Social Vulnerability, Frailty and Self-Perceived Health: Findings from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA).

BACKGROUND: Social vulnerability interacts with frailty and influences individuals' health status. Although frailty and social vulnerability are highly predictive of adverse outcomes, their relationship with self-perceived health(SPH) has been less investigated. METHODS: Data are from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing(TILDA), a population-based longitudinal study of ageing. We included 4,222 participants aged ≥50 years (age 61.4±8.5 years;women 56%) from Wave 1 (2009-2011) followed over three longitudinal waves (2012,2014-2015,2016). Participants responded to single questions with five response options to rate their 1)physical health, 2)mental health, and 3)health compared to peers. 30-item Frailty (FI) and Social Vulnerability (SVI) indices were calculated using standardised methods. Multivariable regression analyses were performed to establish the association between FI and SVI cross-sectionally and longitudinally over 6 years. RESULTS: Cross-sectionally, SVI (mean:0.40±0.08; range:0.14-0.81) and FI (mean: 0.13±0.08; range:0.10-0.58) were modestly correlated (r=0.256), and independently associated with poor physical health (SVI: OR 1.43, 95%CI 1.15-1.78; FI: OR 3.16, 95%CI 2.54-3.93), poor mental health (SVI: OR 1.65, 95%CI 1.17-2.35; FI: OR 3.64, 95%CI 2.53-5.24), and poor health compared to peers (SVI: OR 1.41,95%CI 1.06-1.89; FI: OR 3.86, 95%CI 2.9-5.14). Longitudinally, FI and SVI were independently and positively associated with poor physical health (SVI: ß 1.08, 95%CI 0.76-1.39; FI: ß 1.97, 95%CI 1.58-2.36), poor mental health (SVI: ß 1.18, 95%CI 0.86-1.5; FI: ß 1.58, 95%CI 1.2-1.97), and poor overall health compared to peers (SVI: ß 0.78, 95%CI 0.89-1.33; FI: ß 1.74, 95%CI 0.47-1.1). CONCLUSIONS: In a large cohort of community-dwelling older adults, frailty and social vulnerability were associated with poor SPH and with risk of SPH decline over six years.

Which tasks best discriminate between dyslexic university students and controls in a transparent language?

The need for a battery for testing adult dyslexia, and especially university students, is being increasingly recognized in view of the increased number of adult requests for a dyslexia examination in relation to both assistance and protection from discrimination. The present study examines the discriminative validity of a battery we have developed-the Battery for the Assessment of Reading and Writing in Adulthood-through comparison of the performance of 24 university students with a history of severe developmental dyslexia and 99 controls. All the reading, writing, lexical decision and spelling tasks of the battery, except omissions in a lexical decision task and reading comprehension, showed a good discriminatory power. In addition, use of just two of these tasks (fluency in reading a text and spelling under articulatory suppression) gave 87% sensitivity and 97% specificity. Our results confirm that in transparent languages, measures of phonological automaticity are the best indexes of reading decoding competence, particularly in adults.

Physical Functional Assessment in Older Adults.

The evaluation of the physical domain represents a critical part of the assessment of the older person, both in the clinical as well as the research setting. To measure physical function, clinicians and researchers have traditionally relied on instruments focusing on the capacity of the individual to accomplish specific functional tasks (e.g., the Activities of Daily Living [ADL] or the Instrumental ADL scales). However, a growing number of physical performance and muscle strength tests has been developed in parallel over the past three decades. These measures are specifically designed to: 1) provide objective results (not surprisingly, they are frequently timed tests) taken in standardized conditions, whereas the traditional physical function scales are generally self- or proxy-reported measures; 2) be more sensitive to changes; 3) capture the real biology of the function through the assessment of standardized tasks mirroring specific functional subdomains; and 4) mirror the quality of specific mechanisms underlying more complex and multidomain functions. Among the most commonly used instruments, the usual gait speed test, the Short Physical Performance Battery, the handgrip strength, the Timed Up-and-Go test, the 6-minute walk test, and the 400-meter walk test are widely adopted by clinicians and researchers. The clinical and research importance of all these instruments has been demonstrated by their predictive capacity for negative health-related outcomes (i.e., hospitalization, falls, institutionalization, disability, mortality). Moreover, they have shown to be associated with subclinical and clinical conditions that are also not directly related to the physical domain (e.g., inflammation, oxidative stress, overall mortality). For this reason, they have been repeatedly indicated as markers of wellbeing linked to the burden of multiple chronic conditions rather than mere parameters of mobility or strength. In this work protocols of the main tests for the objective assessment of physical function in older adults are presented.

Stage 2 Registered Report: Anomalous perception in a Ganzfeld condition - A meta-analysis of more than 40 years investigation.

This meta-analysis is an investigation into anomalous perception (i.e., conscious identification of information without any conventional sensorial means). The technique used for eliciting an effect is the Ganzfeld condition (a form of sensory homogenization that eliminates distracting peripheral noise). The database consists of studies published between January 1974 and December 2020 inclusive. The overall effect size estimated both with a frequentist and a Bayesian random-effect model, were in close agreement yielding an effect size of approximately .08 (.04 -.12). This result passed four publication bias tests and seems not contaminated by questionable research practices. Trend analysis carried out with a cumulative meta-analysis and a meta-regression model with year of publication as a covariate, did not indicate sign of decline of this effect size. The moderators' analyses show that the selected participants' effect size was almost three-times that obtained by non-selected participants and that tasks that simulate telepathic communication show a two-fold effect size for tasks requiring the participants to guess a target. The Stage 1 Registered Report can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.24868.3.

Stage 1 Registered Report: Anomalous perception in a Ganzfeld condition - A meta-analysis of more than 40 years investigation.

This meta-analysis is an investigation into anomalous perception (i.e., conscious identification of information without any conventional sensorial means). The technique used for eliciting an effect is the ganzfeld condition (a form of sensory homogenization that eliminates distracting peripheral noise). The database consists of peer-reviewed studies published between January 1974 and June 2020 inclusive. The overall effect size will be estimated using a frequentist and a Bayesian random-effect model. Moderators analyses will be used to examine the influence of level of experience of participants, the type of task and the peer-review level. Publication bias will be estimated by using four different tests. Trend analysis will be conducted with a cumulative meta-analysis and a meta-regression model with Year of publication as covariate.

Applying machine learning EEG signal classification to emotion­related brain anticipatory activity.

Machine learning approaches have been fruitfully applied to several neurophysiological signal classification problems. Considering the relevance of emotion in human cognition and behaviour, an important application of machine learning has been found in the field of emotion identification based on neurophysiological activity. Nonetheless, there is high variability in results in the literature depending on the neuronal activity measurement, the signal features and the classifier type. The present work aims to provide new methodological insight into machine learning applied to emotion identification based on electrophysiological brain activity. For this reason, we analysed previously recorded EEG activity measured while emotional stimuli, high and low arousal (auditory and visual) were provided to a group of healthy participants. Our target signal to classify was the pre-stimulus onset brain activity. Classification performance of three different classifiers (LDA, SVM and kNN) was compared using both spectral and temporal features. Furthermore, we also contrasted the performance of static and dynamic (time evolving) approaches. The best static feature-classifier combination was the SVM with spectral features (51.8%), followed by LDA with spectral features (51.4%) and kNN with temporal features (51%). The best dynamic feature classifier combination was the SVM with temporal features (63.8%), followed by kNN with temporal features (63.70%) and LDA with temporal features (63.68%). The results show a clear increase in classification accuracy with temporal dynamic features.

Fluency remediation in dyslexic children: does age make a difference?

This study tested the hypothesis whether older dyslexic children may obtain fewer gains on fluency and accuracy with respect to their younger peers after specific remediation.Changes in accuracy and fluency of a group of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia attending third and fourth grades were compared with those obtained by a group of children attending the sixth, seventh or eighth grade in two different treatments, one based on the Balance model (Bakker) and the second based on the automatization of syllable recognition (sublexical).Among all comparisons between the gains in accuracy and fluency obtained by the two groups, only the younger group in the sublexical treatment obtained a statistically significant gain with respect to their older peers' accuracy in reading words.These outcomes suggest that, at least for the chronological ages and types of treatments considered in this study, older children with dyslexia may obtain comparable gains to their younger peers, suggesting that 'it is never too late' to remediate reading fluency and accuracy.

Efficacy of an intervention to improve fluency in children with developmental dyslexia in a regular orthography.

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a method to improve reading fluency in children with dyslexia. The method, which we named "subsyllabic," was aimed at automatizing the recognition of syllables within words in connected texts, presented by ad hoc software. Two versions of this method--one self-paced and the other one with automatic syllable identification-were compared to a method based on phonemic awareness, assisted reading, and other psycholinguistic exercises. The efficacy of the two versions of the subsyllabic method was further studied by repeating the first version twice and the second version three times using an AB design, with each phase lasting approximately 3 months. This part of the study provided not only follow-up data but also useful information on if and how fluency may change after repeated treatment. Outcomes obtained by a total of 63 children with dyslexia suggested that the subsyllabic method was superior to the control method and that the use of an automatic presentation of target syllables produced better results. Furthermore, we observed that fluency improved approximately at the same rate after each treatment repetition. Our data support the possibility of improving reading fluency at a significant clinical level, at least for regular orthographies. The crucial component of the subsyllabic method seems to be the facilitation of syllable recognition within words in connected texts and the emphasis on their rapid recognition using an automatized procedure.

On the primacy and irreducible nature of first-person versus third-person information.

In this essay, we will support the claim that a) some first-person accounts cannot be reduced to their third-person neural and psychophysiological correlates and b) that these first-person accounts are the only information to reckon when it is necessary to analyse qualia contents. Consequently, for many phenomena, first-person accounts are the only reliable source of information available and the knowledge of their neural and psychophysical correlates don't offer any additional information about them.

Does psychophysiological predictive anticipatory activity predict real or future probable events?

BACKGROUND: The possibility of predicting random future events before any sensory clues by using human physiology as a dependent variable has been supported by the meta-analysis of Moss-bridge et al. (2012)(1) and recent findings by Tressoldi et al. (2011 and 2013)(2,3) and Mossbridge et al. (2014)(4) defined this phenomenon predictive anticipatory activity (PAA). AIM OF THE STUDY: From a theoretical point of view, one interesting question is whether PAA is related to the effective, real future presentation of these stimuli or whether it is related only to the probability of their presentation. METHODS: This hypothesis was tested with four experiments, two using heart rate and two using pupil dilation as dependent variables. RESULTS: In all four experiments, both a neutral stimulus and a potentially threatening stimulus were predicted 7-10% above chance, independently from whether the predicted threatening stimulus was presented or not. CONCLUSION: These findings are discussed with reference to the "grandfather paradox," and some candidate explanations for this phenomena are presented.

A macroscopic violation of no-signaling in time inequalities? How to test temporal entanglement with behavioral observables.

In this paper we applied for the first time the no-signaling in time (NSIT) formalism discussed by Kofler and Brukner (2013) to investigate temporal entanglement between binary human behavioral unconscious choices at t1 with binary random outcomes at t2. NSIT consists of a set of inequalities and represents mathematical conditions for macro-realism which require only two measurements in time. The analyses of three independent experiments show a strong violation of NSIT in two out of three of them, suggesting the hypothesis of a quantum-like temporal entanglement between human choices at t1 with binary random outcomes at t2. We discuss the potentialities of using NSIT to test temporal entanglement with behavioral measures.

[Esophageal pathology in patients with the AIDS virus. Etiology and diagnosis]. / Patología esofágica en pacientes con virus del SIDA. Etiología y diagnóstico.

From 180 patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and followed-up for one year, 17 cases (9.44%) were referred to detect oesophageal pathology. They were prospectively analyzed through fibroscopy, radiology, biopsies for histopathology, virology and mycology and brush cytology. Most frequent symptoms were dysphagia. Odynophagia and retrosternal pain, usually associated, and not providing an accurate diagnostic clue. The most common causes of symptoms were oesophageal candidiasis (47.70%), and herpetic ulcers (23.52%) caused by herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 2. Reflux pathology was also found (11.76%). Cytomegalovirus, other opportunistic infections and tumors were not detected. Seven (64%) of the eleven patients with oesophageal candidiasis also had oral involvement. Four (66%) of six oesophageal ulcers were herpetic; two of them (50%) showed oral ulcers too, and one (25%) had perioral herpetic blisters. Almost in every case endoscopic features allowed diagnosis. Endoscopy in candidiasis showed isolated or confluent white plaques of variable grade. Herpetic ulcers, alone or multiple, were deep with slightly elevated borders. Radiology yielded a poor diagnostic profit (50%), specially in case of multiple lesions. Cytology was highly specific and sensitive (both 90.9%) and suggested viral etiology in 100% of HSV patients. Histopathology was less sensitive than endoscopy and cytology (73% in candida and one HSV non-ulcer case). Both, cytology and histopathology showed koilocytosis in herpetic virus infected patients. The studies performed allowed to change the HIV disease stage in ten patients (62.5%) and to diagnose AIDS in seven (43.75%). In every case medical behavior was oriented or changed by these studies.

PIP: 16 HIV seropositive patients among the 180 treated at the Hospital Muniz and the Hospital Posadas in Buenos Aires between December 1988 and December 1989 were referred to the Hospital Posadas Endoscopy Service for esophageal studies. The 16 patients were prospectively studies by means of fiberoscopy, radiology, biopsies, virology, mycology, and brush cytology. Early treatment is of utmost importance because opportunistic infections may aggravate the general condition, increase immune system effects, and probably permit greater replication of HIV, in addition to producing symptoms. 14 patients were male and 2 female. Ages ranged from 18 to 41 and averaged 32 years. 10 were male homo- or bisexuals and the other 6 were intravenous drug users. 14 of the patients consulted because of specifically esophageal symptoms. 12 reported dysphagia, 8 odynophagia, and 6 retrosternal pain. 9 patients presented various symptoms. 15 of the 16 symptomatic patients had some pathology related to HIV. The remaining case presented a small submucus tumor and gastroesophageal reflux. The symptoms had appeared between 10 days and 1 year prior to study. Symptoms did not provide accurate diagnostic clues. 11 cases of esophageal candidiasis were diagnosed endoscopically by isolated or confluent white plaques. 3 patients classified as grade 1 or 2 on the basis of the intensity and density of plaques had mild symptoms, and 8 classified as grade 3 or 4 had more severe symptoms. 7 of the 11 patients also had oral candidiasis. 4 of 6 patients presenting ulcerative pathology were diagnosed virologically with herpes simplex virus type 2. Herpetic ulcers were single or multiple and were deep with slightly raised edges. No ulcers attributable to cytomegalovirus were diagnosed. 4 of the 11 patients with candidiasis also had ulcers, in 2 cases herpetic. The studies indicated a change in the stage of HIV infection following Centers for Disease Control criteria in 10 cases. AIDS was diagnosed in 7 cases based on esophageal findings. Endoscopic study and the samples obtained guided treatment in the 16 patients. In 1 case a repeat endoscopy led to a change in treatment. It is recommended that endoscopy be performed in all patients with esophageal symptoms. Radiology was relatively ineffective, with 50% of diagnoses in error. Histopathology required multiple biopsies and was less sensitive than endoscopy and cytology. Cytology was highly specific and sensitive.

Testing the Storm et al. (2010) meta-analysis using Bayesian and frequentist approaches: reply to Rouder et al. (2013).

Rouder, Morey, and Province (2013) stated that (a) the evidence-based case for psi in Storm, Tressoldi, and Di Risio's (2010) meta-analysis is supported only by a number of studies that used manual randomization, and (b) when these studies are excluded so that only investigations using automatic randomization are evaluated (and some additional studies previously omitted by Storm et al., 2010, are included), the evidence for psi is "unpersuasive." Rouder et al. used a Bayesian approach, and we adopted the same methodology, finding that our case is upheld. Because of recent updates and corrections, we reassessed the free-response databases of Storm et al. using a frequentist approach. We discuss and critique the assumptions and findings of Rouder et al.

High impact  =  high statistical standards? Not necessarily so.

What are the statistical practices of articles published in journals with a high impact factor? Are there differences compared with articles published in journals with a somewhat lower impact factor that have adopted editorial policies to reduce the impact of limitations of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing? To investigate these questions, the current study analyzed all articles related to psychological, neuropsychological and medical issues, published in 2011 in four journals with high impact factors: Science, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, and three journals with relatively lower impact factors: Neuropsychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology-Applied and the American Journal of Public Health. Results show that Null Hypothesis Significance Testing without any use of confidence intervals, effect size, prospective power and model estimation, is the prevalent statistical practice used in articles published in Nature, 89%, followed by articles published in Science, 42%. By contrast, in all other journals, both with high and lower impact factors, most articles report confidence intervals and/or effect size measures. We interpreted these differences as consequences of the editorial policies adopted by the journal editors, which are probably the most effective means to improve the statistical practices in journals with high or low impact factors.

The proposed changes for DSM-5 for SLD and ADHD: international perspectives--Australia, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United States.

This article presents an international perspective of the proposed changes to the DSM-5 for learning disabilities (LD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) across ten countries: Australia, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We provide perspectives of the present situation for youth with LD and youth with ADHD and describe the legislation, prevalence rates, and educational systems that serve students with disabilities in the respective countries. We also present a discussion of the expected impact of the proposed changes for the diagnosis of LD and ADHD in each country.

Replication unreliability in psychology: elusive phenomena or "elusive" statistical power?

The focus of this paper is to analyze whether the unreliability of results related to certain controversial psychological phenomena may be a consequence of their low statistical power. Applying the Null Hypothesis Statistical Testing (NHST), still the widest used statistical approach, unreliability derives from the failure to refute the null hypothesis, in particular when exact or quasi-exact replications of experiments are carried out. Taking as example the results of meta-analyses related to four different controversial phenomena, subliminal semantic priming, incubation effect for problem solving, unconscious thought theory, and non-local perception, it was found that, except for semantic priming on categorization, the statistical power to detect the expected effect size (ES) of the typical study, is low or very low. The low power in most studies undermines the use of NHST to study phenomena with moderate or low ESs. We conclude by providing some suggestions on how to increase the statistical power or use different statistical approaches to help discriminate whether the results obtained may or may not be used to support or to refute the reality of a phenomenon with small ES.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence: the case of non-local perception, a classical and bayesian review of evidences.

Starting from the famous phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," we will present the evidence supporting the concept that human visual perception may have non-local properties, in other words, that it may operate beyond the space and time constraints of sensory organs, in order to discuss which criteria can be used to define evidence as extraordinary. This evidence has been obtained from seven databases which are related to six different protocols used to test the reality and the functioning of non-local perception, analyzed using both a frequentist and a new Bayesian meta-analysis statistical procedure. According to a frequentist meta-analysis, the null hypothesis can be rejected for all six protocols even if the effect sizes range from 0.007 to 0.28. According to Bayesian meta-analysis, the Bayes factors provides strong evidence to support the alternative hypothesis (H1) over the null hypothesis (H0), but only for three out of the six protocols. We will discuss whether quantitative psychology can contribute to defining the criteria for the acceptance of new scientific ideas in order to avoid the inconclusive controversies between supporters and opponents.

Meta-analysis of free-response studies, 1992-2008: assessing the noise reduction model in parapsychology.

We report the results of meta-analyses on 3 types of free-response study: (a) ganzfeld (a technique that enhances a communication anomaly referred to as "psi"); (b) nonganzfeld noise reduction using alleged psi-enhancing techniques such as dream psi, meditation, relaxation, or hypnosis; and (c) standard free response (nonganzfeld, no noise reduction). For the period 1997-2008, a homogeneous data set of 29 ganzfeld studies yielded a mean effect size of 0.142 (Stouffer Z = 5.48, p = 2.13 x 10(-8)). A homogeneous nonganzfeld noise reduction data set of 16 studies yielded a mean effect size of 0.110 (Stouffer Z = 3.35, p = 2.08 x 10(-4)), and a homogeneous data set of 14 standard free-response studies produced a weak negative mean effect size of -0.029 (Stouffer Z = -2.29, p = .989). The mean effect size value of the ganzfeld database was significantly higher than the mean effect size of the standard free-response database but was not higher than the effect size of the nonganzfeld noise reduction database [corrected].We also found that selected participants (believers in the paranormal, meditators, etc.) had a performance advantage over unselected participants, but only if they were in the ganzfeld condition.

A meta-analysis with nothing to hide: reply to Hyman (2010).

In our article (Storm, Tressoldi, & Di Risio, 2010), we claimed that the ganzfeld experimental design has proved to be consistent and reliable. However, Hyman (2010) argues that the overall evidence for psi is, in fact, contradictory and elusive. We present a case for psi research that undermines Hyman's argument. First, we give examples from parapsychologists who do not outrightly dismiss psi, despite appearances, but actually support it. Second, we claim that Hyman does not tell the full story about the ganzfeld meta-analytic findings and thus presents a one-sided account. Third, we argue that our meta-analysis has followed standard procedures, that we have not broken any rules but have found a communications anomaly, often referred to as psi. Though we may be in agreement that the evidence is largely statistical, the evidence suggests that concealed targets are actually identified rather than guessed. We argue that further research is necessary.