Search results for "ITC"
showing 10 items of 898 documents
Measuring Task-Switching Ability in the Implicit Association Test
2005
Abstract. Recently, the role of method-specific variance in the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was examined ( McFarland & Crouch, 2002 ; Mierke & Klauer, 2003 ). This article presents a new content-unspecific control task for the assessment of task-switching ability within the IAT methodology. Study 1 showed that this task exhibited good internal consistency and stability. Studies 2-4 examined method-specific variance in the IAT and showed that the control task is significantly associated with conventionally scored IAT effects of the IAT-Anxiety. Using the D measures proposed by Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji (2003 ), the amount of method-specific variance in the IAT-Anxiety could b…
Activation of human quadriceps femoris during isometric, concentric, and eccentric contractions.
2001
Maximal and submaximal activation level of the right knee-extensor muscle group were studied during isometric and slow isokinetic muscular contractions in eight male subjects. The activation level was quantified by means of the twitch interpolation technique. A single electrical impulse was delivered, whatever the contraction mode, on the femoral nerve at a constant 50° knee flexion (0° = full extension). Concentric, eccentric (both at 20°/s velocity), and isometric voluntary activation levels were then calculated. The mean activation levels during maximal eccentric and maximal concentric contractions were 88.3 and 89.7%, respectively, and were significantly lower ( P < 0.05) with respe…
Effect of high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin treatment in therapy-resistant chronic spontaneous urticaria
2010
Background Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) lasting more than 6 weeks is one of the most disabling types of urticaria and often results in severely impaired quality of life. Patients with CSU are often unsatisfied with the standard treatment. Another treatment option recommended for patients with so-called nonresponding CSU according to the newest guidelines is intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG). Objective To assess the efficacy and safety of high-dose IVIG as a treatment option in patients with therapy-resistant CSU. Methods Six patients with severe CSU unresponsive to other treatment options according to the newest guidelines for several weeks were treated with high-dose IVIG (2 g/kg ev…
Aging, muscle fiber type, and contractile function in sprint-trained athletes
2006
Biopsy samples were taken from the vastus lateralis of 18- to 84-yr-old male sprinters ( n = 91). Fiber-type distribution, cross-sectional area, and myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoform content were identified using ATPase histochemistry and SDS-PAGE. Specific tension and maximum shortening velocity ( Vo) were determined in 144 single skinned fibers from younger (18–33 yr, n = 8) and older (53–77 yr, n = 9) runners. Force-time characteristics of the knee extensors were determined by using isometric contraction. The cross-sectional area of type I fibers was unchanged with age, whereas that of type II fibers was reduced ( P < 0.001). With age there was an increased MHC I ( P < 0.01) and re…
Proactive interference of a sequence of tones in a two-tone pitch comparison task
2000
Subjects compared pitches of a standard tone and a comparison tone separated by 1,300-3,000 msec and responded according to whether the comparison tone sounded higher or lower in pitch than the standard tone. Three interfering tones at 300-msec intervals were presented before each pair of tones. Their pitch range varied, being either below or above the pitch of the standard tone; in some of the trials, their pitches were identical to the pitch of the standard tone (no interference). The highest error rate in performance was found when the interfering tones and the comparison tone deviated in the same direction in pitch from the standard tone. In turn, their deviations in the opposite direct…
Opioid Plasma Concentrations during a Switch from Transdermal Fentanyl to Methadone
2007
Opioid switching is often used to improve the opioid response in patients with cancer experiencing poor analgesia or adverse effects. When switching between drugs with delayed effect because of pharmacokinetics or type of delivery, concerns exist about the correct timing of introducing the second drug after stopping the previous one. The aim of this study was to assess plasmatic changes of fentanyl and methadone underlying the clinical events occurring during opioid switching. Eighteen patients with cancer receiving transdermal fentanyl with uncontrolled pain and/or moderate to severe opioid adverse effects, were switched to oral methadone using an initial fixed ratio of 1:20. Fentanyl patc…
Primary motor area contribution to attentional reorienting after distraction
2008
The anatomical structures involved in distraction-related processing in the auditory domain were investigated using magnetoencephalography. Participants performed a duration-discrimination task on a sequence of 200 and 400 ms long tones. Infrequent (12%) task-irrelevant pitch changes resulted in slower discriminative responses and more errors. Event-related potentials to these changes show an increased N1, a mismatch negativity, a P3a, and a reorienting negativity. The event-related magnetic fields revealed focal activities in superior and medial temporal areas in the N1/mismatch negativity time range. No significant activity was found in the P3a interval. In the reorienting negativity inte…
Pitch accent type affects the N400 during referential processing
2010
Discourse processing depends on semantic memory as well as maintaining and updating of a mental model. Using event-related potentials, we investigated how a referent's information status (new, accessible, given) is processed in combination with three different prosodic realizations (an appropriate accent and two inappropriate accents). The data reveal a biphasic N400-late positivity pattern, indicating that prosodic information affects an early discourse linking stage, during which prominence information reflecting a referent's accessibility is computed (N400), and a later discourse updating stage, during which conflicts between prosodic information and a referent's actual information statu…
Characteristics of tinnitus with or without hearing loss: Clinical observations in Sicilian tinnitus patients
2010
Objective: To analyze the clinical characteristics of tinnitus both in normal hearing subjects and in patients with hearing loss. Methods: The study considered 312 tinnitus sufferers, 176 males and 136 females, ranging from 21 to 83 years of age, who were referred to the Audiology Section of the Department of Bio-technology of Palermo University. The following parameters were considered: age, sex, hearing threshold, tinnitus laterality, tinnitus duration, tinnitus measurements and subjective disturbance caused by tinnitus. The sample was divided into two groups: Group 1 (G1) subjects with normal hearing; Group 2 (G2) subjects with hearing loss. Results: Among the patients considered, 115 ha…
Efficacy of single-source rapid kV-switching dual-energy CT for characterization of non-uric acid renal stones: a prospective ex vivo study using ant…
2019
Purpose To investigate the accuracy of rapid kV-switching single-source dual-energy computed tomography (rsDECT) for prediction of classes of non-uric-acid stones. Materials and methods Non-uric-acid renal stones retrieved via percutaneous nephrolithotomy were prospectively collected between January 2017 and February 2018 in a single institution. Only stones >= 5 mm and with pure composition (i.e., >= 80% composed of one component) were included. Stone composition was determined using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. The stones were scanned in 32-cm-wide anthropomorphic whole-body phantom using rsDECT. The effective atomic number (Zeff), the attenuation at 40 keV (HU40), 70 ke…