The music of language: an ERP investigation of the effects of musical training on emotional prosody processing

Recent studies have demonstrated the positive effects of musical training on the perception of vocally expressed emotion. This study investigated the effects of musical training on event-related potential (ERP) correlates of emotional prosody processing. Fourteen musicians and fourteen control subjects listened to 228 sentences with neutral semantic content, differing in prosody (one third with neutral, one third with happy and one third with angry intonation), with intelligible semantic content (semantic content condition--SCC) and unintelligible semantic content (pure prosody condition--PPC). Reduced P50 amplitude was found in musicians. A difference between SCC and PPC conditions was found in P50 and N100 amplitude in non-musicians only, and in P200 amplitude in musicians only. Furthermore, musicians were more accurate in recognizing angry prosody in PPC sentences. These findings suggest that auditory expertise characterizing extensive musical training may impact different stages of vocal emotional processing.

Gastrointestinal symptoms in scleroderma patients and its influence in body mass index and quality of life

BACKGROUND

Scleroderma (SSc) gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms may affect nutritional status and patients' quality of life.

OBJECTIVE

To study prevalence of GI symptoms and its relationship to nutritional profile and quality of life of patients with SSc.

METHODS

Fifty two SSc patients and 51 controls were studied for BMI (body mass index), dietary recall, major GI symptoms and quality of life by SF-12 questionnaire.

RESULTS

BMI in scleroderma patients was lower than controls (p=0.02) despite an almost similar food intake. Scleroderma patients had higher prevalence of upper gastrointestinal tract symptoms than controls (heartburn, nausea and vomiting, dysphagia and epigastric pain) that were not associated with BMI (p= 0.36) but diminished quality of life (p=0.02).

CONCLUSIONS

SSc patients have a lower BMI than controls and higher prevalence of GI symptoms that does not affect food intake but diminishes quality of life.

Sensitivity and specificity of machine learning classifiers for glaucoma diagnosis using Spectral Domain OCT and standard automated perimetry

PURPOSE

To evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of machine learning classifiers (MLCs) for glaucoma diagnosis using Spectral Domain OCT (SD-OCT) and standard automated perimetry (SAP).

METHODS

Observational cross-sectional study. Sixty two glaucoma patients and 48 healthy individuals were included. All patients underwent a complete ophthalmologic examination, achromatic standard automated perimetry (SAP) and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) imaging with SD-OCT (Cirrus HD-OCT; Carl Zeiss Meditec Inc., Dublin, California). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were obtained for all SD-OCT parameters and global indices of SAP. Subsequently, the following MLCs were tested using parameters from the SD-OCT and SAP: Bagging (BAG), Naive-Bayes (NB), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Radial Basis Function (RBF), Random Forest (RAN), Ensemble Selection (ENS), Classification Tree (CTREE), Ada Boost M1(ADA),Support Vector Machine Linear (SVML) and Support Vector Machine Gaussian (SVMG). Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (aROC) obtained for isolated SAP and OCT parameters were compared with MLCs using OCT+SAP data.

RESULTS

Combining OCT and SAP data, MLCs' aROCs varied from 0.777(CTREE) to 0.946 (RAN).The best OCT+SAP aROC obtained with RAN (0.946) was significantly larger the best single OCT parameter (p<0.05), but was not significantly different from the aROC obtained with the best single SAP parameter (p=0.19).

CONCLUSION

Machine learning classifiers trained on OCT and SAP data can successfully discriminate between healthy and glaucomatous eyes. The combination of OCT and SAP measurements improved the diagnostic accuracy compared with OCT data alone.

Sensitivity and specificity of machine learning classifiers and spectral domain OCT for the diagnosis of glaucoma

Purpose. To investigate the sensitivity and specificity of machine learning classifiers (MLC) and spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) for the diagnosis of glaucoma. Methods. Sixty-two patients with early to moderate glaucomatous visual field damage and 48 healthy individuals were included. All subjects underwent a complete ophthalmologic examination, achromatic standard automated perimetry, and RNFL imaging with SD-OCT (Cirrus HD-OCT; Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc., Dublin, California, USA). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were obtained for all SD-OCT parameters. Subsequently, the following MLCs were tested: Classification Tree (CTREE), Random Forest (RAN), Bagging (BAG), AdaBoost M1 (ADA), Ensemble Selection (ENS), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Radial Basis Function (RBF), Naive-Bayes (NB), and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Areas under the ROC curves (aROCs) obtained for each parameter and each MLC were compared. Results. The mean age was 57.0±9.2 years for healthy individuals and 59.9±9.0 years for glaucoma patients (p=0.103). Mean deviation values were -4.1±2.4 dB for glaucoma patients and -1.5±1.6 dB for healthy individuals (p<0.001). The SD-OCT parameters with the greater aROCs were inferior quadrant (0.813), average thickness (0.807), 7 o'clock position (0.765), and 6 o'clock position (0.754). The aROCs from classifiers varied from 0.785 (ADA) to 0.818 (BAG). The aROC obtained with BAG was not significantly different from the aROC obtained with the best single SD-OCT parameter (p=0.93). Conclusions. The SD-OCT showed good diagnostic accuracy in a group of patients with early glaucoma. In this series, MLCs did not improve the sensitivity and specificity of SD-OCT for the diagnosis of glaucoma.

SU-E-I-97: Characterizing the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) of Proton Radiography

PURPOSE

To characterize the modulation transfer function (MTF) of proton radiography using GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulations.

METHODS

A phantom was specifically modeled using five main materials: bone (1.92 g/cm³ ), muscle (1.2 g/cm³ ), water (1.0 g/cm³ ), adipose tissue (0.9 g/cm³ ), and lung (0.3 g/cm³ ). The basic geometry of the phantom consists of cube-shaped inserts of biological materials placed in water. The thickness of the water, the size of the cube, the depth of the cube in the water, and the proton beam energy have all been varied and studied. The contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) between the two materials was evaluated at multiple points along a line-of-interest (LOI) in order to ultimately characterize the spatial resolution by the 10% point of the modulation-transfer-function (MTF10% or MTF 10).

RESULTS

The MTF was generated for interfaces of water-lung, water-bone, water-muscle, water-adipose. This study indicates that proton radiography can distinguish one material from another with a resolution better than 1 mm for water-adipose and water-muscle or sub-millimeter in cases of water-bone and water-lung interfaces.

CONCLUSIONS

The sub-millimeter resolution of proton radiography offers clinicians a potentially tool in specific tumor diagnostics (such as in lung cancer), patient-setup for daily proton therapy, and the reduction of absorbed dose delivered when compared to photon imaging.

Zeólita na dieta de bovinos de corte

Avaliou-se o efeito da inclusão de zeólita na dieta de bovinos de corte sobre os parâmetros ruminais, as digestibilidades total e parcial, a produção de nitrogênio, a eficiência microbiana e as características do sangue. Os tratamentos, com base na matéria seca (MS) da dieta, foram: 0; 0,75; 1,5; 2,25 e 3,0% de zeólita. Utilizaram-se cinco bovinos machos mestiços, fistulados no rúmen e abomaso, alimentados com silagem de milho e concentrado, representando 65% de volumoso e 35% de concentrado. O delineamento utilizado foi em quadrado latino 5×5, com cinco períodos de 15 dias. Os animais receberam 15g de dióxido de titânio (TiO2) do terceiro ao 12º dia de cada período. Houve efeito (P<0,05) sobre o consumo diário (kg/dia) de proteína bruta (PB) e efeito (P<0,05) sobre o consumo de MS e de fibra em detergente neutro corrigida para cinza e proteína, expresso em g/kg de peso. A digestibilidade total dos nutrientes digestíveis totais (NDT) foi influenciada pelos tratamentos (P<0,05). A digestibilidade ruminal dos carboidratos não fibrosos (CNF) foi afetada quadraticamente (P<0,05), assim como a intestinal da PB e dos CNF. A ingestão e a excreção fecal de nitrogênio (g/dia) foram influenciadas linearmente (P<0,05) pela inclusão de zeólita. Concluiu-se que a adição de zeólita na dieta, embora tenha aumentado os consumos de MS e de FDN, não melhorou a utilização da ureia em dietas de bovinos de corte.

Vasoactive properties of calcitonin gene-related peptide in human skin

AIM

Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) is a potential mediator of neurogenic inflammation in eczema, psoriasis and rosacea, and also contributes to vasodilatation and oedema in complex regional pain disorder. We investigated the feasibility of administering CGRP and its antagonist CGRP8-37 by iontophoresis in human skin to characterise their vasoactive profiles.

METHODS

Two doses of each peptide were administered by iontophoresis (5 and 10 min duration at 0.1 mA) to the forearm skin of 6 healthy young men. Skin blood flow responses over 25 min were assessed using laser Doppler imaging.

RESULTS

Iontophoresis of CGRP caused a gradual change in blood flow, with no significant difference in response between each dose. The peak change in flow had a coefficient of variation of 21% to 36%, while the variability of the total cumulative response was much greater. Iontophoresis of CGRP8-37 for 5 min caused only a small, transient increase in skin blood flow, while 10 min iontophoresis resulted in a significant increase in blood flow.

CONCLUSION

CGRP and CGRP8-37 can be administered by iontophoresis to human skin. Further experiments are needed to determine the optimum duration of iontophoresis and period of measurement.

Chryseobacterium meningosepticum bacteremia in diabetic nephropathy patient on hemodialysis

The Chryseobacterium species are inhabitants of soil and water. In the hospital environment, they exist in water systems and wet surfaces. We report here a case of Chryseobacterium meningosepticum bacteremia in a diabetic nephropathy patient on hemodialysis. He was successfully treated with Vancomycin and ceftazidime for three weeks with good clinical outcome. This is the first case reported in dialysis patients from India.

Determination of eight selected organophosphorus insecticides in postmortem blood samples using solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

A simple, rapid and sensitive method is described for the determination of omethoate, dimethoate, diazinon, chlorpyrifos, parathion-ethyl, chlorfenvinphos, quinalphos and azinphos-ethyl in postmortem whole blood samples. The analytes and internal standard (ethion) were isolated from the matrix by solid-phase extraction, and were analysed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in the selected ion monitoring mode. The method has shown to be selective after analysis of postmortem samples of 40 different origins. Calibration curves were established between 0.05 (0.1 for omethoate) and 25 µg/mL, and the values obtained for intra- and interday precision and accuracy were within the criteria usually accepted for bioanalytical method validation. Lower limits of quantitation were 50 ng/mL for all compounds, except for omethoate (100 ng/mL); the limits of identification of the method were 25 ng/mL for all analytes, except for omethoate, for which 50 ng/mL was obtained. Absolute recovery was determined at three concentration levels, and ranged from 31 to 108%. The proposed method is simple and fast, and can be routinely applied in the determination of these compounds in postmortem whole blood samples within the scope of forensic toxicology. In addition, mass spectrometry has demonstrated to be a powerful and indispensable tool for the unequivocal identification of the analytes, since the acceptance criteria were accomplished even at very low levels, thus allowing obtaining forensically valid and sound results.