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PubMed1996

Divided attention and indirect memory tests.

Attentional state during acquisition is an important determinant of performance on direct memory tests. In two experiments we investigated the effects of dividing attention during acquisition on conceptually driven and data-driven indirect memory tests. Subjects read a list of words with or without distraction. Memory for the words was later tested with an indirect memory test or a direct memory test that differed only in task instructions. In Experiment 1, the indirect test was category-exemplar production (a conceptually driven task) and the direct test was category-cued recall. In Experiment 2, the indirect test was word-fragment completion (a data-driven task) and the direct test was word-fragment cued recall. Dividing attention at encoding decreased performance on both direct memory tests. Of the indirect tests, category-exemplar production but not word-fragment completion was affected. The results indicate that conceptually driven indirect memory tests, like direct memory tests, are affected by divided attention, whereas data-driven indirect tests are not. These results are interpreted within the transfer-appropriate processing framework.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Impact of otitis media on language acquisition in children].

OBJECTIVE: To review the literature concerning the impact of otitis media on language acquisitions in children. SOURCES OF DATA: Medline. The following keywords were used for searching: otitis media, hearing, language and children. SUMMARY OF THE FINDING: The hearing loss observed in otitis media may be a result of: 1) structural disorders in the middle ear; 2) ultrastructural lesions and biochemical anomalies in the cochlea or 3) abnormalities in the central auditory pathways. About 50% of cases of secretory otitis media, for instance, are accompanied by mild fluctuating hearing loss. According to the literature, since the first three years of life are critical for language development, children affected by otitis media in this period are at risk for presenting disturbances in language acquisition, behavior and later academic achievement. CONCLUSIONS: The main consequences of otitis media and hearing loss on language acquisition are phonetic and speech articulation problems, as well as impairment of reading comprehension.

Child↗
PubMed1990

Effects of PGE1 on platelet deformability.

Prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) is frequently used as a stabilizing agent while isolating platelets. The platelet-stabilizing effect of PGE1 is mediate through the PGE1 receptor and the consequent increase of intracellular cAMP. The discoid shape of platelet is thus maintained. Recently, we have studied the effect of PGE1 on platelet deformability with micropipette aspiration technics, using pipettes with radii (Rp) of 0.26-0.36 micron. Platelets, obtained from platelet-rich plasma, and suspended in Hank's buffer containing BSA, glucose, adenosine and theophylline, were subjected for micropipette aspiration test within 2 hr after sampling. In general, PGE1 treated platelets (greater than 75%) remained as non-activated form as revealed under video microscopy and maintained their discoid shape for as long as 6 hr. The time course of the extension length (Dp, in micron) of the platelets in response to aspiration with a negative pressure of 5 cm H2O (tension = 0.15 dynes/cm) was analyzed by using a digital image analyzer system (IRIS 3120 with IP-512, with a resolution of 0.076 microns). A computer program based on the algorithm of real-time reading of image intensity was developed to facilitate real-time data acquisition. The data of Dp/Rp vs time (sec) were fitted by using a second-order equation. The deformability of PGE1 (0.1 microM) treated platelet was decreased significantly as compared with control. These results indicate that the platelet stabilization by PGE1 is accompanied by a decrease in platelet deformability.

Alprostadil↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Enhancing information acquisition for over-the-counter medications by making better use of container surface space.

Most over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical container labels are printed in very small type. Consequently, people with visual impairments (e.g., presbyopia in older adults) have difficult reading the material. Some OTC drugs are packaged in containers with easy-open caps. This design increases the surface area that could be used to enhance the labeling. In Experiment 1, older adults (M = 75.1 years, SD = 8.1) evaluated six container label variants for an actual OTC product. Besides having a multipanel main label, four containers had labels attached to the cap that displayed the most important information in large print but differed in color. Two control containers lacked a cap label; one had only a four-panel main label, and the other had only the front label. Participants ranked the containers on six dimensions (e.g., label noticeability, willingness to read). Results showed greater preference for containers with the cap labels. Experiment 2 again examined preferences but also measured information-acquisition performance after participants (M = 79 years, SD = 5.8) were briefly exposed to a realistic-appearing, but fictitious, OTC medication. Results showed greater knowledge and preference for containers with the cap labels. Experiment 2 showed that one of the cap colors (yellow) that was different from the main label was preferred over the white and orange (the same colors as on the main label), but color distinctiveness as an explanation was not fully supported because the green cap was not significantly different from the other cap labels. Implications for communicating information about OTC drugs using expanded labels are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1998

Cerebral organization for language in deaf and hearing subjects: biological constraints and effects of experience.

Cerebral organization during sentence processing in English and in American Sign Language (ASL) was characterized by employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 4 T. Effects of deafness, age of language acquisition, and bilingualism were assessed by comparing results from (i) normally hearing, monolingual, native speakers of English, (ii) congenitally, genetically deaf, native signers of ASL who learned English late and through the visual modality, and (iii) normally hearing bilinguals who were native signers of ASL and speakers of English. All groups, hearing and deaf, processing their native language, English or ASL, displayed strong and repeated activation within classical language areas of the left hemisphere. Deaf subjects reading English did not display activation in these regions. These results suggest that the early acquisition of a natural language is important in the expression of the strong bias for these areas to mediate language, independently of the form of the language. In addition, native signers, hearing and deaf, displayed extensive activation of homologous areas within the right hemisphere, indicating that the specific processing requirements of the language also in part determine the organization of the language systems of the brain.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

The efficacy of utilizing a phonics treatment package with middle school deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

Research indicates that the acquisition of phonemic awareness and phonic skills is highly correlated with later success in learning to read. Numerous studies support the hypothesis that deaf and hard-of-hearing children are able to utilize alternative systems to develop phonological awareness that are not dependent on the ability to hear sounds or accurately pronounce words. A quasi-experimental, pre- and posttest design was employed in this study that evaluated the efficacy of implementing a phonics treatment package with middle-school-aged students. Results indicate that treatment students were able to demonstrate acquisition and generalization of the phonic skills taught. Additionally, acquisition of these skills did not appear to be related to degree of hearing loss.

Achievement↗
PubMed1997

Visual-perceptual and phonological factors in the acquisition of literacy among children with congenital developmental coordination disorder.

Much research has shown that children with congenital developmental coordination disorder (CDCD) have marked impairments in the perception of visual-spatial information, a deficit which has been assumed to be causally related to difficulties that many CDCD children experience when learning to read and spell. However, current research in reading disability suggests that poor reading is mainly related to difficulties with the processing of phonological information or with metaphonological ability, not to visual-perceptual deficits. This study aimed to explore the relationship between reading achievement and the visual-perceptual, phonological and general cognitive ability of CDCD children. Twenty-eight children with a mean age of 8.3 years were tested on motor coordination, language, general ability, visual discrimination, visual-motor integration, phoneme awareness, phoneme discrimination, reading and spelling. Results showed that phoneme awareness was the most strongly related to reading and spelling performance, and that visual discrimination showed no relationship to reading ability, although it was related to spelling performance, phonological awareness, and motor coordination. These results suggest that CDCD children who have difficulty with the acquisition of literacy may suffer from visual-perceptual problems and metaphonological deficits, but these problems are differentially related to reading and spelling.

Child↗
PubMed2003

Investigating the effects of a set of intercorrelated variables on eye fixation durations in reading.

The present experiment investigated the influence of 5 intercorrelated variables on word recognition using a multiple regression analysis. The 5 variables were word frequency, subjective familiarity, word length, concreteness, and age of acquisition (AoA). Target words were embedded in sentences and eye tracking methodology was used to investigate the predictive power of these variables. All 5 variables were found to influence reading time. However, the time course of these variables differed. Both word frequency and familiarity showed an early but lasting influence on eye fixation durations. Word length only significantly predicted fixation durations after refixations on the target words were taken into account. This is the 1st experiment to demonstrate concreteness and AoA effects on eye fixations.

Attention↗
PubMed2006

Reporting of radiographic methods in randomised controlled trials assessing structural outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis.

BACKGROUND: Because an increasing number of clinical trials evaluating disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) emphasise radiographic outcomes as a primary outcome, using a reproducible radiographic measure should be placed at a premium. AIM: To evaluate the reporting of radiographic methods in randomised trials assessing radiographic outcomes in RA. METHODS: Medline was searched for randomised controlled trials assessing radiographic outcomes published between January 1994 and December 2005 in general medical and specialty journals with a high impact factor. One reader extracted data (radiographic acquisition, assessment and reproducibility) using a standardised form. RESULTS: A total of 46 reports were included in the analysis. The mean (SD) methodological quality scores on the Jadad scale (range 0-5) and the Delphi list (0-9) were 2.9 (1.2) and 6.4 (1.3), respectively. Use of a standardised procedure for the acquisition of the radiographs was reported in 2 (4.3%) articles. 2 (4.3%) reports indicated that the quality of the radiographs was evaluated. In 65.2% of the reports, > or = 2 radiographic scores were used. Reporting of radiographic assessment was well detailed for number of readers (91.3%), information on readers (71.7%), blinding (91.4%) and how films were viewed (74.0%). The reproducibility of the reading was reported in 39.1% of the articles. CONCLUSION: The reporting of results of randomised controlled trials of radiographic outcomes in RA shows great variability in radiographic scores used. Reporting of radiographic methods could be improved upon, especially the acquisition procedure and the reproducibility of the reading.

Arthritis, Rheumatoid↗
PubMed2005

Detection rate and efficiency of lymph node assessment with axial and coronal image reading based on 16 row multislice CT of the neck.

PURPOSE: Multislice CT (MSCT) has the advantage of isotropic volumetric data acquisition which allows high resolution data reconstruction in the axial and coronal plane. We evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of coronal reconstruction compared to axial reconstructions of a routinely performed CT scan exemplary in neck lymph node assessment performed on a 16 row MSCT. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Contrast enhanced neck MSCT of 24 patients with known lymphoma were evaluated prospectively for lymph node assessment. 4 blinded readers evaluated the axial and coronal reconstructions of the same patient. Neck lymph nodes larger than 10 mm were evaluated by their anatomical region (deep jugular chain, submandibular, nuchal). Time for axial and coronal image evaluation was assessed. Detection rate was compared with consensus reading as gold standard. RESULTS: In consensus reading 169 enlarged lymph nodes in the deep jugular chain were found. Detection rate for axial image interpretation was 36.1 % with 54.9 % in coronal reading. Assessing the submandibular lymph nodes (n = 45) axial interpretation revealed 53.9 % with 36.1 % in coronal reading. Evaluation time for axial reading was in all but one reader significantly longer (mean 176 seconds) than in coronal reading (mean 129 seconds). CONCLUSION: Coronal image reading improves the detection rate of cranio-caudal oriented structures. Considering representatively neck lymph nodes in the deep jugular chain the image interpretation time is significantly reduced. Still axial reading remains necessary for assessing axially oriented structures such as the submandibular region in the neck.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Significance of antibody to the host cellular gene derived epitope GOR in chronic hepatitis C virus infection.

The humoral response to the host cellular gene-derived epitope GOR (anti-GOR) was reported to be associated with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. To determine the prevalence and clinical significance of anti-GOR, sera from 31 patients (M/F, 19/12, age 30-72) with chronic HCV infection (anti-HCV+ in 30, HCV-RNA+ by PCR in 31) were tested for anti-GOR by enzyme immunoassay. Results were correlated with clinical, biochemical and histological features, and the subsequent response to interferon-alpha therapy (a complete response was defined as normalization of serum ALT at the completion of therapy; a sustained response was defined as having normal serum liver biochemistry during the entire follow-up period). Anti-GOR was detected in 21 patients [67.7%, median optical density (OD) reading 2.634, range 0.865-3.000, cut-off value 0.300]. There was no correlation between the presence or the OD reading of anti-GOR and the clinical features (sex, age, mode of acquisition), biochemical tests (serum ALT, AST, alkaline phosphatase and albumin levels), autoimmune markers [serum globulin levels, anti-nuclear antibody (+ at < 1:80 in 6/31 patients)], and their subsequent response to interferon-alpha therapy (complete response in anti-GOR+ patients: 13/21, anti-GOR-: 5/10, p = NS; sustained response in anti-GOR+ patients: 5/21, anti-GOR-: 2/10, p = NS). There was also no correlation between anti-GOR and the histological features including Knodell score and its components including periportal inflammation, portal inflammation and fibrosis, the presence of lymphoid aggregates, macrovesicular and microvesicular fat, multinucleated hepatocytes, dysplasia, sinusoidal activity or bile duct lesions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Molecular pathogenesis of Coxiella burnetii in a genomics era.

The agent of acute and chronic Q fever, Coxiella burnetii, occupies a unique niche among intracellular pathogens. The mechanisms the organism employs to cause disease are unclear but involve persistence in a parasitophorous vacuole and the subsequent host response. Studies designed to model molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis have relied upon indirect evidence for testing the role of virulence factors since methods for generation of defined mutations have not been developed. Evidence suggests replication involving a developmental lifecycle is critical for intra- and extracellular survival but this cycle is incompletely defined. It has been proposed that survival in the phagolysosomal-like parasitophorous vacuole requires specific iron uptake systems, secretion of enzymes to detoxify the compartment (catalase and SOD), and down-regulation of an oxidative burst (acid phosphatase). Studies to test these potential virulence mechanisms can be accelerated with the recent development of the complete genome sequence for the prototype acute disease isolate, Nine Mile. Proteins differentially expressed during the developmental cycle can more readily be identified with MALDI-TOF description of proteomic profiles. Genes encoding secreted Cu/Zn SOD, catalase, and acid phosphatase are predicted and can be tested for function and expression. An iron regulon is predicted based upon Fur-regulated open reading frames. The specific role the iron-regulated genes play in iron acquisition can be tested. Confirmation of the iron regulon and others can be tested using microarrays based upon the genomic ORF predictions. These are examples of how we are rapidly changing the experimental approaches used to investigate C. burnetii to improve our understanding of the biology of this unusual and highly adapted organism.

Coxiella burnetii↗
PubMed2000

Autonomous learning based on cost assumptions: theoretical studies and experiments in robot control.

Autonomous learning techniques are based on experience acquisition. In most realistic applications, experience is time-consuming: it implies sensor reading, actuator control and algorithmic update, constrained by the learning system dynamics. The information crudeness upon which classical learning algorithms operate make such problems too difficult and unrealistic. Nonetheless, additional information for facilitating the learning process ideally should be embedded in such a way that the structural, well-studied characteristics of these fundamental algorithms are maintained. We investigate in this article a more general formulation of the Q-learning method that allows for a spreading of information derived from single updates towards a neighbourhood of the instantly visited state and converges to optimality. We show how this new formulation can be used as a mechanism to safely embed prior knowledge about the structure of the state space, and demonstrate it in a modified implementation of a reinforcement learning algorithm in a real robot navigation task.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1999

Autonomous learning based on cost assumptions: theoretical studies and experiments in robot control.

Autonomous learning techniques are based on experience acquisition. In most realistic applications, experience is time-consuming: it implies sensor reading, actuator control and algorithmic update, constrained by the learning system dynamics. The information crudeness upon which classical learning algorithms operate make such problems too difficult and unrealistic. Nonetheless, additional information for facilitating the learning process ideally should be embedded in such a way that the structural, well-studied characteristics of these fundamental algorithms are maintained. We investigate in this article a more general formulation of the Q-learning method that allows for a spreading of information derived from single updates towards a neighbourhood of the instantly visited state and converges to optimality. We show how this new formulation can be used as a mechanism to safely embed prior knowledge about the structure of the state space, and demonstrate it in a modified implementation of a reinforcement learning algorithm in a real robot navigation task.

Models, Theoretical↗
PubMed1992

[The effects of early manual instruction on the oral language development of two deaf children].

The speech and language training for deaf children at our clinic is performed using a multisensory method, which consists of reception and expression training for sign language and fingerspelling as well as auditory training, lip reading, and written language training (the Kanazawa Method). We have already reported that acquisition of written language is not dependent on oral language, and that written language is easier to learn than oral language for deaf children. In the present investigation, we analyzed the acquisition of comprehensible and expressive vocabulary in sign language and fingerspelling. The subjects were two children congenitally deaf at levels higher than 105dB. Recorded language samples by the age of 48 months were analyzed. Acquisition of sign language was found to be significantly easier than acquisition of oral language. The development of expressive noun words, function words, and Wh-question words in sign language at the early period was almost equivalent to that of hearing peers, and then the sign language appeared transfer to the oral language. These results suggest that early presentation of sign language with written and oral language is effective in the acquisition of communicative attitudes, function words and interrogative sentences which are most difficult for the hearing-impaired. It was shown that early presentation of sign language with written and oral language serves to promote acquisition of oral language.

Child↗
PubMed2001

Strength and resistance to interference in practiced recognition: memory retrieval abilities investigated through latent structure modeling.

Participants (N = 811) practiced paired-associate recognition with and without an interference manipulation and then practiced a pattern recognition skill in which patterns discriminated had features in common. Structure models of the covariances in task reaction times indicated two factors or abilities. The first was a baseline factor, hypothesized to include the ability to strengthen traces and other abilities common to all tasks. The second was a resistance-to-interference factor, or the ability to quickly retrieve associations with elements in common with nonretrieved associations. Further modeling on a subset of the sample (n = 434) showed the baseline factor to reflect a memory strength ability independent of other confounding abilities (e.g., motor, reading abilities). Both memory abilities are discussed broadly with respect to cognitive skill acquisition, controlled versus automatic processing, and activation.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The accuracy of rapid oscillometric blood pressure determination.

The Dinamap 1846SX (DIN) offers a "stat mode" (SM) for rapid repetitive blood pressure determinations, but its accuracy has not been reported. Thirty patients who required an intra-arterial catheter (IAC) for management of anesthesia underwent induction with concomitant noninvasive blood pressure measurement provided by a DIN set in SM. Computerized automated data acquisition recorded digital outputs from both monitors at the time of new SM readings. Systolic pressure mean absolute error (MAE) was 13.3 +/- 5.7 mmHg (mean +/- SEM) and the mean error (bias) was -8.7 +/- 9.8 mmHg. Mean pressure MAE was 6.8 +/- 3.4 mmHg and bias was -0.5 +/- 6.3 mmHg. Diastolic pressure MAE was 7.0 +/- 3.3 mmHg and bias was -0.3 +/- 6.5 mmHg. There was a tendency for systolic pressure readings to underestimate IAC pressures at higher pressures. These findings echo results reported previously for DIN operating in its normal mode. Rapid arterial pressure determination by SM does not appear to compromise accuracy.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Lexical orthographic knowledge develops from the beginning of literacy acquisition.

This study reports two experiments assessing the spelling performance of French first graders after 3 months and after 9 months of literacy instruction. The participants were asked to spell high and low frequency irregular words (Experiment 1) and pseudowords, some of which had lexical neighbours (Experiment 2). The lexical database which children had been exposed to was strictly controlled. Both a frequency effect in word spelling accuracy and an analogy effect in pseudoword spelling were obtained after only 3 months of reading instruction. The results suggest that children establish specific orthographic knowledge from the very beginning of literacy acquisition.

Cognition↗