Examining the Research on Business Information-Entropy Correlation in the Accounting Process of Organizations.

Open business organizations, where information flows, is shared, and exchanged, are more prepared to adapt and survive chaos, uncertainty, and entropy, so they will be more predisposed to change management. The aim of this study is to analyze research trends at the international level on business information-entropy correlation in the accounting process of organizations. Mathematical and statistical techniques were applied to 980 articles during the period 1974-2020, obtaining results on the scientific productivity of the driving agents of this topic: authors, research institutions, countries/territories, and journals. Five lines of research were identified during the period analyzed, which mainly study information theory, maximum entropy, information entropy, decision-making, and enthalpy. Future research should focus on analyzing the evolution of this topic, which forms new thematic axes related to bitcoin market efficiency, business hierarchy information, business model evaluation systems, catastrophic economic collapse, corporate diversification, CSR reports affecting accounting conservatism, economic income accounting, and information loss. Currently, the research presents an upward trend, which allows a growing interest in the subject to be deduced in the academic and scientific community worldwide.

Theory of Mind in multiple system atrophy: comparison with Parkinson's disease and healthy subjects.

Theory of Mind is defined as the ability to attribute mental state and emotions to other people and is relevant to social relationships. The cortical and subcortical regions involved in Theory of Mind are damaged by neurodegenerative processes of Parkinsonian syndromes, so the aim of the present study was to explore, for the first time, possible deficits of Theory of Mind and their cognitive correlates in multiple system atrophy (MSA). Twenty-six patients with MSA, 25 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 25 healthy subjects were enrolled. Cognitive and affective subcomponents of Theory of Mind, executive functions, long-term memory and apathy were evaluated. The three groups did not differ on demographic variables. MSA and PD groups performed worse than healthy subjects on both cognitive (advanced test of ToM) and affective (emotion attribution task) ToM tasks, but no significant difference was found between patients' groups. However, when using another affective ToM task (Eyes Test), MSA group had poorer performance than healthy subjects and Parkinsonian patients, whereas Parkinsonian patients had similar performance to healthy subjects. Regression analysis revealed an association between poor cognitive flexibility and dysfunctional cognitive component of Theory of Mind. Deficit of cognitive and affective components of Theory of Mind occurred in MSA. Dysfunction of cognitive component was related to executive dysfunction (i.e. cognitive rigidity). These findings might suggest the usefulness of an early evaluation of social cognition in MSA to identify individuals with impaired Theory of Mind who are at risk of social withdrawal, and reduced quality of life.

Effects of gender on cognitive and behavioral manifestations in multiple system atrophy.

Gender differences have been described in several neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. The effects of gender on cognitive and behavioral manifestations in multiple system atrophy and the changes of cognitive functions over time according to gender have not been investigated so far. Fifty-five patients with a diagnosis of multiple system atrophy underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric battery at baseline and 26 of them could be re-evaluated at 1-year follow-up. At baseline women with multiple system atrophy had poorer global cognitive state and visuo-spatial abilities, and a higher prevalence of depression and apathy than males. At follow-up, female patients deteriorated more than males on attention abilities and motor functions, and had a higher prevalence of depression than men. Executive functions and visuo-spatial abilities significantly worsened over time in both groups. Mild Cognitive Impairment single domain was significantly more frequent in females than males. Cognitive and behavioral differences between genders in multiple system atrophy involve global cognition, planning, attention, visual-perceptive skills, and depression, with female patients more compromised than males. Female patients deteriorated more than men over time as for motor functions and attention. Further longitudinal studies are deserved to confirm gender differences in progression of cognitive and behavioral features of multiple system atrophy.

Subcortical atrophy and perfusion patterns in Parkinson disease and multiple system atrophy.

BACKGROUND: The clinical differentiation between Parkinson disease (PD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA) is difficult. OBJECTIVES: Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is an advanced MRI technique that obviates the use of an exogenous contrast agent for the estimation of cerebral perfusion. We explored the value of ASL in combination with structural MRI for the differentiation between PD and MSA. METHODS: Ninety-four subjects (30 PD, 30 MSA and 34 healthy controls) performed a morphometric and ASL-MRI to measure volume and perfusion values within basal ganglia and cerebellum. A region-of-interest analysis was performed to test for structural atrophy and regional blood flow differences between groups. RESULTS: MSA patients showed higher subcortical atrophy than both PD patients and HC, while no differences were observed between the latter. MSA and PD showed lower volume-corrected perfusion values than HC in several cerebellar areas (Crus I, Crus II, right VIIb, right VIIIa, right VIIIb), right caudate and both thalami. MSA and PD patients displayed similar perfusion values in all aforementioned areas, but the right cerebellar area VIIIb (lower in MSA) and right caudate and both thalami (lower in PD). Similar results were obtained when comparing PD and MSA patients with the parkinsonian variant. CONCLUSIONS: A perfusion reduction was equally observed in both MSA and PD patients in cerebellar areas that are putatively linked to cognitive (i.e., executive) rather than motor functions. The observed hypo-perfusion could not be explained by atrophy, suggesting the involvement of the cerebellum in the pathophysiology of both MSA and PD.

Evolution of neuropsychological profile in motor subtypes of multiple system atrophy.

INTRODUCTION: Cognitive deficits and neuropsychiatric symptoms occur in parkinsonian and cerebellar subtypes of Multiple System Atrophy (MSA-P and MSA-C). These symptoms have been investigated mainly in cross-sectional studies. The present 1-year follow-up study aimed at evaluating the evolution of cognitive and neuropsychiatric profile in patients with MSA-C and MSA-P. METHODS: Twenty-nine patients with MSA-P, 21 with MSA-C and 30 healthy subjects (HCs) underwent a neuropsychological battery and questionnaires assessing depression and apathy (T0). After 1 year (T1), patients with MSA-C and MSA-P underwent the same neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric tools employed at T0. RESULTS: At T0, MSA-P and MSA-C groups were more depressed and apathetic and performed worse on tests assessing repetition abilities, executive and attentive functions than HCs. MSA-P and MSA-C groups did not differ on cognitive variables and neuropsychiatric scales. At T1, a significant worsening in spatial planning and psychomotor speed in MSA-C group and a significant worsening in memory, spatial planning, repetition abilities and functional autonomy in MSA-P group were found. The prevalence of apathy increased in both subtypes, whereas the prevalence of depression was reduced in MSA-C and relatively consistent in MSA-P. CONCLUSIONS: The finding revealed a wide-ranging worsening of cognitive functions in MSA-P and a significant decline in processing speed in MSA-C. These results underline the relevance of evaluating cognitive and psychiatric features of MSA over the course of the disease in the daily clinical practice.

A metabolomic signature of treated and drug-naïve patients with Parkinson's disease: a pilot study.

INTRODUCTION: About 90% of cases of Parkinson's disease (PD) are idiopathic and attempts to understand pathogenesis typically assume a multifactorial origin. Multifactorial diseases can be studied using metabolomics, since the cellular metabolome reflects the interplay between genes and environment. OBJECTIVE: The aim of our case-control study is to compare metabolomic profiles of whole blood obtained from treated PD patients, de-novo PD patients and controls, and to study the perturbations correlated with disease duration, disease stage and motor impairment. METHODS: We collected blood samples from 16 drug naïve parkinsonian patients, 84 treated parkinsonian patients, and 42 age matched healthy controls. Metabolomic profiles have been obtained using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Multivariate statistical analysis has been performed using supervised models; partial least square discriminant analysis and partial least square regression. RESULTS: This approach allowed separation between discrete classes and stratification of treated patients according to continuous variables (disease duration, disease stage, motor score). Analysis of single metabolites and their related metabolic pathways revealed unexpected possible perturbations related to PD and underscored existing mechanisms that correlated with disease onset, stage, duration, motor score and pharmacological treatment. CONCLUSION: Metabolomics can be useful in pathogenetic studies and biomarker discovery. The latter needs large-scale validation and comparison with other neurodegenerative conditions.

Serum miR-30c-5p is a potential biomarker for multiple system atrophy.

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a neurodegenerative disease that belongs to the α synucleinopathies. Clinically, there is an overlap between MSA and Parkinson's disease (PD), especially at the early disease stage. However, these two pathologies differ in terms of disease progression. Currently, no biomarker exists to differentiate MSA from PD. MicroRNAs are non-coding RNAs implicated in gene expression regulation. MiRNAs modulate cellular activity and they control a range of physiological and pathological functions. miRNAs are found in biofluids, such as blood, serum, plasma, saliva, and cerebrospinal fluid. Many groups, including ours, found that circulating miRNAs are differently expressed in blood, plasma, serum and cerebrospinal fluid of PD and MSA patients. In the present study, our primary aim was to determine if serum mir-30-5p and mir-148b-5p can be used as biomarkers for early diagnosis of PD and/or MSA. Our secondary goal was to determine if serum levels of those miRNAs can be correlated with the patients' clinical profile. Using quantitative PCR (qPCR), we evaluated expression levels of miR-30c-5p and miR148b-5p in serum samples from PD (n = 56), MSA (n = 49), and healthy control (n = 50) subjects. We have found that miR-30c-5p is significantly upregulated in MSA if compared with PD and healthy control subjects. Moreover, serum miR-30c-5p levels correlate with disease duration in both MSA and PD. No significant difference was found in miR-148b-5p among MSA, PD and healthy control subjects. Our results suggest a possible role of serum miR-30-5p as a biomarker for diagnosis and progression of MSA.

US trends in abortion and preterm birth.

BACKGROUND: A recent large meta-analysis concluded that prior surgical abortion was an independent risk factor for spontaneous preterm birth (PTB), while they found no significant correlation between PTB and medical abortion. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the potential impact of changes in US abortion rates and practices on US incidence of PTB rate. STUDY DESIGN: This was an epidemiologic analysis of legal abortion and PTB data in the USA from 2003 to 2012. Birth data (annual total birth, annual number and incidence of PTB, defined as PTB <37 weeks) are from National Vital Statistics Reports from the National Center for Health Statistics, Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Abortion data were collected using Abortion Surveillance provided by the CDC. Abortion incidence was reported overall, and by type: surgical, medical method and procedures reported as "other" such as intrauterine instillation and hysterectomy/hysterotomy. To test for the trend of abortion and of PTB over time, we used the chi-squared test for trend. The primary outcome of our study was the correlation trend analysis between abortion rate and PTB rate. Pearson correlation test was used. A two-tailed p value of 0.05 or less was considered significant. RESULTS: From 2003 to 2012 there were 41 206 315 births in USA, of which 5 042 982 (12.2%) were <37 weeks. The PTB rate declined significantly from 12.3% in 2003 to 11.5% in 2012 (p value test for trend <.04). Out of the 6 122 649 legal abortions, reported by type of procedure, performed from 2003 to 2012 in USA, 5 132 789 were surgical abortion (82.8%) and 860 288 (14.0%) were medical. Chi-squared test for trend showed that the rate of surgical abortion significantly decreased from 88.9 to 78.0% (p < .01) while the rate of medical abortion significantly increased from 7.9 to 21.9% (p < .01) from 2003 to 2012, respectively. The rate of PTB was correlated with the rate of medical abortion (p = .01) and of surgical abortion (p = .02) over time. The higher the surgical abortion rate, the higher the incidence of PTB (Pearson correlation 0.712); the higher the medical abortion rate, the lower the incidence of PTB (Pearson correlation -0.731). CONCLUSION: Recent changes in abortion practices may be associated with the current decrease in US incidence of PTB. Further study on the effect of surgical versus medical abortion is warranted regarding a possible effect on the incidence of PTB.