traités par VLT pour le traitement d’un SAM sévère. Le temps nécessaire au sevrage de la ventilation mécanique conventionelle a été plus court chez le groupe S-LBA. Conclusion : Notre étude met en lumière pour la première fois connue à ce jour, la possibilité de ramener en respiration spontanée des agneaux nouveau-nés suivant une VLT dans le traitement d’un SAM sévère. Ces résultats très importants ouvrent la voie à des études sur l’utilisation de la VLT dans le traitement de détresses respiratoires aigües