Search

Objective: To evaluate whether imaging diagnostic test accuracy conference abstracts with positive conclusions or titles are more likely to reach full-text publication than those with negative (or neutral) conclusions or titles.Methods: Diagnostic accuracy research abstracts were included if they were presented at the 2011 or 2012 Radiological Society of North America conference. Full-text publication status at 5 years post conference abstract submission was determined. Conclusion and title positivity of conference abstracts were extracted, as well as potential confounding factors. The associations of conclusion and title positivity with publication status at 5 years post conference abstract submission were assessed using a multivariable logistic regression model. Conditional odds ratios were calculated to express the strength of associations, adjusting for the confounders.Results: In total, 282/400 (71%) of included conference abstracts reached full-text publication. A total of 246 out of 337 (74%) conference abstracts with positive conclusions resulted in full-text publications, compared with 26/48 (54%) with neutral conclusions and 5/15 (33%) with negative conclusions. In multivariable logistic regression, conclusion positivity was significantly associated with full-text publication (odds ratio 3.6; 95% CI 1.9-6.7 for conference abstracts with positive conclusions, compared with those with non-positive conclusions); this did not apply to title positivity (odds ratio 1.2; 95% CI 0.47-3.0).Conclusion: Imaging conference abstracts with positive conclusions were more likely to be published as full-text articles. Title positivity was not associated with publication. This preferential publication pattern may lead to an overrepresentation of positive studies in the literature. An overrepresentation of positive studies may contribute to inflated estimates of test accuracy and has the potential to adversely influence patient care.Key Points: • Imaging diagnostic test accuracy conference abstracts with positive conclusions were more likely to be reported as full-text articles than those with non-positive conclusions. • The majority (75%) of imaging diagnostic test accuracy conference abstracts with positive conclusions were published, compared with only 53% and 33% with neutral and negative conclusions, respectively. • Conclusion positivity remained associated with the full-text publication of conference abstracts when controlling for multiple potential confounding variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Uric acid stone diagnosis is presently done primarily with in vitro analysis of stones. In vivo diagnosis with dual-energy CT (DECT) would allow earlier initiation of therapy with urine alkalinization and avoid surgical intervention.Objective: To evaluate if DECT, using stone analysis as reference standard, is sufficiently accurate to replace stone analysis for diagnosis of uric acid stones.Methods: Original studies in patients with urolithiasis examined with DECT with stone analysis as the reference standard were eligible for inclusion. MEDLINE (1946-2018), Embase (1947-2018), CENTRAL (August 2018), and multiple urology and radiology conferences were searched. QUADAS-2 was used to assess risk of bias and applicability. Meta-analyses were performed using a bivariate random-effects model.Results: A total of 21 studies (1105 patients, 1442 stones) were included. Fourteen studies containing 662 patients (944 stones) were analyzed in the uric acid dominant target condition (majority of stone composition uric acid): mean sensitivity was 0.88 (95% CI 0.79-0.93) and specificity 0.98 (95% CI 0.96-0.99). Thirteen studies (674 patients, 760 stones) were analyzed in the uric acid-containing target condition (< majority of stone composition uric acid): mean sensitivity was 0.82 (95% CI 0.73-0.89) and specificity 0.97 (95% CI 0.94-0.98). Meta-regression showed no significant variability in test accuracy. Two studies had one or more domains at high risk of bias and there were no concerns regarding applicability.Conclusion: DECT is an accurate replacement test for diagnosis of uric acid calculi in vivo, such that stone analysis could be replaced in the diagnostic pathway. This would enable earlier initiation of urine alkalinization.Key Points: • DECT for uric acid dominant stones has sensitivity of 0.88 (95% CI 0.79-0.93) and specificity of 0.98 (95% CI 0.96-0.99); uric acid-containing stones had mean sensitivity of 0.82 (95% CI 0.73-0.89) and specificity of 0.97 (95% CI 0.94-0.98). • Meta-regression did not identify any variables (study design, reference standard, dual-energy CT type, dose, risk of bias) that influenced test accuracy. • Only 2 of the 21 included studies had 1 or more domain considered to be at high risk of bias with the majority of domains considered at low risk of bias; there were no concerns regarding applicability in any of the included studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To assess the risk of citation bias in imaging diagnostic accuracy research by evaluating whether studies with higher accuracy estimates are cited more frequently than those with lower accuracy estimates.Methods: We searched Medline for diagnostic accuracy meta-analyses published in imaging journals from January 2005 to April 2016. Primary studies from the meta-analyses were screened; those assessing the diagnostic accuracy of an imaging test and reporting sensitivity and specificity were eligible for inclusion. Studies not indexed in Web of Science, duplicates, and inaccessible articles were excluded. Topic (modality/subspecialty), study design, sample size, journal impact factor, publication date, times cited, sensitivity, and specificity were extracted for each study. Negative binomial regression was performed to evaluate the association of citation rate (times cited per month since publication) with Youden's index (sensitivity + specificity -1), highest sensitivity, and highest specificity, controlling for the potential confounding effects of modality, subspecialty, impact factor, study design, sample size, and source meta-analysis.Results: There were 1016 primary studies included. A positive association between Youden's index and citation rate was present, with a regression coefficient of 0.33 (p = 0.016). The regression coefficient for sensitivity was 0.41 (p = 0.034), and for specificity, 0.32 (p = 0.15).Conclusion: A positive association exists between diagnostic accuracy estimates and citation rates, indicating that there is evidence of citation bias in imaging diagnostic accuracy literature. Overestimation of imaging test accuracy may contribute to patient harm from incorrect interpretation of test results.Key Points: • Studies with higher accuracy estimates may be cited more frequently than those with lower accuracy estimates. • This citation bias could lead clinicians, reviews, and clinical practice guidelines to overestimate the accuracy of imaging tests, contributing to patient harm from incorrect interpretation of test results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of aged binder, high reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) content mixes are susceptible to cracking failures and are less workable than virgin mixtures. The potential of six differently originated recycling agents was evaluated in this study to restore the desired binder properties using conventional binder test methods and the results were compared with performance-related test results of 100 % RAP mixture. Binder test results showed that application of organic products require much lower dose to provide the same softening effect as petroleum products. The workability of binder and mixture was improved compared to RAP, but remained lower than that of reference virgin mixture. All rejuvenated mixtures proved to be very rut resistant. Low temperature performance of RAP, measured by creep compliance at −10 °C, was improved with the application of all recycling agents and RAP mixes rejuvenated with waste vegetable products even performed equal or better than virgin mixture. Organic oil and both waste vegetable products provided the best performance in binder and mixture fatigue resistance tests as measured by linear amplitude sweep and fracture work density respectively. Overall, the organic products outperformed the petroleum based additives in most tests, which partly can be attributed to un-optimized recycling agent dose. It was observed that penetration test may be a good indicator for initial selection of optimum dose since the results provide indication of rut resistance as well as fatigue performance of mixture and can be easily predicted using an exponential relationship that was developed in the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article, Bilancini (J Econ 102:275-286, ) demonstrates that assuming either price-dependent preferences or preferences that depend on the choices of other individuals can render the theory of revealed preference effectively unusable. Some readers might be tempted to infer that economists had better avoid such assumptions. In this note, we argue against that conclusion in favor of a less categorical and more pragmatic approach. In several domains, we identify fundamental weaknesses in revealed preference theory and argue that in those domains, nontraditional assumptions about preferences significantly enhance our ability to explain and predict behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aim of the analysis was to compare the outcome of heart failure patients in New York Heart Association (NYHA) class IV to that of NYHA class III patients 1 year after implantation of a CRT device. Methods: The analysis was based on the 405 CRT patients enrolled in the MASCOT trial. At enrollment, 350 patients (86 %) were in NYHA class III and 55 (14 %) were in NYHA class IV. Results: At 1-year follow-up, the improvement of the ejection fraction was not statistically significantly different between NYHA class III (+7.6 ± 11.7 %) and NYHA class IV patients (+9.2 ± 14.2 %; p = 0.78). NYHA class IV patients had a better mean NYHA class reduction with −1.93 ± 0.83 than NYHA class III patients with −0.93 ± 0.70 ( p < 0.0001). There was a greater mean quality of life improvement in NYHA class IV (−27.2 ± 20.9) compared to NYHA class III (−17.7 ± 23.9; p = 0.02). All-cause mortality as well as cardiac mortality remained higher in NYHA class IV with 25.5 and 16.4 % than in NYHA class III with 7.1 and 3.1 % ( p < 0.0001). Conclusions: In this study, 14 % of all patients receiving a CRT device had NYHA class IV at implantation. The data support the concept to implant a CRT device in NYHA class IV patients, because at 1 year after implantation, they experienced better symptomatic improvement compared to NYHA class III patients. The higher cardiac as well as non-cardiac mortality resulted in a fivefold higher all-cause mortality compared to NYHA class III patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We observed a relationship between odor naming and recognition memory in a recent series of studies. Consistently and/or correctly named odors were associated with excellent recognition memory while inconsistently and/or incorrectly named odors were associated with poor memory. It was speculated that odor knowledge was the basis for the relationship between odor naming and recognition memory. An alternative explanation is that participants employed a naming strategy to guide their memory responses, relying on memories for the odor names given as responses during memory encoding. The validity of these competing hypotheses was tested by manipulating the temporal presentation order of odor naming and memory responses. The results revealed that the predictive power of odor naming, as well as its memory-enhancing effects, was affected by the temporal order of naming and memory responses. The relationship between odor naming and memory declined substantially under conditions that reduced or eliminated the possibility of using remembered names as a guide for recognition memory responses. It was concluded that the previously observed ability of naming to predict odor recognition memory was not related to odor knowledge, but rather, relied on naming responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Kahn's enduring legacy will be his influence on how economists think about the regulation of natural monopoly. But although the substance of his ideas mattered far more than their style, his influence would not have been nearly as great had it not been for his almost slavish devotion to clear language. His career supports the proposition that most of the heavy lifting in economics relies on just a few basic principles that can be stated in plain English. In this essay, I describe how Kahn's mastery of those principles made him such an effective regulator, but I also note that events since the 1978 deregulation of the airline industry suggest that he and others at the Civil Aeronautics Board failed to appreciate the extent of unexploited economies of scale in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mr. Shermer worries that once we empower any organization to employ the force of law to mandate collective action of any kind, we will have embarked on a slippery slope to a totalitarian state that will destroy every liberty we cherish. This concern is overblown. Governments have been mandating collective action since the dawn of recorded history. And although history does, in fact, include a considerable number of brutally totalitarian states, people around the world clearly enjoy much greater liberty today, on balance, than they ever have. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The efficacy of radiofrequency (RF) ablation of an uncommon coronary sinus (CS)-dependent atrial flutter (AFL) was evaluated using conventional electrophysiological criteria in a highly selected subset of patients with typical and atypical AFL. Methods: Fourteen patients with atrial flutter (11 males, mean age 69 ± 9 years) without previous right or left atrial RF ablation were included. Heart disease was present in eight patients. Baseline ECG suggested typical AFL in 12 patients and atypical AFL in two. Mean AFL cycle length was 324 ± 64 ms at the time of RF ablation in the CS. Lateral right atrium activation was counterclockwise (CCW) in 13 patients and clockwise in one. CS activation was CCW in all. Criteria for CS ablation included the presence of CS mid-diastolic fractionated atrial potentials (APs) associated with concealed entrainment with a postpacing interval within 20 ms. Success was defined as termination of AFL and subsequent noninducibility. Results: The initial target for ablation was the cavotricuspid isthmus (CTI) in 11 patients and the CS with further CTI ablation in three. AP duration at the CS target site was 122 ± 33 ms, spanning 40 ± 12% of the AFL cycle length. CS ablation site was located 1-4 cm from the CS ostium. Ablation was successful in all patients. Mean time to AFL termination during CS ablation was 39 ± 52 s (<20 s in eight patients). No recurrence of ablated arrhythmia occurred during a follow-up of 18 ± 8 months. Conclusions: The CS musculature is a critical part of some AFL circuits in patients with typical and atypical AFL. AFL can be terminated in patients with CS or CTI/CS AFL reentrant circuits by targeting CS mid-diastolic fragmented APs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sniffing is part of an active exploratory process aimed at identifying and locating biologically salient stimuli. However, there are few data on those factors that determine the nature of the sniff—its magnitude, duration, or frequency. The study reported here was aimed at increasing our understanding of human sniffing behavior by examining sniff magnitude and duration to odorants that independently varied in both food-relatedness and pleasantness, under conditions of both hunger and satiety. In two sessions, 25 subjects sniffed odorants that they had previously identified as varying in pleasantness (unpleasant, neutral, pleasant) and as food-related or not, as well as odorant blanks. During one session, the subjects were in a state of relative hunger, while in the second session, they had recently eaten. Sniffs were monitored using the Sniff Magnitude Test (Frank et al. 2006. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg, 132, 532–36), which sampled the changes in air pressure produced by the sniff and calculated the magnitude and time course of pressure changes. Sniffs, whether to odorants or blanks, were significantly longer and had higher overall and peak amplitudes when the subjects were hungry. Longer sniffs and overall greater amplitude were also elicited by pleasant, than by either neutral or unpleasant, odorants. Whether an odorant was food-related or not had no impact on any measured sniff parameters. These data reinforce a view that sniffing in humans is, as has been shown in rats, a means of exploring the environment in response to increased motivation to consume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have assessed the effect of malingering on behavioral measures of olfactory functioning. Understanding the limitations of these measures may aid in the accurate interpretation of atypical test results produced by research participants and patients assessed in clinical settings. This study investigated the susceptibility of two measures of olfaction to naïve and sophisticated attempts to malinger. Sixty particpants were randomly assigned to three conditions that varied in the amount of coaching they received on how to successfully malinger on two measures of olfactory dysfunction. Both the University of Pennslyvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) and the Sniff Magnitude Test (SMT: a measure of odor-induced sniff suppression) appear susceptible to malingering. The UPSIT was more successful at detecting naïve malingerers than the SMT, but even modest coaching enabled most participants to successfully fake an olfactory impairment. The SMT was more resistant to malingering than the UPSIT in that the majority of participants attempting to fake an olfactory deficit performed in the normal range. The combination of the two tests proved to be the most effective approach to the accurate assessment of olfactory ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The federal government has played a significant role in the financing the education of healthcare professionals since the introduction of Medicare in 1965. However, professional psychology's limited ability to argue the critical nature of its services to the welfare of the nation, and its lack of national workforce information and policy, has hindered its inclusion in Medicare's Graduate Medical Education (GME) program. This paper discusses the evolution and current status of healthcare workforce policy in the United States, and the implications for psychology and the training of future professionals. Also described are recent efforts by the American Psychological Association (APA) and a few psychologists to include professional psychology in the GME program. The importance of organized psychology's sustained involvement in national health policy is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Human Well-Being" by Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer.

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD) is a structural heart disease affecting young adults that leads to cardiac rhythm disorders including supraventricular and mostly ventricular arrhythmias. Sudden death may be the first presentation of the disease. Ablation techniques have been used for the treatment of ventricular tachycardia in cases resistant to drug therapy. Radiofrequency is appropriate as a first approach for ventricular tachycardia ablation in ARVD; however, its effectiveness is less than 40% at the first session. Fulguration is effective for ventricular tachycardia ablation and should be used in the same session after ineffective radiofrequency ablation. However, fulguration requires expertise, general anesthesia, and more than one session in half of all patients. Radiofrequency and fulguration plus other common forms of treatment including pacemakers and automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillators provides a clinical success rate of 81% to 93% in a series of 50 consecutive patients studied during 16 years. Earlier poor reputation of fulguration was the result of poorly understood technical problems concerning the physics and biophysics of the procedure under control with presently available methods. This in-depth study of a large population over a long time period demonstrates that fulguration should be rehabilitated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue for a reconceptualization of the Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG) formalism, in which the elementary structures are collections of c-command relations, and the combinatory operation is substitution. We show how the formalism we sketch resolves a number of problems for TAG that have been identified in the literature. Additionally, we demonstrate that our proposal is preferable to other previously proposed extensions to TAG, for example D-tree grammars (Rambow et al., 1995), in that it preserves many of the linguistically desirable aspects of TAG's restrictiveness, specifically concerning the derivation of locality constraints on unbounded dependencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: During radiofrequency catheter ablation of a common atrial flutter between the tricuspid annulus and the Eustachian valve “septal isthmus”, double potentials were recorded along the Eustachian valve, previously described as an anatomical line of conduction block between the coronary sinus ostium and the inferior vena cava. Results: Just before flutter termination, lengthening and beat to beat delay variations between the 2 components of the double potentials were correlated with simultaneous modifications of the flutter cycle length. Conclusion: The “septal isthmus” is a common pathway for the flutter wavefront and the impulse generating the second component of the double potential. It is also a good target for flutter ablation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbothermic reduction of alumina was studied in the temperature range of 1700°C to 1850°C in the presence of either tin or copper as the metallic solvent. The total pressure in the smelting system was controlled at pressures between 0.08 and 0.20 atm. The overall reaction is AlO(s)+3C(s)=2 Al+3CO(g). The rate of reduction of alumina was found to depend strongly on temperature, increasing by three orders of magnitude between 1700°C and 1850°C. Total pressure and activity of aluminum in the solvent bath also affected the rate of reduction. Changes in the alumina particle type and size, in the carbon type, in the carbon-to-oxygen ratio, and in the pellet size had little effect on the rate of reduction of alumina. The kinetics of reduction are shown to follow a pseudo-first order kinetic model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State Medicaid programs are rapidly converting fee-for-service health delivery systems to managed care for people with disabilities. In theory, managed care models of health delivery will substantially improve the quality of care for people with disabilities, but in reality, few successful models exist. This period of transition holds both opportunities and challenges for psychologists in medical settings. Because Medicaid reforms for people with disabilities may herald similar reforms for both the public and the private sectors, psychology's response will determine its role in the future of health care delivery for this population. Changes in training and increased attention to outcomes research, innovations in practice, and advocacy will be the keys to success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The administrative structure of academic health centers is reviewed, with a view to understanding the issues of marketing psychological services within that setting. The slow changes at academic health centers to new practice styles requires psychology to formulate a market strategy addressing the traditional specialist model and another plan responsive to the emerging model emphasizing primary care. Market targets for psychologists include administration, physicians, and patients. Presently, the Association of Medical School Psychologists is working with the Association of Academic Health Centers to design a marketing program targeting leaders at academic health centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relationships of the dispositional variables of hope, positive affectivity (PA), and negative affectivity (NA) with disease status and illness-related psychosocial functioning in a sample of 45 young adults with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Canonical analyses revealed one significant canonical function between the dispositional and psychosocial outcome variables. Primary contributors to the relationship were higher NA and lower PA and maladaptive emotional behavior. A linear multiple regression analysis using hope and affectivity as predictors failed to account for a significant proportion of variance in objective disease status as measured by hemoglobin A 1C (HbA1C). The results support previous findings that affectivity may relate to self-reported, disease-related outcome, but not necessarily to objective measures of health status. Future studies of adaptation to chronic illness should consider including measures of illness-related behaviors (e.g., adherence), as well as subjective and objective measures of health status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift Für Zellforschung und Mikroskopische Anatomie is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Focuses on the research conducted by Cruz and Green revealing the creation of a taste sensation in humans by changing the temperature of a small area of the tongue. Publication of the research on a year 2000 issue of `Nature'; Interaction between gustatory and somatosensory receptors; Theory of taste coding.

Machine learning (ML) is a key technology for accurate prediction of antibody-antigen binding. Two orthogonal problems hinder the application of ML to antibody-specificity prediction and the benchmarking thereof: the lack of a unified ML formalization of immunological antibody-specificity prediction problems and the unavailability of large-scale synthetic datasets to benchmark real-world relevant ML methods and dataset design. Here we developed the Absolut! software suite that enables parameter-based unconstrained generation of synthetic lattice-based three-dimensional antibody-antigen-binding structures with ground-truth access to conformational paratope, epitope and affinity. We formalized common immunological antibody-specificity prediction problems as ML tasks and confirmed that for both sequence- and structure-based tasks, accuracy-based rankings of ML methods trained on experimental data hold for ML methods trained on Absolut!-generated data. The Absolut! framework has the potential to enable real-world relevant development and benchmarking of ML strategies for biotherapeutics design., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.)