Utility of a Screening Test (MoCa) to Predict Amyloid Physiopathology in Mild Cognitive Impairment

Introduction: The MoCa (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) Screening test has become relevant in recent years in the screening of patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). It is important to seek and study simple and reliable tools in clinical practices that correlate with biological markers that have been used to predict conversion from MCI to AD. Objective: To analyze the MOCA and its cognitive sub-scores and the relationship with Amyloid pathophysiology in Alzheimer’s Disease. Methodology: 32 patients with MCI were studied, they were separated according positive (n: 20) and negative (n: 12) underlying amyloid pathology. The patients performed a extensive cognitive assessment that included MoCa Test. Results: MoCa Total Scores showed significantly different results between groups (p <0.001) as well as the Memory Score (MoCa MIS), the Executive (MoCa EIS), the Attentional Score (MoCa AIS)) (p < 0.001) and the Orientation Score (MoCa OIS)) (p < 0.05) with worse performance of patients with amyloid pathophysiology. Score of MoCa a cut-off point of < 24 was established, since the diagnostic sensitivity at this point was 83% and the specificity 70%. Conclusions: The MoCa is a useful tool to differentiate biomarker status in MCI. Future studies should study this tool in the prodromal phases of the disease.

Cyberbullying Blocker Test Application for Android Devices

In this chapter, the authors present an application for Android smartphones to automatically detect possible harmful content in input text. The developed application is aimed to test in practice the performance of the developed cyberbullying detection methods described in previous chapters. The final goal of the developed application will be to help mitigate the problem of cyberbullying by quickly detecting possibly harmful contents in user's entry and warning the user of the possible negative influence. The test application was prepared to use one of two methods for detection of harmful messages: a method inspired by a brute force search algorithm applied to language modelling and a method which uses seed words from three categories to calculate semantic orientation score SO-PMI-IR and then maximize the relevance of categories to specify harmfulness of a message (both methods were described in previous chapters). First tests showed that both methods are working properly under the Android environment.

Web Mining-Based Method for Cyberbullying Detection

In this chapter, the authors present a method for automatic detection of cyberbullying entries based on a Web mining technique, in particular, on an extended SO-PMI-IR method calculating relevance of new input documents with training documents. The method uses seed words from three categories to calculate semantic orientation score and then maximizes the relevance of categories. The method outperformed previously proposed Web-mining-based methods in both laboratory and real-world conditions. The developed system is deployed and tested in practice. After a year of testing, the authors notice an over 30% point drop in its performance. They hypothesize on the reasons for the drop. To regain the lost performance and sustain it in the future, the authors propose additional improvements including automatic acquisition and filtering of seed words. Experimentally selected optimal improvements regained much of the lost performance.

Acculturation Determines BMI Percentile and Noncore Food Intake in Hispanic Children

Hispanic children in the United States are disproportionately affected by obesity. The role of acculturation in obesity is unclear. This study examined the relation between child obesity, dietary intake, and maternal acculturation in Hispanic children. We hypothesized that children of more acculturated mothers would consume more unhealthy foods and would have higher body mass index (BMI) percentiles. A total of 209 Hispanic mothers of children aged 2–4 y (50% female, 35.3 ± 8.7 mo, BMI percentile: 73.1 ± 27.8, 30% obese, 19% overweight) were recruited for an obesity prevention/reversal study. The associations between baseline maternal acculturation [Brief Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II (Brief ARSMA-II)], child BMI percentile, and child diet were examined. Factor analysis of the Brief ARSMA-II in Puerto Rican mothers resulted in 2 new factors, which were named the Hispanic Orientation Score (4 items, loadings: 0.64–0.81) and U.S. Mainland Orientation Score (6 items, loadings: −0.61–0.92). In the total sample, children who consumed more noncore foods were more likely to be overweight or obese (P &lt; 0.01). Additionally, children of mothers with greater acculturation to the United States consumed more noncore foods (P &lt; 0.0001) and had higher BMI percentiles (P &lt; 0.04). However, mothers with greater Hispanic acculturation served fewer noncore foods (P &lt; 0.0001). In the Puerto Rican subgroup of mothers, Puerto Rican mothers with greater acculturation to the United States served more noncore foods (P &lt; 0.0001), but there was no association between acculturation and child BMI percentile in this subgroup. These mothers, however, served fewer sugar-sweetened beverages (P &lt; 0.01) compared with non-Puerto Rican mothers, and this may have negated the effect of noncore food consumption on BMI percentile. These data suggest a complex relation between acculturation, noncore food consumption, and child BMI percentile in Puerto Rican and non-Puerto Rican Hispanic children.

Leadership Tendencies of Pakistanis: Exploring Similarities and Differences based on Age and Gender

The management styles of people are influenced by their cultural contexts and urgency of completing tasks. For example, it is expected that people will get things done in a speedy manner when their jobs are on the line, but they will still try to minimize the negative impact to their relationships. To explore the leadership tendencies of working adults in the Pakistani workplace, this paper focused on comparing the leadership orientation of 232 respondents based on their age and gender. Pakistanis have a significantly higher score on task orientation. Their relationship orientation score is also on the moderately high range. The high score on both leadership dimensions reflects on their cultural orientation. Practical suggestions for expatriates and implications for future studies are presented.