•Monetary policy news affects yields much longer-maturity yields than we would normally expect.•Existing explanations focus on information about short-run expectations being propagated to longer ...maturities.•We show that communication about uncertainty can explain the reaction of future expectations more easily.•Studying the Bank of England’s Inflation Report using machine-learning, we show the importance of this uncertainty channel.
Why do long-run interest rates respond to central bank communication? Whereas existing explanations imply a common set of signals drives short and long-run yields, we show that news on economic uncertainty can have increasingly large effects along the yield curve. To evaluate this channel, we use the publication of the Bank of England’s Inflation Report, from which we measure a set of high-dimensional signals. The signals that drive long-run interest rates do not affect short-run rates and operate primarily through the term premium. This suggests communication plays an important role in shaping perceptions of long-run uncertainty.
We propose a definition of saliency by considering what the visual system is trying to optimize when directing attention. The resulting model is a Bayesian framework from which bottom-up saliency ...emerges naturally as the self-information of visual features, and overall saliency (incorporating top-down information with bottom-up saliency) emerges as the pointwise mutual information between the features and the target when searching for a target. An implementation of our framework demonstrates that our model's bottom-up saliency maps perform as well as or better than existing algorithms in predicting people's fixations in free viewing. Unlike existing saliency measures, which depend on the statistics of the particular image being viewed, our measure of saliency is derived from natural image statistics, obtained in advance from a collection of natural images. For this reason, we call our model SUN (Saliency Using Natural statistics). A measure of saliency based on natural image statistics, rather than based on a single test image, provides a straightforward explanation for many search asymmetries observed in humans; the statistics of a single test image lead to predictions that are not consistent with these asymmetries. In our model, saliency is computed locally, which is consistent with the neuroanatomy of the early visual system and results in an efficient algorithm with few free parameters.
To systematically review the relationship between lumbar proprioception and low back pain (LBP).
Four electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus) and reference lists of relevant ...articles were searched from inception to March-April 2014.
Studies compared lumbar proprioception in patients with LBP with controls or prospectively evaluated the relationship between proprioception and LBP. Two reviewers independently screened articles and determined inclusion through consensus.
Data extraction and methodologic quality assessment were independently performed using standardized checklists.
Twenty-two studies (1203 participants) were included. Studies measured lumbar proprioception via active or passive joint repositioning sense (JRS) or threshold to detection of passive motion (TTDPM). Data from 17 studies were pooled for meta-analyses to compare patients with controls. Otherwise, descriptive syntheses were performed. Data were analyzed according to measurement method and LBP subgroup. Active JRS was worse in patients compared with controls when measured in sitting (standard mean difference, .97; 95% confidence interval CI, .31-1.64). There were no differences between groups measured via active JRS in standing (standard mean difference, .41; 95% CI, -.07 to .89) or passive JRS in sitting (standard mean difference, .38; 95% CI, -.83 to 1.58). Patients in the O'Sullivan flexion impairment subgroup had worse proprioception than the total LBP cohort. The TTDPM was significantly worse in patients than controls. One prospective study found no link between lumbar proprioception and LBP.
Patients with LBP have impaired lumbar proprioception compared with controls when measured actively in sitting positions (particularly those in the O'Sullivan flexion impairment subgroup) or via TTDPM. Clinicians should consider the relationship between sitting and proprioception in LBP and subgroup patients to guide management. Further studies focusing on subgroups, longitudinal assessment, and improving proprioception measurement are needed.
Background:
Hyperuricemia is associated strongly with the development of hypertension, renal disease, and progression. Allopurinol decreases serum uric acid levels by inhibiting the enzyme xanthine ...oxidase. We hypothesized that administrating allopurinol to decrease serum uric acid levels to the normal range in hyperuricemic patients with chronic kidney disease may be of benefit in decreasing blood pressure and slowing the rate of renal disease progression in these patients.
Methods:
We conducted a prospective, randomized, controlled trial of 54 hyperuricemic patients with chronic kidney disease. Patients were randomly assigned to treatment with allopurinol, 100 to 300 mg/d, or to continue the usual therapy for 12 months. Clinical, hematologic, and biochemical parameters were measured at baseline and 3, 6, and 12 months of treatment. We define our study end points as: (1) stable kidney function with less than 40% increase in serum creatinine level, (2) impaired renal function with creatinine level increase greater than 40% of baseline value, (3) initiation of dialysis therapy, and (4) death.
Results:
One patient in the treatment group dropped out because of skin allergy to allopurinol. Serum uric acid levels were significantly decreased in subjects treated with allopurinol, from 9.75 ± 1.18 mg/dL (0.58 ± 0.07 mmol/L) to 5.88 ± 1.01 mg/dL (0.35 ± 0.06 mmol/L;
P < 0.001). There were no significant differences in systolic or diastolic blood pressure at the end of the study comparing the 2 groups. There was a trend toward a lower serum creatinine level in the treatment group compared with controls after 12 months of therapy, although it did not reach statistical significance (
P = 0.08). Overall, 4 of 25 patients (16%) in the allopurinol group reached the combined end points of significant deterioration in renal function and dialysis dependence compared with 12 of 26 patients (46.1%) in the control group (
P = 0.015).
Conclusion:
Allopurinol therapy significantly decreases serum uric acid levels in hyperuricemic patients with mild to moderate chronic kidney disease. Its use is safe and helps preserve kidney function during 12 months of therapy compared with controls. Results of this study need to be confirmed with an additional prospective trial involving a larger cohort of patients to determine the long-term efficacy of allopurinol therapy and in specific chronic kidney disease subpopulations.
Social anxiety (SA) is thought to be maintained in part by avoidance of social threat, which exacerbates fear of negative evaluation. Yet, relatively little research has been conducted to evaluate ...the connection between social anxiety and attentional processes in realistic contexts. The current pilot study examined patterns of attention (eye movements) in a commonly feared social context – public speaking. Participants (N = 84) with a range of social anxiety symptoms gave an impromptu five-minute speech in an immersive 360°-video environment, while wearing a virtual reality headset equipped with eye-tracking hardware. We found evidence for the expected interaction between fear of public speaking and social threat (uninterested vs. interested audience members). Consistent with prediction, participants with greater fear of public speaking looked fewer times at uninterested members of the audience (high social threat) compared to interested members of the audience (low social threat) b = 0.418, p = 0.046, 95% CI 0.008, 0.829. Analyses of attentional indices over the course of the speech revealed that the interaction between fear of public speaking and gaze on audience members was only significant in the first three-minutes. Our results provide support for theoretical models implicating avoidance of social threat as a maintaining factor in social anxiety. Future research is needed to test whether guided attentional training targeting in vivo attentional avoidance may improve clinical outcomes for those presenting with social anxiety.
•Realistic 360°-video immersive environment elicits anxiety during a speech.•Greater fear of public speaking is linked to specific gaze behaviors.•Uninterested (socially threatening) audience members are avoided most.•Greater avoidance is linked to greater fear of public speaking.•Avoidance fades over the course of the speech.
While it is universally acknowledged that both bottom up and top down factors contribute to allocation of gaze, we currently have limited understanding of how top-down factors determine gaze choices ...in the context of ongoing natural behavior. One purely top-down model by Sprague, Ballard, and Robinson (2007) suggests that natural behaviors can be understood in terms of simple component behaviors, or modules, that are executed according to their reward value, with gaze targets chosen in order to reduce uncertainty about the particular world state needed to execute those behaviors. We explore the plausibility of the central claims of this approach in the context of a task where subjects walk through a virtual environment performing interceptions, avoidance, and path following. Many aspects of both walking direction choices and gaze allocation are consistent with this approach. Subjects use gaze to reduce uncertainty for task-relevant information that is used to inform action choices. Notably the addition of motion to peripheral objects did not affect fixations when the objects were irrelevant to the task, suggesting that stimulus saliency was not a major factor in gaze allocation. The modular approach of independent component behaviors is consistent with the main aspects of performance, but there were a number of deviations suggesting that modules interact. Thus the model forms a useful, but incomplete, starting point for understanding top-down factors in active behavior.
Purpose
To present and assess an outlier mitigation method that makes free‐running volumetric cardiovascular MRI (CMR) more robust to motion.
Methods
The proposed method, called compressive recovery ...with outlier rejection (CORe), models outliers in the measured data as an additive auxiliary variable. We enforce MR physics‐guided group sparsity on the auxiliary variable, and jointly estimate it along with the image using an iterative algorithm. For evaluation, CORe is first compared to traditional compressed sensing (CS), robust regression (RR), and an existing outlier rejection method using two simulation studies. Then, CORe is compared to CS using seven three‐dimensional (3D) cine, 12 rest four‐dimensional (4D) flow, and eight stress 4D flow imaging datasets.
Results
Our simulation studies show that CORe outperforms CS, RR, and the existing outlier rejection method in terms of normalized mean square error and structural similarity index across 55 different realizations. The expert reader evaluation of 3D cine images demonstrates that CORe is more effective in suppressing artifacts while maintaining or improving image sharpness. Finally, 4D flow images show that CORe yields more reliable and consistent flow measurements, especially in the presence of involuntary subject motion or exercise stress.
Conclusion
An outlier rejection method is presented and tested using simulated and measured data. This method can help suppress motion artifacts in a wide range of free‐running CMR applications.
Shared decision making in patients with glomerular disease remains challenging because outcomes important to patients remain largely unknown. We aimed to identify and prioritize outcomes important to ...patients and caregivers and to describe reasons for their choices.
We purposively sampled adult patients with glomerular disease and their caregivers from Australia, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Participants identified, discussed, and ranked outcomes in focus groups using the nominal group technique; a relative importance score (between zero and one) was calculated. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically.
Across 16 focus groups, 134 participants (range, 19-85 years old; 51% women), including 101 patients and 33 caregivers, identified 58 outcomes. The ten highest-ranked outcomes were kidney function (importance score of 0.42), mortality (0.29), need for dialysis or transplant (0.22), life participation (0.18), fatigue (0.17), anxiety (0.13), family impact (0.12), infection and immunity (0.12), ability to work (0.11), and BP (0.11). Three themes explained the reasons for these rankings: constraining day-to-day experience, impaired agency and control over health, and threats to future health and family.
Patients with glomerular disease and their caregivers highly prioritize kidney health and survival, but they also prioritize life participation, fatigue, anxiety, and family impact.
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