List of suggested abstracts to try turning into media headlines
Naltrexone for the Management of Alcohol Dependence
A 44-year-old businessman with a history of hypertension presents for evaluation with a report of being under stress at work and home, which has led to “unsatisfactory” sleep. Although there is some despondency, screening for depression is negative. His blood pressure is 158/98 mm Hg. Laboratory results include a mean corpuscular volume of 102 fl (normal range, 80 to 100), an alanine aminotransferase level of 60 U per liter (normal range, 7 to 41), an aspartate aminotransferase level of 45 U per liter (normal range, 12 to 38), and a γ-glutamyltransferase level of 110 U per liter (normal range, 9 to 58). His physician asks about alcohol consumption, and the patient admits that perhaps he drinks “more than he should,” since he often wakes up with a hang-over and arrives late to work. After weekend golf outings, he comes home intoxicated, leading to arguments with his wife and embarrassment in front of his children. He has been quietly wondering about the need to cut down or stop drinking and wants some advice. His physician discusses medication or a referral to an alcohol clinic for further evaluation. Naltrexone is proposed as a treatment option.
A high-performance brain–computer interface.
Recent studies have demonstrated that monkeys1,2,3,4 and humans5,6,7,8,9 can use signals from the brain to guide computer cursors. Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) may one day assist patients suffering from neurological injury or disease, but relatively low system performance remains a major obstacle. In fact, the speed and accuracy with which keys can be selected using BCIs is still far lower than for systems relying on eye movements. This is true whether BCIs use recordings from populations of individual neurons using invasive electrode techniques1,2,3,4,5,7,8 or electroencephalogram recordings using less-6 or non-invasive9 techniques. Here we present the design and demonstration, using electrode arrays implanted in monkey dorsal premotor cortex, of a manyfold higher performance BCI than previously reported9,10. These results indicate that a fast and accurate key selection system, capable of operating with a range of keyboard sizes, is possible (up to 6.5 bits per second, or ∼15 words per minute, with 96 electrodes). The highest information throughput is achieved with unprecedentedly brief neural recordings, even as recording quality degrades over time. These performance results and their implications for system design should substantially increase the clinical viability of BCIs in humans.
Magnetic control of tokamak plasmas through deep reinforcement learning
Nuclear fusion using magnetic confinement, in particular in the tokamak configuration, is a promising path towards sustainable energy. A core challenge is to shape and maintain a high-temperature plasma within the tokamak vessel. This requires high-dimensional, high-frequency, closed-loop control using magnetic actuator coils, further complicated by the diverse requirements across a wide range of plasma configurations. In this work, we introduce a previously undescribed architecture for tokamak magnetic controller design that autonomously learns to command the full set of control coils. This architecture meets control objectives specified at a high level, at the same time satisfying physical and operational constraints. This approach has unprecedented flexibility and generality in problem specification and yields a notable reduction in design effort to produce new plasma configurations. We successfully produce and control a diverse set of plasma configurations on the Tokamak à Configuration Variable1,2, including elongated, conventional shapes, as well as advanced configurations, such as negative triangularity and ‘snowflake’ configurations. Our approach achieves accurate tracking of the location, current and shape for these configurations. We also demonstrate sustained ‘droplets’ on TCV, in which two separate plasmas are maintained simultaneously within the vessel. This represents a notable advance for tokamak feedback control, showing the potential of reinforcement learning to accelerate research in the fusion domain, and is one of the most challenging real-world systems to which reinforcement learning has been applied.
Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies
There has been enormous debate regarding the possibility of a link between childhood vaccinations and the subsequent development of autism. This has in recent times become a major public health issue with vaccine preventable diseases increasing in the community due to the fear of a ‘link’ between vaccinations and autism. We performed a meta-analysis to summarise available evidence from case-control and cohort studies on this topic (MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, Google Scholar up to April, 2014). Eligible studies assessed the relationship between vaccine administration and the subsequent development of autism or autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Two reviewers extracted data on study characteristics, methods, and outcomes. Disagreement was resolved by consensus with another author. Five cohort studies involving 1,256,407 children, and five case-control studies involving 9,920 children were included in this analysis. The cohort data revealed no relationship between vaccination and autism (OR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.92 to 1.06) or ASD (OR: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.68 to 1.20), nor was there a relationship between autism and MMR (OR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.70 to 1.01), or thimerosal (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.77 to 1.31), or mercury (Hg) (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.93 to 1.07). Similarly the case-control data found no evidence for increased risk of developing autism or ASD following MMR, Hg, or thimerosal exposure when grouped by condition (OR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.83 to 0.98; p = 0.02) or grouped by exposure type (OR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.76 to 0.95; p = 0.01). Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the components of the vaccines (thimerosal or mercury) or multiple vaccines (MMR) are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum
Role of interferon therapy in severe COVID-19: the COVIFERON randomized controlled trial
Type 1 Interferons (IFNs) have been associated with positive effects on Coronaviruses. Previous studies point towards the superior potency of IFNβ compared to IFNα against viral infections. We conducted a three-armed, individually-randomized, open-label, controlled trial of IFNβ1a and IFNβ1b, comparing them against each other and a control group. Patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1:1 ratio to IFNβ1a (subcutaneous injections of 12,000 IU on days 1, 3, 6), IFNβ1b (subcutaneous injections of 8,000,000 IU on days 1, 3, 6), or the control group. All three arms orally received Lopinavir/Ritonavir (400 mg/100 mg twice a day for ten days) and a single dose of Hydroxychloroquine 400 mg on the first day. Our utilized primary outcome measure was Time To Clinical Improvement (TTCI) defined as the time from enrollment to discharge or a decline of two steps on the clinical seven-step ordinal scale, whichsoever came first. A total of 60 severely ill patients with positive RT-PCR and Chest CT scans underwent randomization (20 patients to each arm). In the Intention-To-Treat population, IFNβ1a was associated with a significant difference against the control group, in the TTCI; (HR; 2.36, 95% CI 1.10–5.17, P-value = 0.031) while the IFNβ1b indicated no significant difference compared with the control; HR; 1.42, (95% CI 0.63–3.16, P-value = 0.395). The median TTCI for both of the intervention groups was five days vs. seven days for the control group. The mortality was numerically lower in both of the intervention groups (20% in the IFNβ1a group and 30% in the IFNβ1b group vs. 45% in the control group). There were no significant differences between the three arms regarding the adverse events. In patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, as compared with the base therapeutic regiment, the benefit of a significant reduction in TTCI was observed in the IFNβ1a arm. This finding needs further confirmation in larger studies.
Psychopathy and intelligence in high-risk violent women
There has been a longstanding debate and mixed evidence on the link between psychopathy and intelligence. Most of the existing research comes from male prisoners, with the literature on female psychopathy and intelligence remaining sparse. Thus, the current study explored the correlational association between psychopathy and intelligence in a sample of high-risk violent female offenders. This is the first study of its kind from the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) pathway for women in the United Kingdom (UK). The sample includes high-risk violent women presenting with severe personality disorder. In the present study, we conducted a correlational examination between total scores, and the 2-factor and 4-facet structure of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) with intelligence using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). No significant associations were found between total PCL-R scores, or factor 2, and intelligence. Positive associations were found between verbal comprehension and factor 1 and the interpersonal facet. Thus, the results suggest high-risk violent female offenders with interpersonal psychopathic traits demonstrate higher levels of verbal comprehension skills. This finding may help explain why psychopathic female offenders, who can be characterized by deceitful and egocentric behaviours, may be able to successfully charm and con others for their own personal gain.
Intelligence test scores and birth order among young Norwegian men (conscripts) analyzed within and between families
The present paper reports the results of a within and between family analysis of the relation between birth order and intelligence. The material comprises more than a quarter of a million test scores for intellectual performance of Norwegian male conscripts recorded during 1984–2004. Conscripts, mostly 18–19 years of age, were born to women for whom almost complete reproductive histories were obtained. Women with single births only 1967–1998 and first birth 1967–1976 were selected for analyses. The grand mean stanine score for intellectual performance standardized for age and calendar year was 5.05 (SD = 1.80). The mean standardized score decreased with size of sibship and with higher birth orders in all sibship sizes. These patterns as well as the size of the difference between birth orders 1 and 3 were rather similar between and within families. Among 63 951 adjacent sibling pairs the mean standardized scores were 5.18 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.16, 5.19) for the elder and 4.93 (95% CI: 4.91, 4.94) for the younger brother. The difference in mean of standardized scores between adjacent siblings was − 0.251 (95% CI: − 0.270, − 0.231). The difference in mean standardized scores between brothers of adjacent birth orders increased with higher maternal level of education, was highest between brothers of married women, higher with paternal income and decreased with sibship size and longer spacing between births.