Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that accounts for nearly 70% of the more than 46 million dementia cases estimated worldwide. Although there is no cure for AD, early diagnosis ...and an accurate characterization of the disease progression can improve the quality of life of AD patients and their caregivers. Currently, AD diagnosis is carried out using standardized mental status examinations, which are commonly assisted by expensive neuroimaging scans and invasive laboratory tests, thus rendering the diagnosis time consuming and costly. Notwithstanding, over the last decade, electroencephalography (EEG) has emerged as a noninvasive alternative technique for the study of AD, competing with more expensive neuroimaging tools, such as MRI and PET. This paper reports on the results of a systematic review on the utilization of resting-state EEG signals for AD diagnosis and progression assessment. Recent journal articles obtained from four major bibliographic databases were analyzed. A total of 112 journal articles published from January 2010 to February 2018 were meticulously reviewed, and relevant aspects of these papers were compared across articles to provide a general overview of the research on this noninvasive AD diagnosis technique. Finally, recommendations for future studies with resting-state EEG were presented to improve and facilitate the knowledge transfer among research groups.
Motor imagery brain–computer interface (MI-BCI) is one of the most used paradigms in EEG-based brain–computer interface (BCI). The current state-of-the-art in BCI involves tuning classifiers to ...subject-specific training data, acquired over several sessions, in order to perform calibration prior to actual use of the so-called subject-specific BCI system (SS-BCI). Herein, the goal is to provide a ready-to-use system requiring minimal effort for setup. Thus, our challenge was to design a subject-independent BCI (SI-BCI) to be used by any new user without the constraint of individual calibration. Outcomes from other studies with the same purpose were used to undertake comparisons and validate our findings. For the EEG signal processing, we used a combination of the delta (0.5–4 Hz), alpha (8–13 Hz), and beta+gamma (13–40 Hz) bands at a stage prior to feature extraction. Next, we extracted features from the 27-channel EEG using common spatial pattern (CSP) and performed binary classification (MI of right- and left-hand) with linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers. These analyses were done for both the SS-BCI and SI-BCI models. We employed “
leave-one-subject-out
” (LOSO) arrangement and 10-fold cross-validation to evaluate our SI-BCI and SS-BCI systems, respectively. Compared with other two studies, our work was the only one that showed higher accuracy for the LDA classifier in SI-BCI as compared to SS-BCI. On the other hand, LDA accuracy was lower than accuracy achieved with SVM in both conditions (SI-BCI and SS-BCI). Our SS-BCI accuracy reached 76.85% using LDA and 94.20% using SVM and for SI-BCI we got 80.30% with LDA and 83.23% with SVM. We conclude that SI-BCI may be a feasible and relevant option, which can be used in scenarios where subjects are not able to submit themselves to long training sessions or to fast evaluation of the so called “BCI illiteracy.” Comparatively, our strategy proved to be more efficient, giving us the best result for SI-BCI when faced against the classification performances of other three studies, even considering the caveat that different datasets were used in the comparison of the four studies.
Graphical abstract
This text explores how the public purpose doctrine reconciles the often conflicting, but equally binding, obligations that states have to engage in regulatory sovereignty while honoring host-state ...obligations to protect foreign investment. The work examines the multiple permutations and iterations of the public purpose doctrine and concludes that this principle needs to be reconceptualized to meet the imperatives of economic globalization and of a new paradigm of sovereignty that is based on the interdependence, and not independence, of states. It contends that the historical expression of the public purpose doctrine in customary and conventional international law is fraught with fundamental flaws that, if not corrected, will give rise to disparities in the relationship between investors and states, asymmetries with respect to industrialized nations and developing states, and, ultimately, process legitimacy concerns.
Abstract
Across the literature, there is large variation in lamb birth weight responses to changes in the ewe pregnancy nutrition. Much of this heterogeneity has been attributed to several factors ...inherent to each experiment; however, the relative contribution of these experimental factors has not yet been quantified. This meta-analysis aimed to systematically review the variation in lamb birth weight responses across nutritional studies involving adult multiparous ewes. Effect-sizes for individual studies were estimated using the unbiased estimator Hedges’ g, whereby positive and negative values indicate heavier and lighter treatment lambs vs. controls, respectively. Heterogeneity varied between early-, mid- and late-pregnancy undernutrition studies (I2total early pregnancy = 19.90%, I2total midpregnancy = 52.10%, I2total late pregnancy = 68.70%). The small average effects for early- (0.04, highest posterior density HPD interval = −0.22, 0.28) and mid-pregnancy undernutrition (−0.15, HPD interval = −0.35, 0.05) suggest that if farmers anticipate a potential feed shortage, ewes can be allowed to lose weight providing nutrition is resumed to adequate levels later in pregnancy. On the contrary, late-pregnancy undernutrition was associated with a significant decrease in lamb birth weight (−0.72, HPD interval = −0.86, −0.55). Thus, management practices should focus on ensuring adequate nutrition in late pregnancy. Increasing lamb birth weight could be possible by feeding ewes above their pregnancy maintenance requirement (0.23, HPD interval = 0.002, 0.48), though the number of studies is limited and further research is needed.
The present work aims to evaluate the treatment of the effluent from the textile industry via advanced oxidative processes of photo-Fenton assisted by different sources (natural sunlight, UV-A or ...visible LED lamps). To identify the best operating conditions, a factorial design was carried out for each process. It was observed that after the optimization of the processes, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removals greater than 88% were achieved. In addition, it was observed that the use of the LED lamp required lower reagent concentrations compared to solar and UV-A sources. A kinetic study was carried out under the best conditions obtained and it was observed that the sources showed rapid evolution, reaching a COD removal equilibrium with 30 min of reaction. Reagent monitoring was also carried out, and it was observed that they were not limiting to the reaction. Phytotoxicity analysis was also satisfactory since the treated effluents allowed a higher relative growth and germination index of the cucumber roots compared to the raw effluent. Finally, the cost analysis indicated that the use of LED lamps resulted in a reduction in electrical consumption compared to the UV-A lamp, as well as a reduction in the cost of reagents due to the lower concentration of reagents required compared to processes assisted by natural sunlight and UV-A.
Triplet-bearing ewes and their lambs have the potential to improve flock productivity however, the lack of robust information on optimal nutrition and management is limiting their performance. In ...comparison to twins, the triplet lamb is; lighter, more metabolically challenged, has lower body temperature, and receives less colostrum and milk which combined results in lower survival rates and weaning weights. While scientifically based management guidelines are available for singletons and twins, guidelines are generally lacking for triplets. Although there is some knowledge on the impacts of nutrition, further studies are required to examine the impacts of varying feeding regimens in pregnancy and lactation, across the body condition range. Characterising the impacts of shelter and other paddock factors, stocking rate, mob size and human intervention would also be of benefit. Future studies must be large enough to allow for evaluation of lamb survival and litter birth weight variation.
Objective: To ascertain whether insulin‐like growth factor 1 (IGF1) is associated with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and is a useful predictor of the disease. Although its aetiopathogenesis is ...multifactorial, development of the disease appears to be related to a deficiency in IGF1, a hormone that acts together with vascular endothelial growth factor in the normal angiogenesis in the retina.
Design: Prospective study for a 30‐month period.
Participants: A total of 74 premature newborn babies, of less than 1500 g and/or 32 weeks’ gestational age or less.
Testing: To determine the development and severity of ROP.
Main outcome measures: Serum levels of IGF1 were measured once a week from birth until 40 weeks corrected gestational age in each subject.
Results: Of our subjects, 32.4% developed some form of ROP, and all those ROP patients had the following characteristics at birth (median ± standard deviation scores): low weight (1098 ± 188 vs. 1393 ± 285 g), short length (36.74 ± 1.77 vs. 38.89 ± 3.08 cm), small cranial perimeter (26.03 ± 1.74 vs. 27.93 ± 1.81 cm) and young gestational age (29.7 ± 1.78 vs. 31.3 ± 1.79 weeks) (p < 0.05). Other factors previously associated with ROP that were also observed with statistically significant frequency in our ROP patients were bronchopulmonary dysplasia, intracranial haemorrhage, the need for erythrocyte transfusion or treatment with erythropoietin and sepsis (all p < 0.05). Levels of IGF1 at the 3rd week post‐partum, independent of gestational age at birth, were clearly lower in the group who developed ROP (29.13 vs. 43.16 ng/mL, p < 0.05). A value of 30 ng/mL of IGF1 in the third week post‐partum was found to have a 90% sensitivity in the diagnosis of ROP. A rapid rise in IGF1 levels between the 3rd and 5th weeks appeared to be related to the development of a higher stage of ROP.
Conclusion: Determination of IGF1 serum levels in the 3rd week post‐partum, independent of gestational age at birth, provides a sufficient and reliable prognostic tool and allows the identification of a group of patients at high risk of developing the disease.
Keloids (K) and hypertrophic scars (HS) are abnormal responses to wound healing that occur as the result of dermal inflammation. Despite the advances on their treatment, many patients still suffer ...from the negative effects of excessive scarring; its approach is impaired by the lack of objective data on different treatments and the large genetic variability among patients and the difficulties in producing multicentre studies. Their incidence among the Brazilian population is high, as the result of an admixture of Amerindians, Europeans and Africans ancestral roots. With the aim of producing multicentre studies on K and HS, a panel of senior Brazilian dermatologists focused on their treatment was invited to contribute with the K and HS Treatment Brazilian Guidelines. In the first part of this study, different treatment modalities for keloids and HS are fully reviewed by the panel. The second part of the study presents a consensus recommendation of treatment for different types of lesions. More than a literature review, this article aims to show the pitfalls and pearls of each therapeutic option, as well as a therapeutic approach by the Panel of Experts on keloids and Scars on a highly mixed population, providing simple guidelines.
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