Cognitive adaptation, psychological adjustment, and disease progression among angioplasty patents: 4 years later.

The long-term effects of the Cognitive Adaptation Theory Index (CATI) on psychological and physical health outcomes among men (n=199) and women (n=99) treated for coronary artery disease with percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty were examined. The CATI reflects a positive view of the self, a positive view of one's future, and a sense of personal control over daily life. This index was created from questionnaires administered during hospitalization for the initial angioplasty. Four years later, the CATI predicted positive adjustment to disease, even when initial adjustment was taken into consideration. In addition, the CATI predicted a reduced likelihood of sustaining a subsequent cardiac event over 4 yrs. This association was more robust for men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of the Basal Ganglia in Category Learning: How Do Patients With Parkinson's Disease Learn?

The purpose of the present study was to gain a deeper understanding of the role of the basal ganglia in learning and memory by examining learning strategies among patients with basal ganglia dysfunction. Using a probabilistic category learning task (the "weather prediction" task) previously shown to be sensitive to basal ganglia function, the authors examined patterns of performance during learning and used mathematical models to capture different learning strategies. Results showed that patients with Parkinson's disease exhibit different patterns of strategy use. Specifically, most controls initially used a simple, but suboptimal, strategy that focused on single-cue-outcome associations; eventually, however, most controls adopted a more complex, optimal learning strategy, integrating single-cue associations to predict outcomes for multiple-cue stimuli. In contrast, the majority of individuals with Parkinson's disease continued to rely on simple single-cue learning strategies throughout the experiment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empirical assessment of a threshold model for sylvatic plague.

Plague surveillance programmes established in Kazakhstan, Central Asia, during the previous century, have generated large plague archives that have been used to parameterize an abundance threshold model for sylvatic plague in great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus) populations. Here, we assess the model using additional data from the same archives. Throughout the focus, population levels above the threshold were a necessary condition for an epizootic to occur. However, there were large numbers of occasions when an epizootic was not observed even though great gerbils were, and had been, abundant. We examine six hypotheses that could explain the resulting false positive predictions, namely (i) including end-of-outbreak data erroneously lowers the estimated threshold, (ii) too few gerbils were tested, (iii) plague becomes locally extinct, (iv) the abundance of fleas was too low, (v) the climate was unfavourable, and (vi) a high proportion of gerbils were resistant. Of these, separate thresholds, fleas and climate received some support but accounted for few false positives and can be disregarded as serious omissions from the model. Small sample size and local extinction received strong support and can account for most of the false positives. Host resistance received no support here but should be subject to more direct experimental testing.     

桥梁病害桩基的加固处理

通过对铁路桥梁钻孔灌注桩病害事故的分析 ,探讨在保证列车安全运营条件下的临时加固措施 ,并提出了对此问题的一些看法     

经食道心房调搏的放射性核素心血管造影

本文应用反符合电路剔除调搏脉冲干扰的方法,制成经食道心房调搏心电心音门电路触发装置,用于经食道心房调搏的核素心血管造影。参考Tzivoni标准,当逐级增加调搏心率至140次/min或亚极量心率后发现:冠心病人有调搏后EF降低;急性心肌梗塞病人EF减低更为明显,并呈室壁反向运动。因此,心房调搏核素心血管造影有助于冠心病,特别是心肌梗塞的诊断。     

一种高效挖掘冠心病医案关联规则的仿真研究

研究中医冠心病医案,高效挖掘有益信息规则问题,由于中医医案数据量大、关联性强,针对传统的关联规则挖掘算法处理中医医案数据时存在效率低、收敛速度慢及漏报规则等问题,提出一种小生境技术和基因表达式编程相结合的挖掘关联规则的方法。通过惩罚函数设置支持度阈值,利用小生境技术执行小生境演化、融合算法,结合基因表达式编程算法操作简单、鲁棒性强的优势搜索强关联规则,有效避免了算法早熟,解决了规则冗余。针对治疗冠心病的中医医案进行了验证性实验,实验结果表明,改进算法在提取有效信息的效率上有较大的提高,挖掘结果对冠心病中医临床诊治具有一定的参考价值。     

Role of HMOX1 Promoter Genetic Variants in Chemoresistance and Chemotherapy Induced Neutropenia in Children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Whilst the survival rates of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have increased remarkably over the last decades, the therapy resistance and toxicity are still the major causes of treatment failure. It was shown that overexpression of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) promotes proliferation and chemoresistance of cancer cells. In humans, the HO-1 gene (HMOX1) expression is modulated by two polymorphisms in the promoter region: (GT)n-length polymorphism and single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) A(−413)T, with short GT repeat sequences and 413-A variants linked to an increased HO-1 inducibility. We found that the short alleles are significantly more frequent in ALL patients in comparison to the control group, and that their presence may be associated with a higher risk of treatment failure, reflecting the role of HO-1 in chemoresistance. We also observed that the presence of short alleles may predispose to develop chemotherapy-induced neutropenia. In case of SNP, the 413-T variant co-segregated with short or long alleles, while 413-A almost selectively co-segregated with long alleles, hence it is not possible to determine if SNPs are actually of phenotypic significance. Our results suggest that HO-1 can be a potential target to overcome the treatment failure in ALL patients.