Gambling against neglect: unconscious spatial biases induced by reward reinforcement in healthy people and brain-damaged patients.

Orienting attention in space recruits fronto-parietal networks whose damage results in unilateral spatial neglect. However, attention orienting may also be governed by emotional and motivational factors; but it remains unknown whether these factors act through a modulation of the fronto-parietal attentional systems or distinct neural pathways. Here we asked whether attentional orienting is affected by learning about the reward value of targets in a visual search task, in a spatially specific manner, and whether these effects are preserved in right-brain damaged patients with left spatial neglect. We found that associating rewards with left-sided (but not right-sided) targets during search led to progressive exploration biases towards left space, in both healthy people and neglect patients. Such spatially specific biases occurred even without any conscious awareness of the asymmetric reward contingencies. These results show that reward-induced modulations of space representation are preserved despite a dysfunction of fronto-parietal networks associated with neglect, and therefore suggest that they may arise through spared subcortical networks directly acting on sensory processing and/or oculomotor circuits. These effects could be usefully exploited for potentiating rehabilitation strategies in neglect patients.

Exploring the use of mobile communications in a sample of older people: Preliminary results of a case study in Los Angeles

This paper introduces a qualitative case study on mobile communication among the older population (60+ years old) conducted in Great Los Angeles (CA, USA) in autumn 2011. Methodology, fieldwork and preliminary results are discussed.Before, country-level data is presented to better understand the specific characteristics of the studied individuals. The section focus is on demographics and on acceptance and use of information and communication technologies (ICT).Preliminary results show that within the sample under study (20 individuals) there is a high number of mobile phone users (15) while among non-mobile users (5), three of them decide to stop using this technology. A majority of mobile phone adopters describe a very limited use of the device for everyday life communications. Finally,while Internet is really popular within the sample (14 users), just 3 individuals go online through their mobile telephone.

Evolution of Gait Performance and Fear of Falling after a 10-Week Program of Exercise Training in Community Dwelling Older People

A pilot study was conducted to determine the effect of a 10-week, low intensity, exercise training program on fear of falling and gait in fifty (mean age 78.1 years, 79% women) community-dwelling volunteers. Fear of falling (measured by falls self-efficacy) and gait performance were assessed at baseline and one week after program completion. At follow-up, participants modestly improved their falls self-efficacy and gait speed. To investigate whether this effect differed according to participants' fear of falling, secondary analyses stratified by subject's baseline falls efficacy were performed. Subjects with lower than average falls efficacy improved significantly their falls efficacy and gait performance, while no significant change occurred in the others. Small but significant improvements occurred after this pilot training program, particularly in subjects with low baseline falls efficacy. These results suggest that measures of falls efficacy might be useful for better targeting individuals most likely to benefit from similar training programs.

Prevalence and predictors of suicide attempt in an incidence cohort of 661 young people with first-episode psychosis

OBJECTIVES: Studies investigating suicidal behaviour in psychosis rarely focus on incidence cohorts of first-episode patients. This is important, because patients who refuse study participation have higher rates of comorbid substance use disorders and longer duration of untreated psychosis as well as worse course illness, variables potentially linked to higher prevalence of suicidal behaviour. The aims of the present study were therefore to examine the prevalence and predictors of suicide and suicide attempt before and during the first 18-24 months of treatment. METHOD: A retrospective file audit of 661 patients was carried out. RESULTS: Six patients (0.9%) died by suicide, 93 (14.3%) attempted suicide prior to entry, and 57 (8.7%) did so during treatment. Predictors of suicide attempt were: previous attempt (odds ratio (OR)=45.54, 95% confidence interval (CI)=9.46-219.15), sexual abuse (OR=8.46, 95%CI=1.88-38.03), comorbid polysubstance (OR=13.63, 95%CI=2.58-71.99), greater insight (OR=0.17, 95%CI=0.06-0.49), lower baseline Global Assessment of Functioning Scale and Scale of Occupational and Functional Assessment score (OR=0.96, 95%CI=0.62-0.91; OR=0.98, 95%CI=0.95-0.99), and longer time in treatment (OR=1.05, 95%CI=1.03-1.08). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of suicidal behaviour was high, indicating that suicidal behaviour in incidence populations is higher than in non-epidemiological cohorts of first-episode patients. The rate of repetition of suicide attempt among the sample, however, was lower than expected, suggesting that specialist services can play a role in reducing suicide risk.

Reinforcement learning utilizes proxemics: an avatar learns to manipulate the position of people in immersive virtual reality

A reinforcement learning (RL) method was used to train a virtual character to move participants to a specified location. The virtual environment depicted an alleyway displayed through a wide field-of-view head-tracked stereo head-mounted display. Based on proxemics theory, we predicted that when the character approached within a personal or intimate distance to the participants, they would be inclined to move backwards out of the way. We carried out a between-groups experiment with 30 female participants, with 10 assigned arbitrarily to each of the following three groups: In the Intimate condition the character could approach within 0.38m and in the Social condition no nearer than 1.2m. In the Random condition the actions of the virtual character were chosen randomly from among the same set as in the RL method, and the virtual character could approach within 0.38m. The experiment continued in each case until the participant either reached the target or 7 minutes had elapsed. The distributions of the times taken to reach the target showed significant differences between the three groups, with 9 out of 10 in the Intimate condition reaching the target significantly faster than the 6 out of 10 who reached the target in the Social condition. Only 1 out of 10 in the Random condition reached the target. The experiment is an example of applied presence theory: we rely on the many findings that people tend to respond realistically in immersive virtual environments, and use this to get people to achieve a task of which they had been unaware. This method opens up the door for many such applications where the virtual environment adapts to the responses of the human participants with the aim of achieving particular goals.

How Accurate Are Blood (or Breath) Tests for Identifying Self-Reported Heavy Drinking Among People with Alcohol Dependence?

AIMS: Managing patients with alcohol dependence includes assessment for heavy drinking, typically by asking patients. Some recommend biomarkers to detect heavy drinking but evidence of accuracy is limited. METHODS: Among people with dependence, we assessed the performance of disialo-carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (%dCDT, ≥1.7%), gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT, ≥66 U/l), either %dCDT or GGT positive, and breath alcohol (> 0) for identifying 3 self-reported heavy drinking levels: any heavy drinking (≥4 drinks/day or >7 drinks/week for women, ≥5 drinks/day or >14 drinks/week for men), recurrent (≥5 drinks/day on ≥5 days) and persistent heavy drinking (≥5 drinks/day on ≥7 consecutive days). Subjects (n = 402) with dependence and current heavy drinking were referred to primary care and assessed 6 months later with biomarkers and validated self-reported calendar method assessment of past 30-day alcohol use. RESULTS: The self-reported prevalence of any, recurrent and persistent heavy drinking was 54, 34 and 17%. Sensitivity of %dCDT for detecting any, recurrent and persistent self-reported heavy drinking was 41, 53 and 66%. Specificity was 96, 90 and 84%, respectively. %dCDT had higher sensitivity than GGT and breath test for each alcohol use level but was not adequately sensitive to detect heavy drinking (missing 34-59% of the cases). Either %dCDT or GGT positive improved sensitivity but not to satisfactory levels, and specificity decreased. Neither a breath test nor GGT was sufficiently sensitive (both tests missed 70-80% of cases). CONCLUSIONS: Although biomarkers may provide some useful information, their sensitivity is low the incremental value over self-report in clinical settings is questionable.

Gait disturbances as specific predictive markers of the first fall onset in elderly people: a two-year prospective observational study

Falls are common in the elderly, and potentially result in injury and disability. Thus, preventing falls as soon as possible in older adults is a public health priority, yet there is no specific marker that is predictive of the first fall onset. We hypothesized that gait features should be the most relevant variables for predicting the first fall. Clinical baseline characteristics (e.g., gender, cognitive function) were assessed in 259 home-dwelling people aged 66 to 75 that had never fallen. Likewise, global kinetic behavior of gait was recorded from 22 variables in 1036 walking tests with an accelerometric gait analysis system. Afterward, monthly telephone monitoring reported the date of the first fall over 24 months. A principal components analysis was used to assess the relationship between gait variables and fall status in four groups: non-fallers, fallers from 0 to 6 months, fallers from 6 to 12 months and fallers from 12 to 24 months. The association of significant principal components (PC) with an increased risk of first fall was then evaluated using the area under the Receiver Operator Characteristic Curve (ROC). No effect of clinical confounding variables was shown as a function of groups. An eigenvalue decomposition of the correlation matrix identified a large statistical PC1 (termed "Global kinetics of gait pattern"), which accounted for 36.7% of total variance. Principal component loadings also revealed a PC2 (12.6% of total variance), related to the "Global gait regularity." Subsequent ANOVAs showed that only PC1 discriminated the fall status during the first 6 months, while PC2 discriminated the first fall onset between 6 and 12 months. After one year, any PC was associated with falls. These results were bolstered by the ROC analyses, showing good predictive models of the first fall during the first six months or from 6 to 12 months. Overall, these findings suggest that the performance of a standardized walking test at least once a year is essential for fall prevention.

Warlike outlines of the securitarian state. Life control and the exclusion of people

Present book collects some of the thoughts developed during the 5 years (2004-2009) of work in the frame of the CHALLENGE project, "The Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security". The project has related academic knowledge and research with the analysis of the policies and practices of the member States of the European Union [EU] around the couple liberty and security

A genetic risk score combining 32 SNPs is associated with body mass index and improves obesity prediction in people with major depressive disorder.

BACKGROUND: Obesity is strongly associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) and various other diseases. Genome-wide association studies have identified multiple risk loci robustly associated with body mass index (BMI). In this study, we aimed to investigate whether a genetic risk score (GRS) combining multiple BMI risk loci might have utility in prediction of obesity in patients with MDD. METHODS: Linear and logistic regression models were conducted to predict BMI and obesity, respectively, in three independent large case-control studies of major depression (Radiant, GSK-Munich, PsyCoLaus). The analyses were first performed in the whole sample and then separately in depressed cases and controls. An unweighted GRS was calculated by summation of the number of risk alleles. A weighted GRS was calculated as the sum of risk alleles at each locus multiplied by their effect sizes. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to compare the discriminatory ability of predictors of obesity. RESULTS: In the discovery phase, a total of 2,521 participants (1,895 depressed patients and 626 controls) were included from the Radiant study. Both unweighted and weighted GRS were highly associated with BMI (P <0.001) but explained only a modest amount of variance. Adding 'traditional' risk factors to GRS significantly improved the predictive ability with the area under the curve (AUC) in the ROC analysis, increasing from 0.58 to 0.66 (95% CI, 0.62-0.68; χ(2) = 27.68; P <0.0001). Although there was no formal evidence of interaction between depression status and GRS, there was further improvement in AUC in the ROC analysis when depression status was added to the model (AUC = 0.71; 95% CI, 0.68-0.73; χ(2) = 28.64; P <0.0001). We further found that the GRS accounted for more variance of BMI in depressed patients than in healthy controls. Again, GRS discriminated obesity better in depressed patients compared to healthy controls. We later replicated these analyses in two independent samples (GSK-Munich and PsyCoLaus) and found similar results. CONCLUSIONS: A GRS proved to be a highly significant predictor of obesity in people with MDD but accounted for only modest amount of variance. Nevertheless, as more risk loci are identified, combining a GRS approach with information on non-genetic risk factors could become a useful strategy in identifying MDD patients at higher risk of developing obesity.

Once and for all - How people change strategy to ignore irrelevant information in visual tasks

Ignoring irrelevant visual information aids efficient interaction with task environments. We studied how people, after practice, start to ignore the irrelevant aspects of stimuli. For this we focused on how information reduction transfers to rarely practised and novel stimuli. In Experiment 1, we compared competing mathematical models on how people cease to fixate on irrelevant parts of stimuli. Information reduction occurred at the same rate for frequent, infrequent, and novel stimuli. Once acquired with some stimuli, it was applied to all. In Experiment 2, simplification of task processing also occurred in a once-for-all manner when spatial regularities were ruled out so that people could not rely on learning which screen position is irrelevant. Apparently, changes in eye movements were an effect of a once-for-all strategy change rather than a cause of it. Overall, the results suggest that participants incidentally acquired knowledge about regularities in the task material and then decided to voluntarily apply it for efficient task processing. Such decisions should be incorporated into accounts of information reduction and other theories of strategy change in skill acquisition.

Research and development, where people are exposed to nanomaterials

OBJECTIVES: Many nanomaterials (materials with structures smaller than 100 nm) have chemical, physical and bioactive characteristics of interest for novel applications. Considerable research efforts have been launched in this field. This study aimed to study exposure scenarios commonly encountered in research settings. METHODS: We studied one of the leading Swiss universities and first identified all research units dealing with nanomaterials. After a preliminary evaluation of quantities and process types used, a detailed analysis was conducted in units where more than a few micrograms were used per week. RESULTS: In the investigated laboratories, background levels were usually low and in the range of a few thousand particles per cubic centimeter. Powder applications resulted in concentrations of 10,000 to 100,000 particles/cm(3) when measured inside fume hoods, but there were no or mostly minimal increases in the breathing zone of researchers. Mostly low exposures were observed for activities involving liquid applications. However, centrifugation and lyophilization of nanoparticle-containing solutions resulted in high particle number levels (up to 300,000 particles/cm(3)) in work spaces where researchers did not always wear respiratory protection. No significant increases were found for processes involving nanoparticles bound to surfaces, nor were they found in laboratories that were visualizing properties and structure of small amounts of nanomaterials. CONCLUSIONS: Research activities in modern laboratories equipped with control techniques were associated with minimal releases of nanomaterials into the working space. However, the focus should not only be on processes involving nanopowders but should also be on processes involving nanoparticle-containing liquids, especially if the work involves physical agitation, aerosolization or drying of the liquids.