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Objective: Cognitive dysfunction is common in multiple sclerosis (MS). The Brief International Cognitive Assessment for MS (BICAMS) battery of tests has been suggested as a measure for the evaluation of the cognitive status of MS patients. This study aims to validate the BICAMS battery in the Russian population of MS patients. Methods: Age- and sex-matched MS patients (n = 98) and healthy individuals (n = 86) were included in the study. Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), California Verbal Learning Test, 2nd edition (CVLT-II) and the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test – Revised (BVMT-R) were administered to all participants. The battery was readministered 1 month later to 44 MS patients to investigate the test–retest reliability. Results: MS patients exhibited a significantly lower performance in testing with BICAMS than the control group in all three neuropsychological tests. Test–retest reliability was good for SDMT and CVLT-II (r = .82 and r = .85, respectively) and adequate for BVMT-R (r = .70). Based on the proposed criterion for impairment as z score below 1.5 SD the mean of the control group, we found that 34/98 (35%) of MS patients were found impaired at least in one cognitive domain. Patients with Expanded Disability Status Scale score ≥3.5 performed significantly worse than controls (SDMT, p < .0001; CVLT–II, p = .03; BVMT-R, p = .0004), while those with ≤3.0 scores did not. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the BICAMS battery is a valid instrument to identify cognitive impairment in MS patients and it can be recommended for routine use in the Russian Federation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We demonstrate an adaptive wave-front shaping of optical beams transmitted through fiber bundles as a powerful resource for multisite, high-resolution bioimaging. With the phases of all the beamlets delivered through up to 6000 different fibers within the fiber bundle controlled individually, by means of a high-definition spatial light modulator, the overall beam transmitted through the fiber bundle can be focused into a beam waist with a diameter less than 1 μm within a targeted area in a biotissue, providing a diffraction-limited spatial resolution adequate for single-cell or even subcellular bioimaging. The field intensity in the adaptively-focused continuous-wave laser beam in our fiber-bundle-imaging setting is more than two orders of magnitude higher than the intensity of the speckle background. Once robust beam focusing was achieved with a suitable phase profile across the input face of the fiber bundle, the beam focus can be scanned over a targeted area with no need for a further adaptive search, by applying a physically intuitive, wave-front-tilting phase mask on the field of input beamlets. This method of beam-focus scanning promises imaging speeds compatible with the requirements of in vivo calcium imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of the paper is to develop a framework for weak observational equivalences in the setting of a real-time partial order model. In particular, we introduce a family of equivalences of linear time – branching time spectrum based on interleaving, causal tree and partial order semantics, in the setting of a dense time extension of stable event structures with internal actions. We study the relationships between the equivalences showing, on one hand, the discriminating power of the approaches of the spectrum and, on the other hand, the coincidence of some semantics in a concrete approach. Furthermore, when dealing with particular subclasses of the model under consideration, there is no difference between more concrete and more abstract observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]