Reliability and validity of the cross-culturally adapted French version of the Core Outcome Measures Index (COMI) in patients with low back pain.

PURPOSE: To conduct a cross-cultural adaptation of the Core Outcome Measures Index (COMI) into French according to established guidelines. METHODS: Seventy outpatients with chronic low back pain were recruited from six spine centres in Switzerland and France. They completed the newly translated COMI, and the Roland Morris disability (RMQ), Dallas Pain (DPQ), adjectival pain rating scale, WHO Quality of Life, and EuroQoL-5D questionnaires. After ~14 days RMQ and COMI were completed again to assess reproducibility; a transition question (7-point Likert scale; "very much worse" through "no change" to "very much better") indicated any change in status since the first questionnaire. RESULTS: COMI whole scores displayed no floor effects and just 1.5% ceiling effects. The scores for the individual COMI items correlated with their corresponding full-length reference questionnaire with varying strengths of correlation (0.33-0.84, P < 0.05). COMI whole scores showed a very good correlation with the "multidimensional" DPQ global score (Rho = 0.71). 55 patients (79%) returned a second questionnaire with no/minimal change in their back status. The reproducibility of individual COMI 5-point items was good, with test-retest differences within one grade ranging from 89% for 'social/work disability' to 98% for 'symptom-specific well-being'. The intraclass correlation coefficient for the COMI whole score was 0.85 (95% CI 0.76-0.91). CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, the French version of this short, multidimensional questionnaire showed good psychometric properties, comparable to those reported for German and Spanish versions. The French COMI represents a valuable tool for future multicentre clinical studies and surgical registries (e.g. SSE Spine Tango) in French-speaking countries.

Correlação entre qualidade de vida e morbidade do cuidador de idoso com acidente vascular encefálico

Este estudo objetivou descrever as características sociodemográficas e a qualidade de vida dos cuidadores de idosos com histórico de acidente vascular cerebral e correlacionar o número de morbidades com os escores de qualidade de vida do cuidador. Inquérito domiciliar transversal que entrevistou cuidadores de idosos utilizando-se de instrumentos: semi-estruturado; World Health Organization Quality of Life-abreviado e Brazilian Multidimensional Functional Assessment Questionnaire. Foi realizada análise descritiva e correlação de Pearson (p<0,05). Prevaleceu o sexo feminino (93,5%), idade média de 55,4±14,17 anos, casados ou moram com companheiro (58,7%), com 4| - 8 anos de estudo (28,3%) e renda de 1 salário mínimo (34,8%). O maior escore de qualidade de vida foi no domínio relações sociais (67,57) e, menor no meio ambiente (54,82). O maior número de morbidades do cuidador correlacionou-se com menores escores em todos os domínios de qualidade de vida.

Subtype-specific Modulation of Acid-sensing Ion Channel (ASIC) Function by 2-Guanidine-4-methylquinazoline.

Acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) are neuronal Na(+)-selective channels that are transiently activated by extracellular acidification. ASICs are involved in fear and anxiety, learning, neurodegeneration after ischemic stroke, and pain sensation. The small molecule 2-guanidine-4-methylquinazoline (GMQ) was recently shown to open ASIC3 at physiological pH. We have investigated the mechanisms underlying this effect and the possibility that GMQ may alter the function of other ASICs besides ASIC3. GMQ shifts the pH dependence of activation to more acidic pH in ASIC1a and ASIC1b, whereas in ASIC3 this shift goes in the opposite direction and is accompanied by a decrease in its steepness. GMQ also induces an acidic shift of the pH dependence of inactivation of ASIC1a, -1b, -2a, and -3. As a consequence, the activation and inactivation curves of ASIC3 but not other ASICs overlap in the presence of GMQ at pH 7.4, thereby creating a window current. At concentrations >1 mm, GMQ decreases maximal peak currents by reducing the unitary current amplitude. Mutation of residue Glu-79 in the palm domain of ASIC3, previously shown to be critical for channel opening by GMQ, disrupted the GMQ effects on inactivation but not activation. This suggests that this residue is involved in the consequences of GMQ binding rather than in the binding interaction itself. This study describes the mechanisms underlying the effects of a novel class of ligands that modulate the function of all ASICs as well as activate ASIC3 at physiological pH.

U-Pb zircon dating of granitoids from the Dora-Maira massif (western Italian Alps)

Among the large number of granitic intrusions within the Dora-Maira massif, several main types can be distinguished. In this study we report field, petrographic and geochemical investigations as well as zircon typology and conventional U-Pb zircon dating of plutons representing these types. The main results are as follows: the Punta Muret augengneiss is a polymetamorphosed peraluminous granite of anatectic origin. It is 457 +/- 2 Ma old and represents one of the numerous Caledonian orthogneisses of the Alpine basement. All other dated granites are of Late Variscan age. The Cavour leucogranite is an evolved granite of probably calc-alkaline affiliation, dated at 304 +/- 2 Ma. The dioritic and granodioritic facies of the Malanaggio diorite (auct.) are typical calc-alkaline rocks, whose respective age of 290 +/- 2 and 288 +/- 2 Ma overlap within errors. The Sangone and Freidour granite types have very similar alkali-calcic characteristics; their ages are poorly constrained between 267-279 and 268-283 Ma, respectively. The new data for the Dora-Maira granites are in keeping with models of the overall evolution of the Late- to Post-Variscan magmatism in the Alpine area in terms of age distribution and progressive geochemical evolution towards alkaline melts. In a first approximation, granitic rocks across the Variscan belt seem to be increasingly younger towards the internal (southern) parts of the orogen. A Carboniferous, distensive Basin and Range situation is thought to be responsible for the magmatic activity. This tectonic context is comparable to the back-are opening of an active continental margin. The observed southward migration of the magmatism could be linked to the roll-back of the subducting Paleotethyan oceanic plate along the Variscan cordillera.

Dissection of the complex phenotype in cuticular mutants of Arabidopsis reveals a role of SERRATE as a mediator.

Mutations in LACERATA (LCR), FIDDLEHEAD (FDH), and BODYGUARD (BDG) cause a complex developmental syndrome that is consistent with an important role for these Arabidopsis genes in cuticle biogenesis. The genesis of their pleiotropic phenotypes is, however, poorly understood. We provide evidence that neither distorted depositions of cutin, nor deficiencies in the chemical composition of cuticular lipids, account for these features, instead suggesting that the mutants alleviate the functional disorder of the cuticle by reinforcing their defenses. To better understand how plants adapt to these mutations, we performed a genome-wide gene expression analysis. We found that apparent compensatory transcriptional responses in these mutants involve the induction of wax, cutin, cell wall, and defense genes. To gain greater insight into the mechanism by which cuticular mutations trigger this response in the plants, we performed an overlap meta-analysis, which is termed MASTA (MicroArray overlap Search Tool and Analysis), of differentially expressed genes. This suggested that different cell integrity pathways are recruited in cesA cellulose synthase and cuticular mutants. Using MASTA for an in silico suppressor/enhancer screen, we identified SERRATE (SE), which encodes a protein of RNA-processing multi-protein complexes, as a likely enhancer. In confirmation of this notion, the se lcr and se bdg double mutants eradicate severe leaf deformations as well as the organ fusions that are typical of lcr and bdg and other cuticular mutants. Also, lcr does not confer resistance to Botrytis cinerea in a se mutant background. We propose that there is a role for SERRATE-mediated RNA signaling in the cuticle integrity pathway.

Organizing principles across the senses

ABSTRACT This thesis is composed of two main parts. The first addressed the question of whether the auditory and somatosensory systems, like their visual counterpart, comprise parallel functional pathways for processing identity and spatial attributes (so-called `what' and `where' pathways, respectively). The second part examined the independence of control processes mediating task switching across 'what' and `where' pathways in the auditory and visual modalities. Concerning the first part, electrical neuroimaging of event-related potentials identified the spatio-temporal mechanisms subserving auditory (see Appendix, Study n°1) and vibrotactile (see Appendix, Study n°2) processing during two types of blocks of trials. `What' blocks varied stimuli in their frequency independently of their location.. `Where' blocks varied the same stimuli in their location independently of their frequency. Concerning the second part (see Appendix, Study n°3), a psychophysical task-switching paradigm was used to investigate the hypothesis that the efficacy of control processes depends on the extent of overlap between the neural circuitry mediating the different tasks at hand, such that more effective task preparation (and by extension smaller switch costs) is achieved when the anatomical/functional overlap of this circuitry is small. Performance costs associated with switching tasks and/or switching sensory modalities were measured. Tasks required the analysis of either the identity or spatial location of environmental objects (`what' and `where' tasks, respectively) that were presented either visually or acoustically on any given trial. Pretrial cues informed participants of the upcoming task, but not of the sensory modality. - In the audio-visual domain, the results showed that switch costs between tasks were significantly smaller when the sensory modality of the task switched versus when it repeated. In addition, switch costs between the senses were correlated only when the sensory modality of the task repeated across trials and not when it switched. The collective evidence not only supports the independence of control processes mediating task switching and modality switching, but also the hypothesis that switch costs reflect competitive interterence between neural circuits that in turn can be diminished when these neural circuits are distinct. - In the auditory and somatosensory domains, the findings show that a segregation of location vs. recognition information is observed across sensory systems and that these happen around 100ms for both sensory modalities. - Also, our results show that functionally specialized pathways for audition and somatosensation involve largely overlapping brain regions, i.e. posterior superior and middle temporal cortices and inferior parietal areas. Both these properties (synchrony of differential processing and overlapping brain regions) probably optimize the relationships across sensory modalities. - Therefore, these results may be indicative of a computationally advantageous organization for processing spatial anal identity information.

Chronic Disease in the Elderly: Spirituality and Coping

This is an exploratory study using a qualitative methodology which aimed to identify and understand the role of spirituality in the management of chronic disease in the elderly. The discourse analysis revealed the following central themes: multidimensional impact of chronic diseases, coping and expectations of the elderly. Regarding coping with chronic diseases, the individual coping, social support and religiosity/spirituality/faith were analyzed. The results showed the changes brought about the diagnosis of chronic disease and its implications for the adaptation to the new way of life. The management of these changes is complex and many factors influence positively and negatively in order to deal with the new condition. The results showed that spirituality/religiosity /faith interfere positively in addressing the barriers and difficulties of life, strengthening the resilience of the patient, thus improving their quality of life.

Social organization and mating system of free-ranging, greater white-toothed shrews, Crocidura russula

Indirect evidence from trapping suggests that Crocidura russula is less solitary and territorial than other shrews. To study the social organization and mating system, free-ranging adult and juvenile C. russula were tracked simultaneously throughout the year using a radioactive tracking technique. Coincident rest, coincident activity and home range overlap were measured. During winter, all individuals used the same communal nest and spent on average 84% of their total rest in coincident rest. This led to a large home range overlap (52% on average). Coincident activity was low (2% on average). At the onset of the reproductive season the females became, territorial and shared their nest with only one male. During pair formation, coincident activity and home range overlap were significantly greater between than within sexes. The social organization of C. russula appeared to be strongly influenced by season and differed in this respect from the other species in the genus Sorex which are territorial throughout the year.

Predicted effect of climate change on the invasibility and distribution of the Western corn root-worm

1 Insect pests, biological invasions and climate change are considered to representmajor threats to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, agriculture and forestry.Deriving hypothesis of contemporary and/or future potential distributions of insectpests and invasive species is becoming an important tool for predicting the spatialstructure of potential threats.2 The western corn rootworm (WCR) Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte is apest of maize in North America that has invaded Europe in recent years, resultingin economic costs in terms of maize yields in both continents. The present studyaimed to estimate the dynamics of potential areas of invasion by the WCR under aclimate change scenario in the Northern Hemisphere. The areas at risk under thisscenario were assessed by comparing, using complementary approaches, the spatialprojections of current and future areas of climatic favourability of the WCR. Spatialhypothesis were generated with respect to the presence records in the native rangeof the WCR and physiological thresholds from previous empirical studies.3 We used a previously developed protocol specifically designed to estimatethe climatic favourability of the WCR. We selected the most biologicallyrelevant climatic predictors and then used multidimensional envelope (MDE) andMahalanobis distances (MD) approaches to derive potential distributions for currentand future climatic conditions.4 The results obtained showed a northward advancement of the upper physiologicallimit as a result of climate change, which might increase the strength of outbreaksat higher latitudes. In addition, both MDE and MD outputs predict the stability ofclimatic favourability for the WCR in the core of the already invaded area in Europe,which suggests that this zone would continue to experience damage from this pestin Europe.

A randomized concave programming method for choice network revenue management

Models incorporating more realistic models of customer behavior, as customers choosing froman offer set, have recently become popular in assortment optimization and revenue management.The dynamic program for these models is intractable and approximated by a deterministiclinear program called the CDLP which has an exponential number of columns. However, whenthe segment consideration sets overlap, the CDLP is difficult to solve. Column generationhas been proposed but finding an entering column has been shown to be NP-hard. In thispaper we propose a new approach called SDCP to solving CDLP based on segments and theirconsideration sets. SDCP is a relaxation of CDLP and hence forms a looser upper bound onthe dynamic program but coincides with CDLP for the case of non-overlapping segments. Ifthe number of elements in a consideration set for a segment is not very large (SDCP) can beapplied to any discrete-choice model of consumer behavior. We tighten the SDCP bound by(i) simulations, called the randomized concave programming (RCP) method, and (ii) by addingcuts to a recent compact formulation of the problem for a latent multinomial-choice model ofdemand (SBLP+). This latter approach turns out to be very effective, essentially obtainingCDLP value, and excellent revenue performance in simulations, even for overlapping segments.By formulating the problem as a separation problem, we give insight into why CDLP is easyfor the MNL with non-overlapping considerations sets and why generalizations of MNL posedifficulties. We perform numerical simulations to determine the revenue performance of all themethods on reference data sets in the literature.

A new compact linear programming formulation for choice network revenue management

The choice network revenue management model incorporates customer purchase behavioras a function of the offered products, and is the appropriate model for airline and hotel networkrevenue management, dynamic sales of bundles, and dynamic assortment optimization.The optimization problem is a stochastic dynamic program and is intractable. A certainty-equivalencerelaxation of the dynamic program, called the choice deterministic linear program(CDLP) is usually used to generate dyamic controls. Recently, a compact linear programmingformulation of this linear program was given for the multi-segment multinomial-logit (MNL)model of customer choice with non-overlapping consideration sets. Our objective is to obtaina tighter bound than this formulation while retaining the appealing properties of a compactlinear programming representation. To this end, it is natural to consider the affine relaxationof the dynamic program. We first show that the affine relaxation is NP-complete even for asingle-segment MNL model. Nevertheless, by analyzing the affine relaxation we derive a newcompact linear program that approximates the dynamic programming value function betterthan CDLP, provably between the CDLP value and the affine relaxation, and often comingclose to the latter in our numerical experiments. When the segment consideration sets overlap,we show that some strong equalities called product cuts developed for the CDLP remain validfor our new formulation. Finally we perform extensive numerical comparisons on the variousbounds to evaluate their performance.

Morphological study of the thorax of the five nymphal instars of Triatoma arthurneivai Lent & Martins (Hemiptera, Reduviidae, Triatominae)

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was done in order to study dorsal, ventral and lateral sides of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th nymphal instars of Triatoma arthurneivai. The five nymphal instar can be recognized based on different pronotum, mesonotum and metanotum shapes and characteristics. In the 1st instar collar, hairless areas and tubercles are absent. The 2 nd instar presents collar, hairless areas and tubercles. In the 3rd instar occurs the development of wing pads. In the 4 th instar the four wing pads are expanded, but do not reach the abdomen and in the 5th instar the anterior wing pads almost overlap the posterior ones. At the ventral side, two metasternal glands openings (1+1) were found in all five nymphal instars. Brindley's gland evaporation areas (1+1) are located at the mesopleuron, as well as an evaporation area is located at the propleuron in all nymphal instars (1+1).

Unfolding a symmetric matrix

Graphical displays which show inter--sample distances are importantfor the interpretation and presentation of multivariate data. Except whenthe displays are two--dimensional, however, they are often difficult tovisualize as a whole. A device, based on multidimensional unfolding, isdescribed for presenting some intrinsically high--dimensional displays infewer, usually two, dimensions. This goal is achieved by representing eachsample by a pair of points, say $R_i$ and $r_i$, so that a theoreticaldistance between the $i$-th and $j$-th samples is represented twice, onceby the distance between $R_i$ and $r_j$ and once by the distance between$R_j$ and $r_i$. Self--distances between $R_i$ and $r_i$ need not be zero.The mathematical conditions for unfolding to exhibit symmetry are established.Algorithms for finding approximate fits, not constrained to be symmetric,are discussed and some examples are given.

A comparison of stock market mechanisms

This paper studies the relationship between the amount of publicinformation that stock market prices incorporate and the equilibriumbehavior of market participants. The analysis is framed in a static, NREEsetup where traders exchange vectors of assets accessing multidimensionalinformation under two alternative market structures. In the first(the unrestricted system), both informed and uninformed speculators cancondition their demands for each traded asset on all equilibrium prices;in the second (the restricted system), they are restricted to conditiontheir demand on the price of the asset they want to trade. I show thatinformed traders incentives to exploit multidimensional privateinformation depend on the number of prices they can condition upon whensubmitting their demand schedules, and on the specific price formationprocess one considers. Building on this insight, I then give conditionsunder which the restricted system is more efficient than the unrestrictedsystem.

Dynamic perceptual mapping

Perceptual maps have been used for decades by market researchers to illuminatethem about the similarity between brands in terms of a set of attributes, to position consumersrelative to brands in terms of their preferences, or to study how demographic and psychometricvariables relate to consumer choice. Invariably these maps are two-dimensional and static. Aswe enter the era of electronic publishing, the possibilities for dynamic graphics are opening up.We demonstrate the usefulness of introducing motion into perceptual maps through fourexamples. The first example shows how a perceptual map can be viewed in three dimensions,and the second one moves between two analyses of the data that were collected according todifferent protocols. In a third example we move from the best view of the data at the individuallevel to one which focuses on between-group differences in aggregated data. A final exampleconsiders the case when several demographic variables or market segments are available foreach respondent, showing an animation with increasingly detailed demographic comparisons.These examples of dynamic maps use several data sets from marketing and social scienceresearch.