Parallel Tracks Research Articles

Status of Clinical Neuropsychology Training in Finland.

This paper provides information on different training models within clinical neuropsychology in Finland. Systematic specialization training program began in Finland in 1983. It was first organized mainly by the Finnish Neuropsychological Society and since 1997 by the Finnish universities. At present, close to 400 clinical neuropsychologists have completed the training. The number of professionals still does not cover the needs of the country (population 5.5 million, area 338,440 km2), and geographical disparities are a constant concern. The training models in Finland have changed over the years and will continue to evolve. Specialization training can be organized by national societies or by universities. It can lead to an academic degree or a diploma. It can be linked to doctoral studies or form a parallel track. Financial model can involve student fees or be governed by ministries (such as the Ministry of Education or Ministry of Health). This paper describes and compares different strategies in education that have impact on the output of professionals. One model does not fit all, or even one country at all times. The strategies of the stakeholder ministries can change over time. The experiences from Finland can be useful for other countries that are developing their models. The estimated need of practitioners and the educational resources including the available financial models for training differ between countries. The guiding principles in specialist training should focus on the advanced competencies expected from the neuropsychologist when entering the profession.

A Parallel Tracking of Salivary and Gut Microbiota Profiles Can Reveal Maturation and Interplay of Early Life Microbial Communities in Healthy Infants.

In this study, the onset and shaping of the salivary and gut microbiota in healthy newborns during the first period of life has been followed, evaluating the impact of salivary microbiota on the development of early fecal microbial communities. The microbiota of 80 salivary and 82 fecal samples that were collected from healthy newborns in the first six months of life, was investigated by 16S rRNA amplicon profiling. The microbial relationship within and between the saliva and gut ecosystems was determined by correlation heatmaps and co-occurrence networks. Streptococcus and Staphylococcus appeared as early commensals in the salivary microbiota, dominating this ecosystem through the time, while Fusobacterium, Prevotella, Porphyromonas, Granulicatella, and Veillonella were late colonizers. Enterobacteriaceae, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus were gut pioneers, followed by the anaerobic Bifidobacterium, Veillonella, Eggerthella, and Bacteroides. Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, and Veillonella were shared by the gut and saliva ecosystems. The saliva and gut microbiota seem to evolve independently, driven by local adaptation strategies, except for the oral Streptococcus and Veillonella that are involved in gut microbiota development as seeding species. This study offers a piece of knowledge on how the oral microbiota may affect the gut microbiota in healthy newborns, shedding light onto new microbial targets for the development of therapies for early life intestinal dysbiosis.

How the Brunswikian Lens Model Illustrates the Relationship Between Physiological and Behavioral Signals and Psychological Emotional and Cognitive States.

Social relationships are constructed by and through the relational communication that people exchange. Relational messages are implicit nonverbal and verbal messages that signal how people regard one another and define their interpersonal relationships—equal or unequal, affectionate or hostile, inclusive or exclusive, similar or dissimilar, and so forth. Such signals can be measured automatically by the latest machine learning software tools and combined into meaningful factors that represent the socioemotional expressions that constitute relational messages between people. Relational messages operate continuously on a parallel track with verbal communication, implicitly telling interactants the current state of their relationship and how to interpret the verbal messages being exchanged. We report an investigation that explored how group members signal these implicit messages through multimodal behaviors measured by sensor data and linked to the socioemotional cognitions interpreted as relational messages. By use of a modified Brunswikian lens model, we predicted perceived relational messages of dominance, affection, involvement, composure, similarity and trust from automatically measured kinesic, vocalic and linguistic indicators. The relational messages in turn predicted the veracity of group members. The Brunswikian Lens Model offers a way to connect objective behaviors exhibited by social actors to the emotions and cognitions being perceived by other interactants and linking those perceptions to social outcomes. This method can be used to ascertain what behaviors and/or perceptions are associated with judgments of an actor’s veracity. Computerized measurements of behaviors and perceptions can replace manual measurements, significantly expediting analysis and drilling down to micro-level measurement in a previously unavailable manner.

Qatar Health 2022: Preparing for the 2022 World Cup and the response to pandemics in Qatar – a multidisciplinary team approach

Welcome to this special issue of JEMTAC dedicated to the selection of 74 abstracts submitted to the Qatar Health 2022 online conference. The years are passing and the COVID-19 pandemic situation has not changed much globally. Although new vaccines have been developed and several restrictive measures have been rolled out in most countries to protect people, thousands are still succumbing to the effects of COVID-191,2. Similar to the Qatar Health 2021 conference3, among the abstract submissions, there is still much emphasis on how healthcare systems and services are dealing with the situation to mitigate the spread of the disease among patients and healthcare professionals, while still trying to deliver physical or mental care to those in need4–6. It is also important to point out that the same needs and concerns apply to both the general public as well as the healthcare workforce7,8. From a preparedness point of view, continuing professional development and testing of new processes and facilities are key to ensuring clinicians are ready to take on new roles in new environments, and that technology can play a significant role in a pandemic context9–11. This is not only true in relation to clinical facilities, but as Qatar prepares to host the 2022 World Cup, it is also highly relevant to sporting events, during which multiple agencies need to work together collaboratively and as a multidisciplinary team as per the theme of Qatar Health 2022 and the 2nd Qatar Public Health Conference12–13. The online conference has again been organized into four parallel tracks. It is dedicated to showcasing the work and opinions of leaders in their respective domains as well as the 112 abstracts that have been accepted for oral or poster presentation. The abstract themes are summarized in Table 1, and most of the corresponding abstracts are published in this special issue of JEMTAC. Submissions related to mass gatherings and sporting events were shy again this year, but it is expected to be a highly prominent topic for the next edition of the conference, after the 2022 World Cup. We hope you enjoy this early content preview of the conference and that it will make it even more engaging for everyone at the time of the question and answer sessions and on the poster boards. See you all online on the 10th-12th of February 2022!

Laboratory testing of cross-country skis – Investigating tribometer precision on laboratory-grown dendritic snow

Small differences in ski-snow friction results in large time gaps, and glide testing is therefore an important part of racing. To test ski-snow friction without the influence of changing weather, snow conditions and skier position is therefore valuable. In this study, a full-scale ski-snow tribometer was developed and we investigated the degree of precision obtainable for different snow types, speeds, between separate ski tracks and snow surface preparations. The precision within new snow test tracks was 1.45%, and changing between parallel tracks added another 1.03% to the precision. Measurements across several dendritic snow testbeds were associated with a further 2.39% contribution to the precision. On aged snow, better precision was obtained within and between tracks on the same snow surface.

Femtosecond Laser Machining of Flexible Printed Circuit Boards

As the demand grows for high-density electronic components and highly integrated printed circuit boards, femtosecond laser micromachining provides unique opportunities for creating fine conductive tracks and patterns on flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs) without the use of a mask. Here, the effects of femtosecond laser power and pulse frequency on micromachining depth, surface roughness and copper content of the machined zone were investigated, and optimum laser parameters, i.e., laser power 280 mW and pulse repetition frequency 39.5 kHz, were achieved with the help of a 3D optical profilometer and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). On this basis, a single conductive track with varying widths and two parallel conductive tracks with different widths/spacings were micromachined on FPCBs without noticeable substrate damage. The results indicate that a single conductive line with a feature width as small as 25 µm can be achieved, and two parallel copper tracks can be created with no evidence of the presence of copper residues between the tracks when the pre-defined spacing is no less than 45 µm . In order to achieve high micromachining accuracy, look-up tables that correlate measured widths/spacing of conductive tracks with the pre-defined ones were built.besides, machining conductive tracks with 135 degree corner is possible and by selecting optimized processing parameters. Finally, a driving circuit for a display panel was micromachined on FPCBs using femtosecond laser, and an average micromachining accuracy of 0.67 μm was achieved. This work will be quite useful for creating high density and precision patterns on FPCBs using femtosecond laser.

Analysis of General Geometric Decorrelation in Interferometric SAR

Traditional interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is based on broadside looking geometry and parallel tracks. With the increase of the orbit height in spaceborne SAR and the development of SAR constellations, InSAR data of a region can be acquired in complex geometry, especially squint beam steering and unparallel tracks. For the sake of optimal InSAR system design and data processing, it is necessary to model the geometric decorrelation in complex geometry. This letter derives an accurate analytical model of geometric decorrelation of SAR interferometric pairs for general SAR observation geometry. Nonidentity of impulse responses and nonorthogonal sidelobes are the main features hindering the model derivation in the complex geometry case. An impulse response-fitting method is proposed, where nonorthogonal bases are adopted to suit the features and, thus, accurately analyze the geometric decorrelation. Simulation results verify the analytical model. It is found that unparallel tracks will introduce an extra geometric decorrelation factor. Compared to cases of parallel tracks, unparallel tracks always worsen the geometric decorrelation and cannot be neglected.

BIM and Lean for value generation in the built asset industry: an information management perspective

The built asset industry’s notorious productivity gap is being targeted through digitalization, operationalized through Building Information Modelling (BIM), and the application of Lean philosophy to the planning, design, delivery, maintenance, and management of the built environment. While both approaches grow in popularity, their development has remained largely on parallel tracks. Both approaches have existed, for the most part, as two independent initiatives aimed at improving performance and productivity. An increasing amount of work however is pointing to the significant potential that can be achieved through the integration of both approaches. This paper investigates the mutual relations and synergies between BIM and Lean from an information management perspective. The paper also presents the key similarities, differences, synergies, and interactions between these two main drivers of built asset industry reform, while providing an investigation into the principles guiding the application of both within the construction industry.

Assessment of lipophilic fluorescence products in β-amyloid-induced cognitive decline: A parallel track in hippocampus, CSF, plasma and erythrocytes.

Oxidative stress implicates in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathophysiology, and associates with the creation of end products of free radical reactions, are known as lipophilic fluorescent products (LFPs). This study aimed to evaluate the probable parallel alterations in the spectral properties of the LFPs in the hippocampus tissues, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), plasma, and erythrocytes during AD model induction by intra-cerebroventricular (ICV) amyloid β-protein fragment 25-35 (Aβ) injection. Male rats received an intra-ICV injection of Aβ. Hippocampus, CSF, plasma, and erythrocytes were harvested at 5, 14, and 21days after Aβ injection. The fluorescent intensity of LFPs was assessed by spectrofluorimetry using synchronous fluorescence spectra 25 (SYN 25) and 50 (SYN 50) in the range of 250-500nm. Hippocampal tissue malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were also measured. Cognitive alterations were evaluated using Morris water maze (MWM) test. The parallel significant rise in the fluorescence intensity of LFPs was detected in the hippocampus, CSF, plasma, and erythrocytes, 14, and 21days after ICV-Aβ injection. These alterations were found in both types of synchronous spectra 25, and 50, and were coincided with hippocampal cognitive decline, the MDA rise, and decrease of SOD activity. There was a positive correlation between hippocampus homogenate, and plasma or CSF rise in fluorescence intensity. Data showed that the Aβ increased hippocampal MDA, and decreased SOD activity, led to a higher rate of oxidative products and subsequently resulted in an increase in LFPs fluorescence intensity during the development of cognitive decline. LFPs' alterations reflect a comprehensive view of tissue redox status. The fluorescence properties of LFPs indicate their composition, which may pave the way to trace the different pathological states.

Modeling abundance, distribution, movement and space use with camera and telemetry data.

Studies of animal abundance and distribution are often conducted independently of research on movement, despite the important links between processes. Movement can cause rapid changes in spatial variation in density, and movement influences detection probability and therefore estimates of abundance from inferential methods such as spatial capture-recapture (SCR). Technological developments including camera traps and GPS telemetry have opened new opportunities for studying animal demography and movement, yet statistical models for these two data types have largely developed along parallel tracks. We present a hierarchical model in which both datasets are conditioned on a movement process for a clearly defined population. We fitted the model to data from 60 camera traps and 23,572 GPS telemetry locations collected on 17 male white-tailed deer in the Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida, USA during July 2015. Telemetry data were collected on a 3-4 h acquisition schedule, and we modeled the movement paths of all individuals in the region with a Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process that included individual-specific random effects. Two of the 17 deer with GPS collars were detected on cameras. An additional 20 male deer without collars were detected on cameras and individually identified based on their unique antler characteristics. Abundance was 126 (95% CI: 88-177) in the 228 km2 region, only slightly higher than estimated using a standard SCR model: 119 (84-168). The standard SCR model, however, was unable to describe individual heterogeneity in movement rates and space use as revealed by the joint model. Joint modeling allowed the telemetry data to inform the movement model and the SCR encounter model, while leveraging information in the camera data to inform abundance, distribution and movement. Unlike most existing methods for population-level inference on movement, the joint SCR-movement model can yield unbiased inferences even if non-uniform sampling is used to deploy transmitters. Potential extensions of the model include the addition of resource selection parameters, and relaxation of the closure assumption when interest lies in survival and recruitment. These developments would contribute to the emerging holistic framework for the study of animal ecology, one that uses modern technology and spatio-temporal statistics to learn about interactions between behavior and demography.

Public Health Genomics – Treading Two Parallel Tracks

Against the backdrop of a decrepit healthcare system, where health for all is still a ‘distant’ dream, exposing stark gaps and shortfall of crucial inputs at various levels in catering to the health needs and requirements of a large population has compelled a review of the existing system and innovative course corrections. It has invoked a functional vision based on two parallel tracks; one, to rejuvenate and efficiently manage existing healthcare infrastructure and associated healthcare professionals at the village, tehsil and district level; and, the other of providing the modern facilities of diagnosis, prognosis, and preventive investigations with requisite interventions across all sections of the society. For more precise interventions to advance health the proposed two-pronged approach would ensure and safeguard the health, and inter alia reduce morbidity and mortality. Precision medicine in public health is predicated on OMICS technologies along with big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence for disease risk predictions and management in future. The capital intensive character of such technologies does raise concerns about their affordability, demanding an inter-institutional effort to generate simple and cost-effective high-throughput technology and tools for the diagnosis of diseases. The necessity to adopt modern medical biology technologies including Genomics has been amply evident in the COVID-19 pandemic through variant characterization of SARS-CoV2, and anticipated variations in the human host for differential susceptibilities and outcome of the disease.

Igneous Rock Associations 28. Construction of a Venusian Greenstone Belt: A Petrological Perspective

The crustal evolution of Venus appears to be principally driven by intraplate processes that may be related to mantle upwelling as there is no physiographic (i.e. mid-ocean ridge, volcanic arc) evidence of Earth-like plate tectonics. Rocks with basaltic composition were identified at the Venera 9, 10, 13, and 14, and Vega 1 and 2 landing sites whereas the rock encountered at the Venera 8 landing site may be silicic. The Venera 14 rock is chemically indistinguishable from terrestrial olivine tholeiite but bears a strong resemblance to basalt from terrestrial Archean greenstone belts. Forward petrological modeling (i.e. fractional crystallization and partial melting) and primary melt composition calculations using the rock compositions of Venus can yield results indistinguishable from many volcanic (ultramafic, intermediate, silicic) and plutonic (tonalite, trondhjemite, granodiorite, anorthosite) rocks that typify Archean greenstone belts. Evidence of chemically precipitated (carbonate, evaporite, chert, banded-iron formation) and clastic (sandstone, shale) sedimentary rocks is scarce to absent, but their existence is dependent upon an ancient Venusian hydrosphere. Nevertheless, it appears that the volcanic–volcaniclastic–plutonic portion of terrestrial greenstone belts can be constructed from the known surface compositions of Venusian rocks and suggests that it is possible that Venus and Early Earth had parallel evolutionary tracks in the growth of proto-continental crust.

Automatic multi-plaque tracking and segmentation in ultrasonic videos.

Carotid plaque tracking and segmentation in ultrasound videos is the premise for subsequent plaque property evaluation and treatment plan development. However, the task is quite challenging, as it needs to address the problems of poor image quality, plaque shape variations among frames, the existence of multiple plaques, etc. To overcome these challenges, we propose a new automatic multi-plaque tracking and segmentation (AMPTS) framework. AMPTS consists of three modules. The first module is a multi-object detector, in which a Dual Attention U-Net is proposed to detect multiple plaques and vessels simultaneously. The second module is a set of single-object trackers that can utilize the previous tracking results efficiently and achieve stable tracking of the current target by using channel attention and a ranking strategy. To make the first module and the second module work together, a parallel tracking module based on a simplified 'tracking-by-detection' mechanism is proposed to solve the challenge of tracking object variation. Extensive experiments are conducted to compare the proposed method with several state-of-the-art deep learning based methods. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method has high accuracy and generalizability with a Dice similarity coefficient of 0.83 which is 0.16, 0.06 and 0.27 greater than MAST (Lai etal., 2020), Track R-CNN (Voigtlaender etal., 2019) and VSD (Yang etal., 2019) respectively and has made significant improvements on seven other indicators. In the additional Testing set 2, our method achieved a Dice similarity coefficient of 0.80, an accuracy of 0.79, a precision of 0.91, a Recall 0.70, a F1 score of 0.79, an AP@0.5 of 0.92, an AP@0.7 of 0.74, and an expected average overlap of 0.79. Numerous ablation studies suggest the effectiveness of each proposed component and the great potential for multiple carotid plaques tracking and segmentation in clinical practice.

Case C-243/19 A v. Veselības ministrija

The issue at stake in Case C-243/19 A v. Veselības ministrija is whether a personal choice on the part of a patient, based on religious beliefs, must be considered when assessing the need for cross-border healthcare. The Court of Justice of the European Union holds that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is applicable and the right to freedom of religion can be invoked, in addition to medical criteria. However, the sustainability of the healthcare system can be an objective justification for refusal to grant authorisation for cross-border healthcare. Furthermore, the case clarifies – to a certain extent – the parallel tracks for claiming cross-border healthcare.

Clothoid curve optimization for parallel parking path planning and tracking control

In order to solve the problem of abrupt curvature change at the connection between arcs and straight lines in circle-line-circle (C-L-C) combined parallel parking paths, curvature optimization was carried out by using a cycloid curve, and the trajectory curvature and heading Angle were made to meet the pose requirements of parallel parking. By establishing the kinematics model state equation and taking the optimized C-L-C trajectory as the reference trajectory, the error model was obtained. The model predictive controller based on the error model was designed, and the effectiveness of the path planning and model predictive controller was verified on Carsim and Matlab/Simulink co-simulation platform.

Five Trends That Are Reshaping the Course of American Higher Education

The landscape of higher education has gone through substantial changes due to technological advancements, automation, and shifting learner demographics, further complicated by the pandemic situation. In this paper, I will discuss five trends in higher education: (a) the emergence of parallel tracks of education and training from both higher education institutions and corporates, (b) broader expansion of hybrid education and further separation of time and space in instruction, (c) polarized enrollment and retention between selective and non-selective institutions, (d) reckoning in admissions around equity and diversity, and (e) new paradigms of international education. The five trends will significantly impact how higher education might be evaluated, operated, and reformed.

Synthesizing dual-track road elevation data

The ability to synthesize dual, parallel track road elevation profiles is essential for studying the multi-axial motion of vehicles. It is important that the profiles retain the random and variable character of real roads. This research introduces a novel method for synthesizing dual-track longitudinal pavement elevation profiles. Using measured data from asphalted roads, probability density functions were produced to describe the variations in roughness and correlation between the tracks. The correlation between the tracks was analysed using the coherence function and roughness ratio between the measured kerb-side and driver-side tracks. The results showed that variations in the roughness of the tracks were well described by the Weibull probability distribution function defined by the shape, scale and location parameters. The location and shape parameters were shown to be independent to road roughness, leaving the scale parameter as the main index to define the roughness distribution. This finding led to the creation of a new roughness classification scheme for asphalt roads which was used to select appropriate roughness levels for simulation. Variations in the coherence functions and roughness ratios were found to be independent of road roughness and were also able to be described using the Weibull distribution. Using the results from a detailed statistical survey, a novel method was developed to enable the synthesis of parallel track elevation profiles that emulate real roads.

Four Generations of Quality—GxP pharmaceutical quality assurance, an alternative track?

John describes the similarities and differences between the two standards and likens their developments to a pair of parallel railway tracks that occasionally join through the points. John charts the history of GLP, GMP and GCP from before the 1940s, when, as far back as 1906, the US passed the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Collision Risk Modeling and Analysis for Lateral Separation to Support Unmanned Traffic Management.

This article investigates the utility and extension of well-established collision risk modeling approaches for lateral separation standard development for unmanned traffic management and network design. The applicability of standard assumptions and simplifications made in the manned environment to a scaled-down unmanned aerial systems (UAS) environment is first investigated. The results are used to derive an iso-risk surface that shows the tradeoff between separation distance and navigation performance for a given risk level or target level of safety. The model is then extended to consider collision risk from one to tracks, and finally to determine the total collision risk and the related iso-risk surfaces for systems of parallel tracks with additions to account for the effects of more than two parallel tracks. The extended model is applied to a case study where airspace design for an urban area is conducted via maximization of the number of same-direction parallel tracks while meeting the target level of safety. The results suggest that lateral separation distances less than 100 m are achievable for small UAS, and that the separation standards are mostly affected by the proportion of poorly navigatingaircraft.

A parallel interface tracking approach for evolving geometry problems

A parallel interface tracking approach for evolving geometry problems