Gender bias in video game dialogue.

Gender biases in fictional dialogue are well documented in many media. In film, television and books, female characters tend to talk less than male characters, talk to each other less than male characters talk to each other, and have a more limited range of things to say. Identifying these biases is an important step towards addressing them. However, there is a lack of solid data for video games, now one of the major mass media which has the ability to shape conceptions of gender and gender roles. We present the Video Game Dialogue Corpus, the first large-scale, consistently coded corpus of video game dialogue, which makes it possible for the first time to measure and monitor gender representation in video game dialogue. It demonstrates that there is half as much dialogue from female characters as from male characters. Some of this is due to a lack of female characters, but there are also biases in who female characters speak to, and what they say. We make suggestions for how game developers can avoid these biases to make more inclusive games.

Polyclonal and monoclonal IgG binding on protein A resins-Evidence of competitive binding effects.

Protein A (ProA) chromatography is used extensively in the biopharmaceutical industry for the selective capture of both polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). This work provides a comparison of the adsorptive behavior of a highly heterogeneous polyclonal hIgG versus that of a mAb as well as the behavior of their mixtures on representative ProA resins. Both pH gradient elution and frontal loading experiments using human polyclonal IgG (hIgG) reveal a distribution of IgG-ProA binding strengths likely associated with multiple IgG subclasses and the heterogeneity of the variable region. pH gradient analysis of fractions collected along the breakthrough curve demonstrate a clear progression from weaker binding (higher pH eluting) to stronger binding (lower pH eluting) IgG species leaving the column suggesting the possibility of stronger binding species displacing the weaker binding ones. Displacement is directly observed by visualizing the adsorption of fluorescently labeled mAb and hIgG using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Here, the displacement of hIgG results in a broad adsorption front compared to the sharp, "shrinking core" behavior typically observed with mAbs. Sequential CLSM adsorption experiments with a mAb and hIgG confirm that stronger or equivalent-binding hIgG species are able to displace and desorb bound mAb molecules. These phenomena are examined using a variety of ProA resins including CaptivA PriMAB, MabSelect, and MabSelect SuRe to understand the effect of different ligand properties on binding strength and competition among different IgG species. The results of these comparisons suggest that the competition kinetics are slower with ligands that have a single-point covalent attachment to the base matrix compared to a multi-point attachment. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2017;114: 1803-1812. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Inappropriate ICD therapy due to proarrhythmic ICD shocks and hyperpolarization.

A 50-year-old man with an ischemic cardiomyopathy underwent ICD implantation for inducible ventricular fibrillation (VF). Sixteen months later he experienced inappropriate ICD therapy due to atrial fibrillation with a rapid ventricular response. The initial shock resulted in the initiation of VF (proarrhythmia) and the patient received an additional shock converting his rhythm to an idioventricular rhythm with a cycle length of 490 ms (122 beats/min). Due to lead hyperpolarization, the device oversensed ventricular events and the patient subsequently received additional shocks.

Human-observer receiver-operating-characteristic evaluation of attenuation, scatter, and resolution compensation strategies for (99m)Tc myocardial perfusion imaging.

UNLABELLED: Nonuniform attenuation, scatter, and distance-dependent resolution are confounding factors inherent in SPECT imaging. Iterative reconstruction algorithms permit modeling and compensation of these degradations. We investigated through human-observer receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) studies which (if any) combination of such compensation strategies best improves the accuracy of detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) when expert readers have only stress images for diagnosis. METHODS: A 3-headed SPECT system fitted with a (153)Gd line source was used to acquire simultaneously (99m)Tc-methoxyisobutylisonitrile (MIBI) images and transmission data. With these acquisitions, the accuracy of detecting CAD was evaluated for the following reconstruction strategies: filtered backprojection (FBP); ordered-subset expectation maximization (OSEM) with attenuation correction (AC); OSEM with AC and scatter correction (SC) (AC + SC); and OSEM with AC, SC, and resolution compensation (RC) (AC + SC + RC). Reconstruction parameters for OSEM were optimized by use of human-observer ROC studies with hybrid images, whereas standard clinical parameters were used for FBP. A total of 100 patients, including 55 patients referred for angiography and 45 patients with <5% likelihood for CAD, were included in the ROC studies. Images reconstructed with the 4 methods were rated independently with regard to the presence of CAD by 7 observers using a continuous scale for certainty. RESULTS: With area under the ROC curve (A(z)) as the criterion, the iterative reconstructions with compensation strategies (AC, AC + SC, and AC + SC + RC) demonstrated better detection accuracy than did FBP reconstructions for the overall detection of CAD as well as for the localization of perfusion defects in the 3 vascular territories. In general, the trend was for an increase in the A(z) for the progression from FBP to OSEM with AC, to OSEM with AC + SC, and to OSEM with AC + SC + RC. Statistically, the combination strategy with AC + SC + RC provided significantly higher A(z) values than did FBP images for the overall detection of CAD and the localization of perfusion defects in the left anterior descending coronary artery and left circumflex coronary artery territories, whereas AC + SC provided significantly better performance in the right coronary artery territory. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that OSEM with AC + SC + RC outperforms FBP reconstructions, indicating that the modeling of physical degradations can improve the accuracy of detection of CAD with cardiac perfusion SPECT reconstructions.

A case of bad timing: inappropriate implantable cardioverter defibrillator therapy due to a critically placed premature ventricular contraction.

A 58-year-old man with an ischemic cardiomyopathy underwent ICD implantation after having an electrophysiological study positive for inducible, sustained monomorphic VT. Approximately 1 week later he experienced a shock. Inspection of stored electrograms revealed that a run of nonsustained VT had initiated his ICD to charge. The episode spontaneously terminated, yet the shock was still delivered during sinus rhythm. Further inspection revealed that a critically timed PVC during the "second look" interval resulted in delivered therapy. Thus, inappropriate ICD therapy can result from causes other than SVT, lead malfunction, or over sensing.