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PubMed1998

Extractive bioconversions in aqueous two-phase systems

Although extractive bioconversions in aqueous two-phase systems (ATPSs) have been studied for over a decade, this has not yet resulted in widespread industrial application. The main reasons are the cost of the phase-forming polymers and the complexity of ATPS behavior. A number of recent developments may give a new impetus to this technology. First of all, the use of extractive bioconversions in ATPSs has recently been extended to high-value protein products, while in the meantime the development of low-cost ATPSs is ongoing. Furthermore, novel chromatographic methods enable the analysis of polymer and metabolite compositions in complex ATPS mixtures, and recently employed statistical experimental designs provide a tool for efficient data gathering, while they also reveal synergistic effects between process parameters. Together, these developments open the way towards improved modeling of partitioning behavior in ATPSs.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1991

Traumatic cervical Brown-Sequard and Brown-Sequard-plus syndromes: the spectrum of presentations and outcomes.

Brown-Sequard syndrome (BSS) and Brown-Sequard-plus syndrome (BSPS) are characterised by asymmetrical paresis with hypalgesia more marked on the less paretic side. This study examined the clinical features of 38 patients (30 males and 8 females; mean age = 32 years) with traumatic cervical BSS or BSPS who underwent comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation. Twenty two injuries were caused by road traffic accidents, 8 by penetrating injuries, 5 by diving injuries, and 3 by other causes. After an average of 35 days in acute care and 79 days in rehabilitation, 37 patients had increased muscle strength, all 38 patients improved functional abilities, 29 patients walked independently, 34 had spontaneous bladder emptying, 36 were discharged home, and 14 were employed. Statistically significant increases (p less than 0.001) were made in modified Barthel index functional scores between admission and discharge. Patients with BSPS had a better prognosis than did those with 'pure' BSS. Patients with predominant upper limb weakness had more favourable outcomes than did those with predominant lower limb weakness. Few other potentially predictive demographic, injury, or neurological factors were associated with functional outcome. Patients with BSS or BSPS generally have a good prognosis for neurological and functional improvement.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1985

[Scientific explanation as a language and its application to psychiatry].

The concept of scientific explanation plays a crucial role in the methodological discussion within psychiatry. This article shows that since scientific explanation employs a language of its own, its syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic dimensions must therefore be analysed with the help of semiotics. The pragmatic dimension is given particular attention because, hitherto, it has been comparatively neglected in the methodological discussion within psychiatry. Furthermore, the concept of explanation is viewed as a problem sui generis and investigated, to begin with, independently of problems such as causality and teleology. By means of the problem of the ambiguity of inductive-statistical explanations, it is shown that scientific explanations which employ statistical laws without taking into consideration the pragmatic concept of the state of knowledge must necessarily come to incomplete and/or contradictory results. The state of knowledge (K) is defined as the set of propositions which are accepted as true by a person (x) at a given time (t). A more precise analysis shows that, within a given state of knowledge, an accepted proposition is generally seen as more or less probable where it can be assigned a value of credibility (B) which lies between 0 and 1. The force of an explanation, in the pragmatic-informative sense, thus consists in the fact that an explanation can increase the credibility value of an explanandum-event (E) through a presentation of particular circumstances (C) and of general laws (T) such that the following holds: BTUC(E) greater than B(E). Depending on the level of the absolute value of BTUC(E), a gradual differentiation is made with respect to the quality of pragmatic-informative explanations. The various types of explanation can be differentiated according to the type of arguments employed in the explanans of a pragmatic-informative explanation; the most important members of this family of explanations are the causal, functional, teleological, and dispositional elements. Finally, the concept of explanation is differentiated from that of understanding, another key concept in psychiatry. In this respect, it is important that the incorporation of pragmatic dimensions into scientific explanation must not be equated with the use of psychological categories; the latter are of importance solely for the concept of understanding. Furthermore, the notion is rejected that in psychiatry a higher value is to be attributed to explanation than to understanding. Rather, both concepts represent different approaches to psychiatric disorders, whereby each employs a language of its own.

Humans↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Axonal processes and neural plasticity.I: Ocular dominance columns.

We present two related computational models of ocular dominance column formation. Both address nervous system plasticity in terms of sprouting and retraction of axonal processes rather than changes in synaptic strength implied by synapse-specific Hebbian models. We employ statistical mechanics to simulate changes in the pattern of network connectivity. Our formalism uses the concept of an energy function, which we interpret as related to the levels of target-generated neurotrophins for which afferents compete. In contrast, synapse-specific Hebbian models impose synaptic normalization, for which there is little experimental evidence, in order to induce competition. Our models make many predictions which require experimental investigation. We suggest that the absence of monocular deprivation effects in the optic tectum may be due to a tendency of amphibian retinal ganglion cells to preserve the complexity of their terminal arbors. One model raises the possibility that boundaries separating columns in the mammalian cortex are poorly innervated if they have been formed by complete but asynchronous retinal activation. Both models exhibit a phase transition, suggesting a discontinuity in the transition from a binocular cortex to one possessing ocular dominance columns. Finally, our other model could account for the perpendicularity of ocular dominance columns to the boundary of the primary visual cortex while admitting of less ordered central patterns.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

The risk of low birth weight. Alternative models of neonatal mortality.

The authors examine the use of the infant's weight at birth to estimate its risk of mortality by the 28th day of life. The performance of several commonly employed statistical models is compared for the population of single births to resident South Carolina mothers in 1975-1980. A log-linear function, fitting the natural logarithm of the probability of neonatal mortality to birth weight, performs far better in this analysis than a quadratic or a logistic model or a model using the logarithm of the probability of survival. The parsimonious log-linear model also appears preferable to more complex models with additional parameters. The authors use the model in an analysis of data in two-year periods to demonstrate its value as an indicator of underlying changes in neonatal prospects and its easily interpreted parameters. The results highlight the importance of changes in neonatal mortality affecting low birth weight infants, which produce a noticeable shift in the range in which low birth weight is associated with the risk of mortality. These have proven more important in accounting for the decline in mortality rates than have changes affecting only neonates with more typical birth weights in South Carolina in 1975-1980.

Birth Certificates↗
PubMed1995

The decline and rise of the medical school applicant pool.

The authors characterize the demographic changes that transpired with the decline and rise of the medical school applicant pool over the past decade, and describe the variations in academic antecedents, attrition, and graduation rates of students matriculated during that time. Data over the ten-year cycle, derived from the AAMC's Student and Applicant Information Management System (SAIMS), were examined in the context of published education and employment statistics. The contraction and expansion of the applicant pool were related to changes in the number and pattern of undergraduate majors and to changes in the employment conditions for college-educated youth. Furthermore, a significant part of the variations in size of the applicant pool is an artifact of changes in the number of repeat applications. Matriculants' pre-medical grades and MCAT scores dropped slightly during the period of applicant decline, and rebounded as admission committees were able to exercise greater selection when the pool expanded. The attrition of medical students rose and fell during this time, but the changes were small and of little discrete influence on graduation rates during the period. The downturn and rebound in applications over the past decade appear to be more related to cycles in the employment market for college graduates than to applicants' perceptions of unfavorable/favorable conditions in medical education and practice.

College Admission Test↗
PubMed1980

Covariance of affective and schizophrenic symptoms in schizoaffective psychosis.

A case report of a patient with schizophrenic and affective symptoms in remarkable correlations (r = .94) is presented to highlight difficulties in documenting the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. Proposed solutions include the frequent use of appropriate rating scales, recognizing that postpsychotic depression is common and may mimic primary affective disorders, and employing statistical methods applicable to the individual case.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Line bisection judgments implicate right parietal cortex and cerebellum as assessed by fMRI.

OBJECTIVE: To use functional MRI (fMRI) to determine which brain regions are implicated when normal volunteers judge whether pretransected horizontal lines are correctly bisected (the Landmark test). BACKGROUND: Manual line bisection and a variant thereof involving perceptual judgments of pretransected lines (the Landmark test) are widely used to assess unilateral visuospatial neglect in patients with neurologic disease. Although unilateral (left) neglect most often results from lesions to right temporoparietal cortex, the normal functional anatomy of the Landmark test has not been convincingly demonstrated. METHODS: fMRI was carried out in 12 healthy right-handed male volunteers who judged whether horizontal lines were correctly prebisected. In the control task, subjects detected whether the horizontal lines contained a transection mark irrespective of the position of that mark. Response was by two-choice key press: on half the trials, subjects used the right, and on half, the left hand. Statistical analysis of evoked blood oxygenation level-dependent responses, measured with echoplanar imaging, employed statistical parametric mapping. RESULTS: Performing the Landmark task showed neural activity (p < 0.05, corrected) in the right superior posterior and right inferior parietal lobe, early visual processing areas bilaterally, the cerebellar vermis, and the left cerebellar hemisphere. Only the latter area showed a significant interaction with hand used. CONCLUSIONS: The right hemispheric dominance observed in inferior parietal cortex is consistent with the results of lesion studies. Right superior parietal cortex, vermis, and left cerebellar hemisphere have not been implicated in neglect, but all appear to play a cognitive role in the Landmark task.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Systematic reviews--theory and practice.

The consumer of health care services experts that medical practice is based on scientific evidence with regard to efficacy and effectiveness. Randomized controlled trials provide the most valid basis for comparison of interventions in health care and offer the most reliable information to guide clinical practice. The need for well-designed and performed systematic reviews of the available information to address a specific clinical question should be obvious both to the practicing clinician and the consumer. A systematic review is defined as "the application of scientific strategies that limits bias to the systematic assembly, critical appraisal, and synthesis of all relevant studies on a specific topic". "Meta-analysis (quantitative overview) is a systematic review that employs statistical methods to combine and summarize the results of several trials". In a meta-analysis the individual studies are weighted according to the inverse of the variance; that is more weight is given to studies with more events. The pooling of data allows for an increase in power and thus a more precise estimate of the effect size. Systematic reviews that meet explicit criteria for validity offer the reader information that as a rule is less biased than the unstructured overview which has traditionally been performed by one or several experts in a specific content area. Recently statistical methods have been developed to summarize data from studies of diagnostic tests. Cumulative meta-analyses offer the caregiver and the health-care consumer with answers regarding the effectiveness of a certain intervention at the earliest possible date in time.

Humans↗
PubMed2000

Image-processing algorithms for behavior analysis of group-housed pigs.

Computational algorithms of image processing were developed and evaluated to select, by motion detection, images of resting artificial pigs and to segment the pigs (mixture of black and white pigs) from their background. Motion detection of the pigs was implemented by detecting interframe differences of postural behavioral images. This algorithm combines the advantages of likelihood ratio method and shading model method and shows a stable performance under noisy and dynamic illumination conditions. Segmentation of the pigs from their background was implemented by employing multilevel thresholding and background reference techniques. The algorithm automatically determines the number of thresholds needed and produces satisfactory segmentation when both black and white pigs with different image intensities are present at the same time (the most complicated situation). The reference background image is updated so that temporal changes in illumination and/or spatial changes of the pen condition have little effect on the performance of image segmentation. The algorithm employs statistical models of the pigs and background and Bayes hypothesis testing to obtain and update the exposed portion of the reference background. Linear filters were used in this process for updating the parameters. These algorithms will serve as essential components for a novel, behavior-based, interactive approach to assess and control thermal comfort of group-housed pigs, which is expected to result in enhanced animal health and well-being.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1978

Using statistics in employment discrimination cases.

Statistics play an important role in employment discrimination cases, and this role will expand as the legal profession becomes increasingly aware of the utility of the increasingly sophisticated statistical methods available. Historically, plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases have used statistics to establish prima facie cases concerning inequities in areas such as wage rates, personnel selection, promotion, layoff, and termination decisions. Defendants have also employed statistics to demonstrate the fairness of employment practices and policies--for example, by providing statistical evidence of the validity of a test used in personnel selection. This article provides an overview of the role of statistics and the major statistical techniques employed in discrimination cases.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1999

The Danish Prevention Register. A comprehensive health and socio-economic, individual based register.

The Danish Prevention Register has been created recently as a very comprehensive national individual based register, based on register linkage. The Prevention Register currently comprises eight registers, which have been linked together using the unique personal identification number. The register contains data from 1977 and onwards. From an international research perspective this register offers unique opportunities to the researchers. The eight registers can be divided into three groups: health-related registers, registers on living conditions and a Register of Population Statistics. The health-related registers are: Register of Causes of Death, National Patient Register (in-patients and out-patients) and Register of Health Insurance Statistics (primary health care, GPs). Within the next few years the register will be expanded with The Medical Birth Register. The Abortion Register and The Malformation Register. The registers on living conditions are: Longitudinal Register of Social and Employment Statistics, Employment Classification Module, Educational Classification Module and Register of Population and Housing Censuses. The Register allows for cross-sectional and follow-up studies and is used for administrative purposes as well as research purposes. An overview of the register is presented in the article. Earlier articles in the Danish Register series in DMB explain details of the registers.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

[Primary neoplasms of the parapharyngeal space in material from the Otolaryngology Department, Karol Marcinkowski University of Medical Sciences in Poznan].

Primary neoplasms of parapharyngeal space are rare. In this location the so called non-malignant tumors occur many times more than the malignant ones. In our paper, employing statistics, objective symptoms and complaints connected with these tumors were ordered according to frequency. In recent five years in ENT Department of Karol Marcinkowski University of Medical Sciences in Poznań 9 persons were surgically treated. The differentiated histopathological picture is discussed and described (6 malignant and 3 non-malignant). It can be claimed that MR is more useful in diagnosis than CT. The treatment is usually surgical; both external and oral approaches are used.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Finding meaning in reporting requirements. Provider sampling and survey length.

Meeting compliance requirements to report information such as provider satisfaction typically inspires groans, followed by hasty actions by those who must collect and supply the information. Reports often reflect this lack of interest as findings are rarely defended as representative. Our medical group employed statistical methodology to make this process meaningful while also keeping it fairly simple and without incurring added costs. By establishing our provider satisfaction survey as a scientifically based endeavor, we improved the likelihood the provider would actively and honestly participate, and report findings with confidence.

Data Collection↗
PubMed1983

[Private households according to socioeconomic classification in national accounting: the model of the Federal Statistical Office].

The author notes that "for calculating income distribution and expenditure by groups of households, annual averages are required concerning the number of private households by household groups and...the structure of the household members in a socio-economic classification." Problems of adjusting such household data so that they are compatible with data from other sources such as employment statistics are discussed, and a procedure for adjusting annual micro-census data on households in the Federal Republic of Germany is described. "Results for the year 1982 are presented, showing the main development trends as compared with the year 1972. Finally, the quality of forecasting with the adjustment procedure is studied." (summary in ENG)

Censuses↗
PubMed1992

Paroxetine versus placebo: a double-blind comparison in depressed patients.

BACKGROUND: Paroxetine is a potent and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). The present study assessed the efficacy and tolerability of paroxetine against placebo in depressed outpatients. METHOD: A double-blind, parallel-group study was undertaken in four stand-alone centers. Patients aged 18-65 years, meeting DSM-III criteria for major depression, and having a Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D) score > or = 18 on the first 17 items of the HAM-D-21 were randomized to paroxetine or placebo for 6 weeks of treatment. Efficacy outcome variables included the HAM-D, the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale, the Clinical Global Impressions Scale (CGI), and the Covi Anxiety Scale. Tolerability was assessed by asking a non-leading question. Routine laboratory safety and vital sign data from all four centers were pooled. The primary analysis used the intention-to-treat sample and for efficacy variables the last-observation-carried-forward data set was employed. Statistical methods included one-way analysis of variance for parametric and Fisher exact test for nonparametric variables. RESULTS: Significant differences (p < or = .05) were found between paroxetine and placebo on the HAM-D and CGI by Week 2 and on all efficacy outcome variables by Week 4. Improvement on the HAM-D sleep factor occurred 2 weeks prior to that seen on the retardation factor. Similar results were obtained when an adequate treatment group (therapy for > or = 28 days) was considered. A full clinical response (CGI-severity of illness score 1 or 2) was seen in over 40% of subjects. Adverse events were more common for paroxetine compared with placebo (p < or = .01). Somnolence was twice more common than nervousness. Dropout due to adverse events was similar between therapies. Paroxetine had no clinically significant effect on laboratory safety data or vital signs. CONCLUSION: Paroxetine was an effective, well tolerated, and safe antidepressant. Side effects were typical of the SSRI class of drugs. Symptoms indicative of a nonalerting profile were more common than those associated with alerting effects.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Effects of dark rearing on dendritic spines in layer IV of the mouse visual cortex. A quantitative electron microscopical study.

The effect of visual deprivation on dendritic spines in the visual cortex layer IV of 19 days old mice was studied with the electron microscopy. From the serial ultrathin sections of the selected dendrites bearing spines the author has calculated the volume and surface area of dendritic spines, and also the surface area of their synaptic zones. Employing statistical methods he has demonstrated that visual deprivation produced a retarded development of some dendritic spines in dark reared mice. The fact that the smallest dendritic spines cannot be seen with the light microscope while the number of such small spines is larger in the dark reared mice can well explain the apparent reduction in the number of dendritic spines in deprived animals studied in Golgi impregnated material.

Animals↗
PubMed1980

[An algorithm for calculating HLA haplotype frequency].

The algorithm computes gene- and haplotype frequencies from phenotype data of the HLA system. It is an iterative procedure which finds these frequencies by employing statistical and combinatorial considerations. The probabilities for homozygosity of single genes are used as essential parameters. They are simultaneously computed by the algorithm. These parameters are mainly needed for the evaluation of alleles, whose gene product cannot be determined serologically.

Alleles↗