Role In Information Integration Research Articles

Social Determinants of Health and ER Utilization: Role of Information Integration during COVID-19

Emergency room (ER) admissions are the front door for the utilization of a community's health resources and serve as a valuable proxy for a community health system's capacity. While recent research suggests that social determinants of health (SDOH) are important predictors of patient health outcomes, their impact on ER utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic is not well understood. Further, the role of hospital information integration in moderating the impact of SDOH on ER utilization has not received adequate attention. Utilizing longitudinal claims data from a regional health information exchange spanning 6 years including the COVID-19 period, we study how SDOH affects ER utilization and whether effective integration of patient health information across hospitals can moderate its impact. Our results suggest that a patient's economic well-being significantly reduces future ER utilization. The magnitude of this relationship is significant when patients are treated at hospitals with high information integration but is weaker when patients receive care at hospitals with lower levels of information integration. Instead, patients' family and social support can reduce ER utilization when they are treated at hospitals with low information integration. In other words, different dimensions of SDOH are important in low versus high information integration conditions. Furthermore, predictive modeling shows that patient visit type and prior visit history can significantly improve the predictive accuracy of ER utilization. Our research implications support efforts to develop national standards for the collection and sharing of SDOH data and their use and interpretation for clinical decision making by healthcare providers and policy makers.

Panpsychism and the concept of causal significance in Gregg Rosenberg’s theory of liberal naturalism

The article highlights the main ideas of the original panpsychist concept of consciousness proposed by the contemporary American philosopher Gregg Rosenberg. The philosopher proposes to revise some of the provisions of the newest versions of panpsychism in order to solve the problem of mental causation and the combination problem. To do this, he puts forward the concept of natural individuals based on an original interpretation of causal relations. Within the framework of the theory presented by Rosenberg, it is assumed that a causal action consisting of two interrelated properties — effective and receptive — is a set of restrictions that some event imposes on what the world can be, and not on the effects that it produces in the world; this system of restrictions implies that the real world arises from space of potentialities. The theory proposed by the philosopher presents the world as individuals of different orders “layered” on top of each other, where deterministic macro-individuals can exist “on top” of micro-individuals in indeterminate states, making the latter, in turn, deterministic. Rosenberg’s concept is compatible with many achievements of modern empirical sciences, including assumptions about the role of information integration in the formation of phenomenal experiences, as well as relativistic ideas about the nature of space-time. For this reason, the concept under consideration seems very promising: it is likely that its further development contributes to solving the “hard problem” of consciousness known in modern analytical philosophy and will shed light on some fundamental issues that traditionally arise on the border between physics and metaphysics.

Working memory capacity, removal efficiency and event specific memory as predictors of misinformation reliance

ABSTRACT Event-related misinformation that has been retracted often continues to influence later reasoning regarding the event; this is known as the continued influence effect. To explain this effect, most research has focused on factors governing retrieval of the misinformation and its retraction from long-term memory. However, recent research has begun to investigate working memory (WM) capacity as a predictor of continued influence, based on WM’s assumed role in information integration and updating following retraction encoding. The present study explored (1) whether memory for the materials more generally predicts continued influence, based on the notion that high-fidelity event representations may be easier to update, and (2) investigated the specific WM updating process of removal, testing whether participants’ ability to remove information from WM would predict their susceptibility to continued influence. Latent-variable modelling suggested that memory for the materials but not WM capacity and removal efficiency were significant predictors of continued influence.

Loss of Calretinin in L5a impairs the formation of the barrel cortex leading to abnormal whisker-mediated behaviors

The rodent whisker-barrel cortex system has been established as an ideal model for studying sensory information integration. The barrel cortex consists of barrel and septa columns that receive information input from the lemniscal and paralemniscal pathways, respectively. Layer 5a is involved in both barrel and septa circuits and play a key role in information integration. However, the role of layer 5a in the development of the barrel cortex remains unclear. Previously, we found that calretinin is dynamically expressed in layer 5a. In this study, we analyzed calretinin KO mice and found that the dendritic complexity and length of layer 5a pyramidal neurons were significantly decreased after calretinin ablation. The membrane excitability and excitatory synaptic transmission of layer 5a neurons were increased. Consequently, the organization of the barrels was impaired. Moreover, layer 4 spiny stellate cells were not able to properly gather, leading to abnormal formation of barrel walls as the ratio of barrel/septum size obviously decreased. Calretinin KO mice exhibited deficits in exploratory and whisker-associated tactile behaviors as well as social novelty preference. Our study expands our knowledge of layer 5a pyramidal neurons in the formation of barrel walls and deepens the understanding of the development of the whisker-barrel cortex system.

The Modular Organization of Pain Brain Networks: An fMRI Graph Analysis Informed by Intracranial EEG.

Intracranial EEG (iEEG) studies have suggested that the conscious perception of pain builds up from successive contributions of brain networks in less than 1 s. However, the functional organization of cortico-subcortical connections at the multisecond time scale, and its accordance with iEEG models, remains unknown. Here, we used graph theory with modular analysis of fMRI data from 60 healthy participants experiencing noxious heat stimuli, of whom 36 also received audio stimulation. Brain connectivity during pain was organized in four modules matching those identified through iEEG, namely: 1) sensorimotor (SM), 2) medial fronto-cingulo-parietal (default mode-like), 3) posterior parietal-latero-frontal (central executive-like), and 4) amygdalo-hippocampal (limbic). Intrinsic overlaps existed between the pain and audio conditions in high-order areas, but also pain-specific higher small-worldness and connectivity within the sensorimotor module. Neocortical modules were interrelated via “connector hubs” in dorsolateral frontal, posterior parietal, and anterior insular cortices, the antero-insular connector being most predominant during pain. These findings provide a mechanistic picture of the brain networks architecture and support fractal-like similarities between the micro-and macrotemporal dynamics associated with pain. The anterior insula appears to play an essential role in information integration, possibly by determining priorities for the processing of information and subsequent entrance into other points of the brain connectome.

Diverse Community Structures in the Neuronal-Level Connectome of the Drosophila Brain.

Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most important model animals in neurobiology owing to its manageable brain size, complex behaviour, and extensive genetic tools. However, without a comprehensive map of the brain-wide neural network, our ability to investigate brain functions at the systems level is seriously limited. In this study, we constructed a neuron-to-neuron network of the Drosophila brain based on the 28,573 fluorescence images of single neurons in the newly released FlyCircuit v1.2 (http://www.flycircuit.tw) database. By performing modularity and centrality analyses, we identified eight communities (right olfaction, left olfaction, olfactory core, auditory, motor, pre-motor, left vision, and right vision) in the brain-wide network. Further investigation on information exchange and structural stability revealed that the communities of different functions dominated different types of centralities, suggesting a correlation between functions and network structures. Except for the two olfaction and the motor communities, the network is characterized by overall small-worldness. A rich club (RC) structure was also found in this network, and most of the innermost RC members innervated the central complex, indicating its role in information integration. We further identified numerous loops with length smaller than seven neurons. The observation suggested unique characteristics in the information processing inside the fruit fly brain.

Frequency-Dependent Spatial Distribution of Functional Hubs in the Human Brain and Alterations in Major Depressive Disorder.

Alterations in large-scale brain intrinsic functional connectivity (FC), i.e., coherence between fluctuations of ongoing activity, have been implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD). Yet, little is known about the frequency-dependent alterations of FC in MDD. We calculated frequency specific degree centrality (DC) – a measure of overall FC of a brain region – within 10 distinct frequency sub-bands accessible from the full range of resting-state fMRI BOLD fluctuations (i.e., 0.01–0.25 Hz) in 24 healthy controls and 24 MDD patients. In healthy controls, results reveal a frequency-specific spatial distribution of highly connected brain regions – i.e., hubs – which play a fundamental role in information integration in the brain. MDD patients exhibited significant deviations from the healthy DC patterns, with decreased overall connectedness of widespread regions, in a frequency-specific manner. Decreased DC in MDD patients was observed predominantly in the occipital cortex at low frequencies (0.01–0.1 Hz), in the middle cingulate cortex, sensorimotor cortex, lateral parietal cortex, and the precuneus at middle frequencies (0.1–0.175 Hz), and in the anterior cingulate cortex at high frequencies (0.175–0.25 Hz). Additionally, decreased DC of distinct parts of the insula was observed across low, middle, and high frequency bands. Frequency-specific alterations in the DC of the temporal, insular, and lateral parietal cortices correlated with symptom severity. Importantly, our results indicate that frequency-resolved analysis within the full range of frequencies accessible from the BOLD signal – also including higher frequencies (>0.1 Hz) – reveals unique information about brain organization and its changes, which can otherwise be overlooked.

Data source selection for information integration in big data era

In big data era, information integration often requires abundant data extracted from massive data sources. Due to a large number of data sources, data source selection plays a crucial role in information integration, since it is costly and even impossible to access all data sources. Data Source selection should consider both efficiency and effectiveness issues. For efficiency, the approach should scale to large data source amount. From effectiveness aspect, data quality and overlapping of sources are to be considered. In this paper, we study source selection problem in Big Data and propose methods which can scale to datasets with up to millions of data sources and guarantee the quality of results.Motivated by this, we propose a new metric taking the expected number of true values a source can provide as a criteria to evaluate the contribution of a data source. Based on our proposed index, we present a scalable algorithm and two pruning strategies to improve the efficiency without sacrificing precision. Experimental results on both real world and synthetic data sets show that our methods can select sources providing a large proportion of true values efficiently and can scale to massive data sources.

Altered Rich-Club and Frequency-Dependent Subnetwork Organization in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A MEG Resting-State Study.

Functional brain connectivity networks exhibit “small-world” characteristics and some of these networks follow a “rich-club” organization, whereby a few nodes of high connectivity (hubs) tend to connect more densely among themselves than to nodes of lower connectivity. The Current study followed an “attack strategy” to compare the rich-club and small-world network organization models using Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings from mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) patients and neurologically healthy controls to identify the topology that describes the underlying intrinsic brain network organization. We hypothesized that the reduction in global efficiency caused by an attack targeting a model's hubs would reveal the “true” underlying topological organization. Connectivity networks were estimated using mutual information as the basis for cross-frequency coupling. Our results revealed a prominent rich-club network organization for both groups. In particular, mTBI patients demonstrated hyper-synchronization among rich-club hubs compared to controls in the δ band and the δ-γ1, θ-γ1, and β-γ2 frequency pairs. Moreover, rich-club hubs in mTBI patients were overrepresented in right frontal brain areas, from θ to γ1 frequencies, and underrepresented in left occipital regions in the δ-β, δ-γ1, θ-β, and β-γ2 frequency pairs. These findings indicate that the rich-club organization of resting-state MEG, considering its role in information integration and its vulnerability to various disorders like mTBI, may have a significant predictive value in the development of reliable biomarkers to help the validation of the recovery from mTBI. Furthermore, the proposed approach might be used as a validation tool to assess patient recovery.

Neural plasticity in amplitude of low frequency fluctuation, cortical hub construction, regional homogeneity resulting from working memory training

Working memory training (WMT) induces changes in cognitive function and various neurological systems. Here, we investigated changes in recently developed resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging measures of global information processing [degree of the cortical hub, which may have a central role in information integration in the brain, degree centrality (DC)], the magnitude of intrinsic brain activity [fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (fALFF)], and local connectivity (regional homogeneity) in young adults, who either underwent WMT or received no intervention for 4 weeks. Compared with no intervention, WMT increased DC in the anatomical cluster, including anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Furthermore, WMT increased fALFF in the anatomical cluster including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), frontopolar area and mPFC. WMT increased regional homogeneity in the anatomical cluster that spread from the precuneus to posterior cingulate cortex and posterior parietal cortex. These results suggest WMT-induced plasticity in spontaneous brain activity and global and local information processing in areas of the major networks of the brain during rest.

HIV蛋白本体研究进展

本体作为一种知识的表达与组织方式引入到数据挖掘与信息整合中，发挥着重要的作用。目前，生物学领域的本体在知识组织和管理研究中越来越受到广泛关注和重视。本文梳理了本体的相关概念，综述了生物学本体的分类及应用，并详细介绍了HIV蛋白本体的研究现状、存在的问题和未来展望，以便为后续研究工作提供指导和启发。 As a way of knowledge expression and organization, ontology plays an important role in information integration and data mining. At present, the biological ontology has widely received more and more attention and focus in the research on knowledge organization and management. In this paper, the relevant concepts of ontology are combed, and the classification and application of the biological ontology are summarized, and the research status, problems and prospects of the HIV protein ontology are introduced so as to provide guidance and enlightenment for the subsequent studies.

Mining cross-frequency coupling microstates (CFCμstates) from EEG recordings during resting state and mental arithmetic tasks.

The functional brain connectivity has been studied by analyzing synchronization between dynamic oscillations of identical frequency or between different frequencies of distinct brain areas. It has been hypothesized that cross-frequency coupling (CFC) between different frequency bands is the carrier mechanism for the coordination of global and local neural processes and hence supports the distributed information processing in the brain. In the present study, we attempt to study the dynamic evolution of CFC at resting-state and during a mental task. The concept of CFC microstates (CFCμstates) is introduced as emerged short-lived patterns of CFC. We analyzed dynamic CFC (dCFC) at resting-state and during a comparison task by adopting a phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) estimator for [δ phase-γ-amplitude] coupling at every sensor. Modifying a well-established framework for mining brain dynamics, we show that a small sized repertoire of CFCμstates can be derived so as to encapsulate connectivity variations and further provide novel insights into network's functional reorganization. By analyzing the transition dynamics among CFCμstates, in both tasks, we provided a clear evidence about intrinsic networks that may play a crucial role in information integration.

Organization principles in visual working memory: Evidence from sequential stimulus display

Although the mechanisms of visual working memory (VWM) have been studied extensively in recent years, the active property of VWM has received less attention. In the current study, we examined how VWM integrates sequentially presented stimuli by focusing on the role of Gestalt principles, which are important organizing principles in perceptual integration. We manipulated the level of Gestalt cues among three or four sequentially presented objects that were memorized. The Gestalt principle could not emerge unless all the objects appeared together. We distinguished two hypotheses: a perception-alike hypothesis and an encoding-specificity hypothesis. The former predicts that the Gestalt cue will play a role in information integration within VWM; the latter predicts that the Gestalt cue will not operate within VWM. In four experiments, we demonstrated that collinearity (Experiment 1) and closure (Experiment 2) cues significantly improved VWM performance, and this facilitation was not affected by the testing manner (Experiment 3) or by adding extra colors to the memorized objects (Experiment 4). Finally, we re-established the Gestalt cue benefit with similarity cues (Experiment 5). These findings together suggest that VWM realizes and uses potential Gestalt principles within the stored representations, supporting a perception-alike hypothesis.

5-HT3a Receptors Modulate Hippocampal Gamma Oscillations by Regulating Synchrony of Parvalbumin-Positive Interneurons.

Gamma-frequency oscillatory activity plays an important role in information integration across brain areas. Disruption in gamma oscillations is implicated in cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders, and 5-HT3 receptors (5-HT3Rs) are suggested as therapeutic targets for cognitive dysfunction in psychiatric disorders. Using a 5-HT3aR-EGFP transgenic mouse line and inducing gamma oscillations by carbachol in hippocampal slices, we show that activation of 5-HT3aRs, which are exclusively expressed in cholecystokinin (CCK)-containing interneurons, selectively suppressed and desynchronized firings in these interneurons by enhancing spike-frequency accommodation in a small conductance potassium (SK)-channel-dependent manner. Parvalbumin-positive interneurons therefore received diminished inhibitory input leading to increased but desynchronized firings of PV cells. As a consequence, the firing of pyramidal neurons was desynchronized and gamma oscillations were impaired. These effects were independent of 5-HT3aR-mediated CCK release. Our results therefore revealed an important role of 5-HT3aRs in gamma oscillations and identified a novel crosstalk among different types of interneurons for regulation of network oscillations. The functional link between 5-HT3aR and gamma oscillations may have implications for understanding the cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders.

Graph-based reference table construction to facilitate entity matching

Entity matching plays a crucial role in information integration among heterogeneous data sources, and numerous solutions have been developed. Entity resolution based on reference table has the benefits of high efficiency and being easy to update. In such kind of methods, the reference table is important for effective entity matching. In this paper, we focus on the construction of effective reference table by relying on co-occurring relationship between tokens to identify suitable entity names. To achieve high efficiency and accuracy, we first model data set as graph, and then cluster the vertices in the graph in two stages. Based on the connectivity between vertices, we also mine synonyms and get the expansive reference table. We develop an iterative system and conduct an experimental study using real data. Experimental results show that the method in this paper achieves both high accuracy and efficiency.

Efficiency of a "Small-World" Brain Network Depends on Consciousness Level: A Resting-State fMRI Study

It has been revealed that spontaneous coherent brain activity during rest, measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), self-organizes a "small-world" network by which the human brain could sustain higher communication efficiency across global brain regions with lower energy consumption. However, the state-dependent dynamics of the network, especially the dependency on the conscious state, remain poorly understood. In this study, we conducted simultaneous electroencephalographic recording with resting-state fMRI to explore whether functional network organization reflects differences in the conscious state between an awake state and stage 1 sleep. We then evaluated whole-brain functional network properties with fine spatial resolution (3781 regions of interest) using graph theoretical analysis. We found that the efficiency of the functional network evaluated by path length decreased not only at the global level, but also in several specific regions depending on the conscious state. Furthermore, almost two-thirds of nodes that showed a significant decrease in nodal efficiency during stage 1 sleep were categorized as the default-mode network. These results suggest that brain functional network organizations are dynamically optimized for a higher level of information integration in the fully conscious awake state, and that the default-mode network plays a pivotal role in information integration for maintaining conscious awareness.

Changes in the thalamocortical connectivity during anesthesia-induced transitions in consciousness

Thalamocortical networks play an important role in information integration during consciousness. However, little is known about how the information flows between the thalamus and the cortex are affected by a loss of consciousness. To investigate this issue, we analyzed effective connectivity between the cortex and the thalamus in animals during anesthesia-induced transitions. By recording the electroencephalogram from the primary motor and the primary somatosensory cortex and by recording local field potentials from the ventral lateral and the ventrobasal thalamic nuclei, we evaluated changes in the conditional Granger causality between cortical and thalamic electrical activity as mice gradually lost consciousness from the use of anesthesia (ketamine/xylazine). The point of loss of consciousness was indicated by a moment of loss of movement that was measured using a head-mounted motion sensor. The results showed that 65% of the thalamocortical information flows were changed by anesthesia-induced loss of consciousness. Specifically, the effective connectivity between the cortex and the ventral lateral thalamus was altered such that the primary motor and the primary somatosensory cortex Granger-caused the ventral lateral thalamus before loss of consciousness whereas the ventral lateral thalamus Granger-caused the primary motor cortex and the primary somatosensory cortex after loss of consciousness. In contrast, the primary somatosensory cortex consistently Granger-caused the ventrobasal thalamus, regardless of the loss of consciousness. These results suggest how information flows change across the thalamocortical network during transitions in consciousness.

Rich-club organization of the human connectome.

The human brain is a complex network of interlinked regions. Recent studies have demonstrated the existence of a number of highly connected and highly central neocortical hub regions, regions that play a key role in global information integration between different parts of the network. The potential functional importance of these "brain hubs" is underscored by recent studies showing that disturbances of their structural and functional connectivity profile are linked to neuropathology. This study aims to map out both the subcortical and neocortical hubs of the brain and examine their mutual relationship, particularly their structural linkages. Here, we demonstrate that brain hubs form a so-called "rich club," characterized by a tendency for high-degree nodes to be more densely connected among themselves than nodes of a lower degree, providing important information on the higher-level topology of the brain network. Whole-brain structural networks of 21 subjects were reconstructed using diffusion tensor imaging data. Examining the connectivity profile of these networks revealed a group of 12 strongly interconnected bihemispheric hub regions, comprising the precuneus, superior frontal and superior parietal cortex, as well as the subcortical hippocampus, putamen, and thalamus. Importantly, these hub regions were found to be more densely interconnected than would be expected based solely on their degree, together forming a rich club. We discuss the potential functional implications of the rich-club organization of the human connectome, particularly in light of its role in information integration and in conferring robustness to its structural core.

The Role of Information Integration in Facilitating 21 st Century Supply Chains: A Theory-Based Perspective

Abstract Existing literature provides a number of examples that illustrate how systems that integrate information from multiple organizations can support chain capabilities. The literature, however, lacks theoretical support to facilitate an understanding of the magnitude of information system integration required to support the scope of relational and supply chain strategies an organization may have in place. This article uses the strategy-structure-performance paradigm to position information integration relative to the nature of relationships within the broader supply chain strategies a firm employs. The framework presented is a first step towards a more holistic and theory-based approach to understanding the link between information integration and supply chain performance, and is designed to serve as a basis for future research in this area.

The Role of Information Integration in Facilitating 21 st Century Supply Chains: A Theory-Based Perspective

Abstract Existing literature provides a number of examples that illustrate how systems that integrate information from multiple organizations can support chain capabilities. The literature, however, lacks theoretical support to facilitate an understanding of the magnitude of information system integration required to support the scope of relational and supply chain strategies an organization may have in place. This article uses the strategy-structure-performance paradigm to position information integration relative to the nature of relationships within the broader supply chain strategies a firm employs. The framework presented is a first step towards a more holistic and theory-based approach to understanding the link between information integration and supply chain performance, and is designed to serve as a basis for future research in this area.