Texture Identification by Bounded Integration of Sensory Cortical Signals

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Disseminating the best available evidence: New challenges in public reporting of health care

As a direct benefit of the Health Care Reform Act (2010), concerted effort has been deployed to define and characterize the process by which the best available evidence for diagnosis or treatment intervention prognosis can be obtained. The science of research synthesis in health care has established the systematic research protocol by which randomized clinical trials and other clinical studies must be reviewed and compared for the level and quality of the evidence presented, as well as the consensus of the best available evidence synthesized and shared. This process of systematic review yields a reliable and valid approach in comparing different interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat and monitor health conditions in terms of efficacy, and or of effectiveness. The resulting bioinformation outcome of comparative effectiveness and efficacy research review of the available clinical data is expressed as a consensus of the best available evidence, which finds its way in evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, standards of care and eventually, in policies: hence, the acronym CEERAP (comparative effectiveness and efficacy review and policy). The methodological and the procedural criteria that determine and regulate the public reporting dissemination of this sort of bioinformation, and the extent of benefit to the patient's health literacy, which have remained a bit more elusive to this date, are investigated and discussed in this paper.     

基于ArcView-WOE的下辽河平原地下水生态系统健康评价

地下水生态系统是生态系统的重要类型,随着社会经济的发展,地下水资源与环境压力日益增大,地下水生态系统健康问题已经成为人类重点关注的环境问题之一。以ArcView为平台,以下辽河平原硝酸盐氮浓度为响应因子,并从地下水系统结构特征、区域自然条件、外界压力、资源与保护和生态环境5个方面建立证据因子的图层数据库,利用证据权重法(WOE)对下辽河平原地下水生态系统健康进行评价,得到硝酸盐氮后验概率分布图。结果表明:下辽河平原的西北、东北部、东南部及抚顺和辽阳地区地下水生态系统健康处于相对高和较高概率区,东部山前冲洪积平原及下辽河平原的周边地区处于中等概率区,下辽河平原的中部平原、南部滨海平原地区处于相对低和较低概率区。将地下水水质监测点硝酸盐氮含量与后验概率分布图进行对比分析,发现二者对应性较好,这说明WOE可以用于地下水生态系统健康评价,其概率表现形式能够有效的弥补传统生态系统健康评价结果是一个具体值(或等级)而无法反映生态系统健康不确定性的不足。     

The Causal Analysis Framework: Refining Approaches and Expanding Multidisciplinary Applications

This series of articles provides perspectives and recent case examples reflective of the growing interest in and need for formal causal analysis procedures that narrow the uncertainties associated with understanding cause and effect relationships in environmental and health matters. That understanding is important for guiding prevention, remediation, and/or restoration efforts pertaining to environmental stressors. A defensible establishment or refutation of causes is often needed to support legal opinions and/or reach decisions on specific regulatory actions. For complex environmental and health matters, the ability to support cause and effect relationships to a reasonable degree of certainty depends not only on the existence of the relationships but also on the analyst's ability to examine alternative possibilities and to use available evidence to support scientific opinion. Formal casual analyses have evolved to provide analysts with organized frameworks for weighing evidence and decreasing the likelihood of missing important aspects of cause and effect relationships as problems become increasingly complex and less familiar. In this perspectives series, the causal analysis method is explored through additional examination of the underlying philosophies and history of approaches that serve as the foundation of what we consider causal analysis today. In addition, examples of applied causal analysis provide insights into the challenges and benefits of a well thought out causal analysis.     

Causal Characteristics for Ecoepidemiology

We suggest that there are six fundamental characteristics of causation: time order, co-occurrence, preceding causation, sufficiency, interaction, and alteration. The cause precedes the effect (time order). The cause co-occurs with the unaffected entity in space and time (co-occurrence). Causes and their effects are the result of a web of causation (preceding causation). The intensity, frequency, and duration of the cause are adequate and the susceptible entity can exhibit the type and magnitude of the effect (sufficiency). The cause effectively interacts with the entity in a way that induces the effect (interaction). And, the entity is changed by the interactions with the cause (alteration). In contrast to Hill's criteria, the causal characteristics are distinct from the: (1) evidence that is used to document causal characteristics, (2) sources of information used to develop the evidence, and (3) qualities used to evaluate evidence of causal characteristics and body of evidence for the causal relationship. Evidence of causal characteristics can form the basis for assessments of epidemiological studies and can structure an explanatory narrative that is causally relevant and substantive. Six core characteristics may be easier to organize, evaluate, communicate, and for decision-makers to assimilate, remember, and inspire action.     

Causal Assessment of Biological Impairment in the Little Floyd River,Iowa, USA

An assessment of biological impairment in the Little Floyd River (Iowa, USA) was based on evidence of three characteristics of causation: co-occurrence, preceding causation, and sufficiency. Evidence of the physical interaction of the probable causes and the biota, resulting alterations to the biota, as well as the time order of the cause and the effect were consistent within the assessment, but the evidence for these causal characteristics did not discriminate among probable causes or other causes. Deposited sediment, low dissolved oxygen, heat stress, and ammonia toxicity are the probable causes of impaired biological condition in the Little Floyd River compared with other rivers in the ecoregion. Less likely causes are suspended sediment, altered basal food resources, and flow alteration. Very unlikely causes are pH shifts, total dissolved solids, Cyprinus carpio (an invasive species), metal toxicity, and pesticides. Data were insufficient to assess salinity or other toxicants. The assessment was used to develop a recovery plan for the stream. This assessment demonstrates that, even when there are many candidate causes and uncertainties are substantial, the probable causes of biological impairments can be determined with enough certainty to inform decision-making to address environmental problems.     

Molecular evidence on Primate phylogeny from DNA sequences

Evidence from DNA sequences on the phylogenetic systematics of primates is congruent with the evidence from morphology in grouping Cercopithecoidea (Old World monkeys) and Hominoidea (apes and humans) into Catarrhini, Catarrhini and Platyrrhini (ceboids or New World monkeys) into Anthropoidea, Lemuriformes and Lorisiformes into Strepsirhini, and Anthropoidea, Tarsioidea, and Strepsirhini into Primates. With regard to the problematic relationships of Tarsioidea, DNA sequences group it with Anthropoidea into Haplorhini. In addition, the DNA evidence favors retaining Cheirogaleidae within Lemuriformes in contrast to some morphological studies that favor placing Cheirogaleids in Lorisiformes. While parsimony analysis of the present DNA sequence data provides only modest support for Haplorhini as a monophyletic taxon, it provides very strong support for Hominoidea, Catarrhini, Anthropoidea, and Strepsirhini as monophyletic taxa. The parsimony DNA evidence also rejects the hypothesis that megabats are the sister group of either Primates or Dermoptera (flying lemur) or a Primate-Dermoptera clade and instead strongly supports the monophyly of Chiroptera, with megabats grouping with microbats at considerable distance from Primates. In contrast to the confused morphological picture of sister group relationships within Hominoidea, orthologous noncoding DNA sequences (spanning alignments involving as many as 20,000 base positions) now provide by the parsimony criterion highly significant evidence for the sister group relationships defined by a cladistic classification that groups the lineages to all extant hominoids into family Hominidae, divides this ape family into subfamilies Hylobatinae (gibbons) and Homininae, divides Homininae into tribes Pongini (orangutans) and Hominini, and divides Hominini into subtribes Gorillina (gorillas) and Hominina (humans and chimpanzees). A likelihood analysis of the largest body of these noncoding orthologues and counts of putative synapomorphies using the full range of sequence data from mitochondrial and nuclear genomes also find that humans and chimpanzees share the longest common ancestry. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Die Aussagekraft subfossiler Moos-Synusien bei der Rekonstruktion eines keltischen Lebensraumes — Das Beispiel des Fürstengrabhügels Magdalenenberg bei Villingen

Bei den jüngsten Ausgrabungen am hallstattzeitlichen Fürstengrabhügel Magdalenenberg bei Villingen wurden vorzüglich erhaltene und autochthone Pflanzenreste geborgen, darunter 30 Arten von Bryophyten. Diese ließen sich folgenden rezenten ökologischsoziologischen Gruppen zuordnen: Halbtrockenrasen-Arten, Arten verdichteter Erdblößen, Waldboden-Bewohner, Arten frischer bis nasser Standorte, Euryöke. Durch aktualistischen Vergleich der Moos-Synusien mit heutigen Pflanzengesellschaften im gleichen Naturraum ließ sich entschlüsseln, daß das Gelände damals mit extensiv beweideten Halbtrockenrasen bewachsen war; die Tätigkeit der Hügelbauer spiegelt sich in einer Überlagerung mit “Ruderalmoosen” wider. Durch Samenpflanzen-Funde konnte die Rekonstruktion weiter präzisiert und abgesichert werden.