Identification of the early warning signs (EWS) of relapse is key to relapse prevention in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, however, limitations to their precision have been reported. Substantial ...methodological innovations have recently been applied to the prediction of psychotic relapse and to individual psychotic symptoms. However, there has been no systematic review that has integrated findings across these two related outcomes and no systematic review of EWS of relapse for a decade.
We conducted a systematic review of EWS of psychotic relapse and the behavioural antecedents of worsening psychotic symptoms. Traditional EWS and ecological momentary assessment/intervention studies were included. We completed meta-analyses of the pooled sensitivity and specificity of EWS in predicting relapse, and for the prediction of relapse from individual symptoms.
Seventy two studies were identified including 6903 participants. Sleep, mood, and suspiciousness, emerged as predictors of worsening symptoms. Pooled sensitivity and specificity of EWS in predicting psychotic relapse was 71% and 64% (AUC value = 0.72). There was a large pooled-effect size for the model predicting relapse from individual symptom which did not reach statistical significance (d = 0.81, 95%CIs = -0.01, 1.63).
Important methodological advancements in the prediction of psychotic relapse in schizophrenia spectrum disorders are evident with improvements in the precision of prediction. Further efforts are required to translate these advances into effective clinical innovations.
The aim of arthroscopic Bankart repair is restoration of the anterior block mechanism and regaining stability. There are few studies that have tested the adequacy of the angle made with the glenoid ...and the height from the glenoid level of the repaired labral tissue, but the correlation with the clinical results is not clear. The aim of this study was to defi ne the correlation of the height and slope of the repaired labral tissue in the glenoid anterior with the clinical results. MATERIAL AND METHODS This prospective study included 20 patients who underwent an arthroscopic Bankart repair. To evaluate the labrum anatomy of the affected shoulder, 4 measurement parameters were defi ned as axial height (Ah), axial slope (As), oblique coronal height (Ch), and oblique coronal slope (Cs) on non-contrast T2 MRI. The measurements were taken preoperatively of the affected shoulder and at 1 year postoperatively of both the affected shoulder and the contralateral asymptomatic shoulder. The measured values were compared with each other and with the contralateral shoulder. Correlations of the anatomic values with the Constant-Murley scores recorded at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months postoperatively were examined with the Wilcoxon test. RESULTS The mean preoperative Constant score of the patients was 57.7 (32-77) and postoperative scores at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months were 63.6 (44-79), 77.8 (61-90), 89.6 (77-100), and 95.2 (79-100), respectively (p=0.001). There was a statistically signifi cant difference in the preoperative MRI measurements of the axial and oblique coronal plane labral height and slope values compared to the postoperative values and those of the asymptomatic contralateral shoulder (p< 0.05 for all). There was no statistically signifi cant difference between the labral height and slope values of both planes postoperatively compared to the asymptomatic contralateral shoulder (p= 0.776, p= 0.910, p= 0.132, p= 0.589, respectively). These increases in the radiological data were not found to be statistically signifi cant in the correlation analysis with the increases in the Constant-Murley scores (Ah p=0.935, As p=0.587, Ch p=0.078, Cs p=0.105). CONCLUSIONS This prospective study was conducted using conventional T2 magnetic resonance imaging, which was suffi cient for the measurement of labral height and slope. This study results showed no signifi cant correlation between the radiological and clinical outcomes.
Bankart repair, labrum height, labrum slope, functional result.
The Neutrinos Angra Experiment has completed a major step by finishing the commissioning of the detector and the data acquisition system at the experimental site located in the Angra dos Reis nuclear ...power plant. The experiment, consisting of a water-based detector and associated electronics, was designed with the goal of detecting the electron antineutrinos produced by the nuclear reactor. The detection is possible due to the Inverse Beta Decay, where the final products in the water are photons in the UV-to-visible range of the spectrum. The assembled detector comprises three active volumes filled with water: (i) a cubic detector (Target) for electron antineutrinos, covered by 32 8-inch photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), (ii) a lateral layer surrounding the Target (Lateral veto) equipped with 4 PMTs and (iii) a third volume covering the top of both (Top veto), also equipped with 4 PMTs. In the present document the main features of the detector assembly as well as the integration of the readout electronics on-site are reported. Finally, some operational characteristics are shown based on analysis of the first measurements performed with the fully working detector.
The ν-Angra experiment aims to estimate the flux of antineutrino particles coming out from the Angra II nuclear reactor. Such flux is proportional to the thermal power released in the fission process ...and therefore can be used to infer the quantity of fuel that has been burned during a certain period. To do so, the ν-Angra Collaboration has developed an antineutrino detector and a complete acquisition system to readout and store the signals generated by its sensors. The entire detection system has been installed inside a container laboratory placed beside the dome of the nuclear reactor, in a restricted zone of the Angra II site. The system is supposed to work standalone for a few years in order to collect enough data so that the experiment can be validated. The detector's readout electronics and its environmental conditions are crucial parts of the experiment and they should work autonomously and be controlled and monitored remotely. Additionally, threshold configuration is a central issue of the experiment since antineutrino particles produce low energy signals in the detector, being necessary to carefully adjust it for all the detector channels in order to make the system capable of detecting signals as low as those generated by single photons. To this end, an embedded system was developed and integrated to the detection apparatus installed in the container at the Angra II site and is now operational and accessible to the ν-Angra Collaboration. This article aims at describing the proposed embedded system and presenting the results obtained during its commissioning phase.
The effects of extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields of 75
Hz were studied on different membrane-associated enzymes. Only the activities of three enzymes out of seven exposed to the field ...decreased approximately of about 54–61% with field amplitudes above a threshold of 73–151
μT depending on the enzyme. The same field had no effect on the activities of either integral membrane enzymes such as Ca,ATPase, Na/K,ATPase, and succinic dehydrogenase or peripheral membrane enzymes such as photoreceptor PDE. The decrease in enzymatic activity of the field-sensitive enzymes was independent of the time of permanence in the field and was completely reversible. When these enzymes were solubilized with Triton, no effect of the field was obtained on the enzymatic activity, suggesting the crucial role of the membrane in determining the conditions for enzyme inactivation. The role of the particular linkage of the field-sensitive enzymes to the membranes is also discussed.
There are two popular statistical approaches to biomarker evaluation. One models the risk of disease (or disease outcome) with, for example, logistic regression. A marker is considered useful if it ...has a strong effect on risk. The second evaluates classification performance by use of measures such as sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and receiver operating characteristic curves. There is controversy about which approach is more appropriate. Moreover, the two approaches can give contradictory results on the same data. The authors present a new graphic, the predictiveness curve, which complements the risk modeling approach. It assesses the usefulness of a risk model when applied to the population. Although the predictiveness curve relates to classification performance measures, it also displays essential information about risk that is not displayed by the receiver operating characteristic curve. The authors propose that the predictiveness and classification performance of a marker, displayed together in an integrated plot, provide a comprehensive and cohesive assessment of a risk marker or model. The methods are demonstrated with data on prostate-specific antigen and risk factors from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial, 1993–2003.
ABSTRACT
Eclipsing binaries are important benchmark objects to test and calibrate stellar structure and evolution models. This is especially true for binaries with a fully convective M-dwarf ...component for which direct measurements of these stars’ masses and radii are difficult using other techniques. Within the potential of M-dwarfs to be exoplanet host stars, the accuracy of theoretical predictions of their radius and effective temperature as a function of their mass is an active topic of discussion. Not only the parameters of transiting exoplanets but also the success of future atmospheric characterization relies on accurate theoretical predictions. We present the analysis of five eclipsing binaries with low-mass stellar companions out of a subsample of 23, for which we obtained ultra-high-precision light curves using the CHEOPS satellite. The observation of their primary and secondary eclipses are combined with spectroscopic measurements to precisely model the primary parameters and derive the M-dwarfs mass, radius, surface gravity, and effective temperature estimates using the PYCHEOPS data analysis software. Combining these results to the same set of parameters derived from TESS light curves, we find very good agreement (better than 1 per cent for radius and better than 0.2 per cent for surface gravity). We also analyse the importance of precise orbits from radial velocity measurements and find them to be crucial to derive M-dwarf radii in a regime below 5 per cent accuracy. These results add five valuable data points to the mass–radius diagram of fully convective M-dwarfs.
The vehicular illumination system has undergone considerable technological advances in recent decades such as the use of a Light Emitting Diode (LED) Adaptive Front-lighting System (AFS), which ...represents an industry breakthrough in lighting technology and is rapidly becoming one of the most important innovative technologies around the world in the lighting community. This paper presents AFS control alternatives using fuzzy logic (types 1 and 2) to determine its operating parameters taking into consideration the road conditions in the state of São Paulo (Brazil). Fuzzy logic is a well-known extension of the conventional (Boolean) logic that enables the treatment of uncertainty present in the information through the definition of intermediary membership values between the “completely true” and the “completely false”. This technique or modeling strategy is particularly important when a multi-parameter decision must be taken or the decisions are based on the human knowledge. The results show the potential of the methodology proposed and its suitability for light control providing safer nighttime driving.
The ν-Angra experiment has developed an antineutrino detector intended to operate at sea level, a few dozen meters from the core of a nuclear reactor. The operating principle of the detector is based ...on the water Cherenkov light detection to be in compliance with the safety rules of the power plant operator. The detector is exposed to a high rate of background events, mainly due to cosmic rays, making its veto system a key element for efficient background rejection. The ν-Angra Collaboration has designed a veto detector composed of three layers filled with water for both passive shielding and active detection of crossing particles. The veto surrounds a volume of 1.50 × 1.05 × 1.39 m3, in which a target detector is placed, where the search for anti-neutrino events occurs. Any external particle hitting the detector must cross at least 25 cm of water before reaching this internal volume, which is protected by the veto structure, thus providing an important barrier against neutrons and low energy particles. In addition, the veto system has been instrumented with eight 8-inch photomultiplier tubes to detect external particles that may eventually reach the target detector. By making use of a trigger system based on scintillating paddles, energy distribution and detection efficiency of the veto system were assessed for different detector positions. This paper, therefore, presents the achieved results related to the characterization of such system concerning the detection of cosmic-ray muon particles passing through it.
The fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory Abreu, P.; Aguirre, C.; Argirò, S. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
2010, Letnik:
620, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The Pierre Auger Observatory is a hybrid detector for ultra-high energy cosmic rays. It combines a surface array to measure secondary particles at ground level together with a fluorescence detector ...to measure the development of air showers in the atmosphere above the array. The fluorescence detector comprises 24 large telescopes specialized for measuring the nitrogen fluorescence caused by charged particles of cosmic ray air showers. In this paper we describe the components of the fluorescence detector including its optical system, the design of the camera, the electronics, and the systems for relative and absolute calibration. We also discuss the operation and the monitoring of the detector. Finally, we evaluate the detector performance and precision of shower reconstructions.
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