Assessment of individual differences in phonological representation

Individual differences in abilities to form, access, and hone phonological representations of words are implicated in the development of oral and written language. This study addressed two important gaps in the literature concerning measurement of individual differences in phonological representation. First, we empirically examined the dimensionality of phonological representation abilities. Second, we empirically compared how well typical measures index various representation-related phonological processing abilities. Specifically, nine measures of accessibility to and distinctness of phonological presentations were administered to 175 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Confirmatory factor analysis validated three separate but correlated phonological processing abilities, i.e., efficiency of accessing phonological codes, precision of phonological codes as reflected in speech production, and precision of phonological codes as reflected in speech perception. The named phonological processing abilities were equally good measures of a second-order phonological representation factor. While most prototypic measures were excellent indicators of first-order phonological abilities, they were only modest indicators of phonological representation.     

Pattern of urinary iodine excretion in children

Urinary iodine was estimated chemically by the kinetic method, after mineralisation of the organic iodide by alkaline ashing. The experimental conditions were optimised. The methodological modifications of an existing technique are highlighted. Urinary iodine levels were determined in 349 school children of Bombay, of whom 163 had Grade IA/IB/II goitre and the remaining 186 did not have goitre. Urinary iodine concentration (Mean±SEM) of the control (n=186) and the goitre (n=163) groups were 76.47±4.97 and 71.09±6.23 μg/g creatinine respectively. The difference in the means was statistically not significant. Urinary iodine exhibited a log-normal distribution. It is concluded that the presence of goitre in the clinically euthyroid group of children was not caused by iodine deficiency.     

Determination of cancer antigen 125 in ovarian carcinoma

Appropriate therapeutic measures can improve the life expectancy of patients with ovarian malignancy. There has been a pressing need for serodiagnostic assays to enable, the close patient monitoring. Cancer Antigen 125 (CA125) has been described as a useful marker in patient monitoring for ovarian malignancy. Keeping this in view, the present study was planned. 40 consecutive female patients of ovarian carcinoma (mean age 52.4±10.7 years) were selected for serum CA125 analysis during the period of year 1995–2001. The tumour marker concentration was compared with histologic types of ovarian tumour and the FIGO staging of the disease. 25 healthy females (mean age 35.2–10.4 years) served as control. Mean serum CA125 concentrations in patients with papillary serous adenocarcinoma(Mean±%CV 1571±121.5 U/ml) was much higher than patients with mucinous adenocarcinoma(775±78U/ml). Mean serum CA125 concentration in endometrioid carcinoma was very high(2853±136 U/ml). The patient with clear cell carcinoma however had shown moderate increase(60 U/ml). No correlation was found between serum CA125 concentration and the FIGO staging of disease. Quantitation of CA125 was most helpful in monitoring the response of treatment and followup of the patients after completion of their treatment. Posttherapeutically its concentration showed more than 50% reduction in almost all (91.4%) patients (P<0.001). Importantly these patients had also shown significant regression of the disease clinically and radiologically. 8.6% of patients had shown static or increase in serum CA125 concentration which was associated with either clinically static or progressive disease. Recurrence of the disease was noted in patients who had shown increase in serum CA125 concentration (biochemical recurrence) in the followup However, in our test population biochemical recurrence(increase in serum marker concentration) preceded the clinical or radiological recurrence by an average of 6.5 months. Kaplan meier survival analysis for evaluation of overall survival in our test subjects showed an overall survival of 32% at one year and median survival of 9 months with confidence interval of 6.34 to 11.66. We conclude that serum CA125 is a useful marker for monitoring the treatment and predicting an early recurrence of the disease in ovarian carcinoma patients. A study in larger number of patients is needed to define its exact role in the management of the carcinoma ovary.     

Diagnostic efficiency of amylase and type IV collagen in predicting chronic pancreatitis

Chronic pancreatitis, an irreversible inflammatory disease of the pancreas, is associated with the replacement of the destroyed parenchyma by extended development of fibrosis. Despite marked progress in diagnostic tools, no consensus has been reached in diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis. In this study we examined the hematological and biochemical parameters among 40 chronic pancreatitis patients within 18 to 67 yrs. ESR level and ALP activity was elevated in 40% cases. Serum amylase activity increased in 32 patients and it showed significant correlation with ALP (r=0.458, p=0.003), CA-19.9 (r=0.556, p<0.001), and calcium level (r=−0.472, p=0.002). Type IV collagen level in chronic pancreatitis also elevated (164.4 ± 55.5 ng/ml) and showed negative significant correlation with calcium level (r= −0.505, p=0.001). However, no significant correlation was observed between amylase activity and type IV collagen (r=0.289, p= 0.07).     

Health information seeking in the information society

This article is the second student contribution to the Dissertations into Practice feature. It reports on a study that investigated the everyday health information-seeking practices of a small group of the 'general public' and the implications for information-seeking theory and health information provision. The first student article, about the implementation of radio frequency identification (RFID) in a hospital library, was very different, and the two articles illustrate the broad spectrum of possible subjects for the Dissertations into Practice feature. This study was conducted in summer 2011 by Abir Mukherjee for his MSc dissertation in the Library and Information Sciences programme at City University London. Further information and copies of the full dissertation may be obtained from Abir Mukherjee or David Bawden. AM.     

How young children view mathematical representations: a study using eye-tracking technology

This paper reports on a study which investigated the support needs of pupils in mainstream school with a chronic illness or physical disability. The research was carried out in three local education authorities covering both rural and urban areas. In-depth, qualitative data were collected from 33 pupils in secondary school; 58 parents of primary and secondary school pupils; and 34 primary and secondary school teachers. Overall, the data from young people suggest variability in the support offered to pupils by teachers, even by teachers within the same school, and highlights the importance of teachers' awareness and understanding of special health needs. A number of areas where young people need support from teachers were identified, including: dealing with school absence; taking part in school activities; peer relationships; explaining the condition to other pupils; and having someone to talk to about health-related worries. Data from teachers and parents indicate that school staff need assistance with obtaining health-related information; ensuring health-related information is passed between and within schools; providing emotional support; the provision of medical care; and coordinating support for this group of pupils. The implications of the findings for teachers, schools and educational policy are discussed.     

A novel design method for optimal IIR system identification using opposition based harmony search algorithm

In this paper a population based evolutionary optimization methodology called Opposition based Harmony Search Algorithm (OHS) is applied for the optimization of system coefficients of adaptive infinite impulse response (IIR) system identification problem. The original Harmony Search (HS) algorithm is chosen as the parent one and opposition based approach is applied to it with an intention to exhibit accelerated near global convergence profile. During the initialization, for choosing the randomly generated population/solution opposite solutions are also considered and the fitter one is selected as apriori guess for having faster convergence profile. Each solution in Harmony Memory (HM) is generated on the basis of memory consideration rule, a pitch adjustment rule and a re-initialization process which gives the optimum result corresponding to the least error fitness in multidimensional search space. Incorporation of different control parameters in basic HS algorithm results in balancing of exploration and exploitation of search space. The proposed OHS based system identification approach has alleviated from inherent drawbacks of premature convergence and stagnation, unlike Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Differential Evolution (DE). The simulation results obtained for some well known benchmark examples justify the efficacy of the proposed OHS based system identification approach over GA, PSO and DE in terms of convergence speed, identifying the system plant coefficients and mean square error (MSE) fitness values produced for both same order and reduced order models of adaptive IIR filters.     

Effects of Long Term Ethanol Consumption on Cell Death in Liver

Apoptosis plays an important role in cellular homeostasis. In this study we have investigated whether apoptosis is a contributory factor to alcohol induced liver damage. Long term ethanol (1.6 g/kg body weight/day) exposure augmented liver apoptosis as reflected by high frequency of positive TUNEL staining nuclei and by an increased activity of caspase-3 and -8. Our study provides evidence that long-term ethanol consumption triggers apoptotic process in the liver.