Search

The author examines collateral estoppel application to nontraditional litigation findings and argues for the adoption of per se prohibitions in such cases.

Objectives Our aim was to validate the online Brain Health Assessment (BHA) for detection of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) compared to gold-standard neuropsychological assessment. We compared the diagnostic accuracy of the BHA to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Methods Using a cross-sectional design, community-dwelling older adults completed a neuropsychological assessment, were diagnosed as normal cognition (NC) or aMCI, and completed the BHA and MoCA. Both logistic regression (LR) and penalized logistic regression (PLR) analyses determined BHA and demographic variables predicting aMCI; MoCA variables were similarly modeled. Diagnostic accuracy was compared using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC AUC) analyses. Results Ninety-one participants met inclusion criteria (51 aMCI, 40 NC). PLR modeling for the BHA indicated Face–Name Association, Spatial Working Memory, and age-predicted aMCI (ROC AUC = 0.76; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.66–0.86). Optimal cut-points resulted in 21% classified as aMCI (positive), 23% negative, and 56% inconclusive. For the MoCA, digits, abstraction, delayed recall, orientation, and age predicted aMCI (ROC AUC = 0.71; 95% CI: 0.61–0.82). Optimal cut-points resulted in 22% classified positive, 8% negative, and 70% inconclusive (LR results presented within). The BHA model classified fewer participants into the inconclusive category and more as negative for aMCI, compared to the MoCA model (Stuart–Maxwell p =.004). Discussion The self-administered BHA provides similar detection of aMCI as a clinician-administered screener (MoCA), with fewer participants classified inconclusively. The BHA has the potential to save practitioners time and decrease unnecessary referrals for a comprehensive assessment to determine the presence of aMCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The production of autobiographical narratives requires linguistic structures and the ability to access and generate both semantic information and episodic details of personal events. Aims: This study investigated autobiographical narratives produced by individuals with established semantic memory impairments (semantic variant primary progressive aphasia; svPPA) or episodic memory impairments (amnestic mild cognitive impairment; aMCI) in order to investigate whether different categories of memory impairment would manifest different linguistic deficits. Methods & Procedures: We used the Autobiographical Interview and Quantitative Production Analysis methods to investigate linguistic production during autobiographical recall. Additional investigations compared the production of present and past tense inflections in order to look for morpho-syntactic differences in the sets of episodic and semantic information. Outcomes and Results: The results showed that individuals with svPPA produced fewer well-formed sentences when producing episodic details and produced fewer past tense inflections when producing semantic details in comparison to healthy controls. The aMCI group produced fewer episodic utterances but produced a larger number of words in the set of semantic details, in comparison to healthy controls. Conclusions: It is possible that specific demands related to the type of message being conveyed, or high cognitive load during retrieval of episodic information may affect the narration process. Difficulty in the retrieval of episodic information is likely related to reduced production of episodic utterances in individuals with aMCI and may be related to deficits in linguistic production in svPPA. We propose that the results in the set of semantic details are connected to previous findings relating to semantic memory and deficits in discourse coherence in both groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Age-related differences in cognition are typically assessed by comparing groups of older to younger participants, but little is known about the continuous trajectory of cognitive changes across age, or when a shift to older adulthood occurs. We examined the pattern of mean age differences and variability on episodic memory and executive function measures over the adult life span, in a more fine-grained way than past group or life-span comparisons. Method We used a sample of over 40,000 people aged 18–90 who completed psychometrically validated online tests measuring episodic memory and executive functions (the Cogniciti Brain Health Assessment). Results Cognitive performance declined gradually over adulthood, and rapidly later in life on spatial working memory, processing speed, facilitation (but not interference), associative recognition, and set shifting. Both polynomial and segmented regression fit the data well, indicating a nonlinear pattern. Segmented regression revealed a shift from gradual to rapid decline that occurred in the early 60s. Variability between people (interindividual variability or diversity) and variability within a person across tasks (intraindividual variability or dispersion) also increased gradually until the 60s, and rapidly after. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a single general factor (of variance shared between tasks) offered a good fit for performance across tasks. Discussion Life-span cognitive performance shows a nonlinear pattern, with gradual decline over early and mid-adulthood, followed by a transition in the 60s to notably accelerated, but more variable, decline. Some people show less decline than others, and some cognitive abilities show less within-person decline than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Erosion leading to sedimentation in surface water may disrupt aquatic habitats and deliver sediment‐bound nutrients that contribute to eutrophication. Land use changes causing loss of native vegetation have accelerated already naturally high erosion rates in New Zealand and increased sedimentation in streams and lakes. Sediment‐bound phosphorus (P) makes up 71–79% of the 17–19 t P y−1 delivered from anthropogenic sources to Lake Rotorua in New Zealand. Detainment bunds (DBs) were first implemented in the Lake Rotorua catchment in 2010 as a strategy to address P losses from pastoral agriculture. The bunds are 1.5–2 m high earthen stormwater retention structures constructed across the flow path of targeted low‐order ephemeral streams with the purpose of temporarily ponding runoff on productive pastures. The current DB design protocol recommends a minimum pond volume of 120 m3 ha−1 of contributing catchment with a maximum pond storage capacity of 10 000 m3. No previous study has investigated the ability of DBs to decrease annual suspended sediment (SS) loads leaving pastoral catchments. Annual SS yields delivered to two DBs with 20 ha and 55 ha catchments were 109 and 28 kg SS ha−1, respectively, during this 12‐month study. The DBs retained 1280 kg (59%) and 789 kg (51%) of annual SS loads delivered from the catchments as a result of the bunds' ability to impede stormflow and facilitate soil infiltration and sediment deposition. The results of this study highlight the ability of DBs to decrease SS loads transported from pastures in surface runoff, even during large storm events, and suggests DBs are able to reduce P loading in Lake Rotorua. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As large research initiatives designed to generate big data on clinical cohorts become more common, there is an increasing need to establish standard quality assurance (QA; preventing errors) and quality control (QC; identifying and correcting errors) procedures for critical outcome measures. The present article describes the QA and QC approach developed and implemented for the neuropsychology data collected as part of the Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative study. We report on the efficacy of our approach and provide data quality metrics. Our findings demonstrate that even with a comprehensive QA protocol, the proportion of data errors still can be high. Additionally, we show that several widely used neuropsychological measures are particularly susceptible to error. These findings highlight the need for large research programs to put into place active, comprehensive, and separate QA and QC procedures before, during, and after protocol deployment. Detailed recommendations and considerations for future studies are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]