@article {798, title = {Assessing the "physical cliff": detailed quantification of age-related differences in daily patterns of physical activity.}, journal = {J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci}, volume = {69}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Aug}, pages = {973-9}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: In spite of evidence that physical activity has beneficial effects on health and age-related functional decline, there is a scarcity of detailed and accurate information on objectively measured daily activity and patterns of such activity in older adults.

METHODS: Participants in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (n = 611, 50\% male, mean age 67, range 32-93) wore the Actiheart portable activity monitor for 7 days in the free-living environment. The association between activity and age was modeled using a continuous log-linear regression of activity counts on age with sex, body mass index, employment status, functional performance, and comorbid conditions as covariates.

RESULTS: In the fully adjusted model, continuous analyses demonstrated that overall physical activity counts were 1.3\% lower for each year increase in age. Although there were no differences among morning levels of activity, there was significantly lower afternoon and evening activity in older individuals (p < .01). After adjusting for age, poor functional performance, nonworking status, and higher body mass index were independently associated with less physical activity (p < .001).

CONCLUSIONS: The use of accelerometers to characterize minute-by-minute intensity, cumulative physical activity counts, and daily activity patterns provides detailed data not gathered by traditional subjective methods, particularly at low levels of activity. The findings of a 1.3\% decrease per year in activity from mid-to-late life, and the corresponding drop in afternoon and evening activity, provide new information that may be useful when targeting future interventions. Further, this methodology addresses essential gaps in understanding activity patterns and trends in more sedentary sectors of the population.

}, keywords = {Accelerometry, Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Employment, Female, Health Behavior, Humans, Linear Models, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Middle Aged, Motor Activity, Physical Fitness, Sedentary Lifestyle}, issn = {1758-535X}, doi = {10.1093/gerona/glt199}, author = {Schrack, Jennifer A and Zipunnikov, Vadim and Goldsmith, Jeff and Bai, Jiawei and Simonsick, Eleanor M and Crainiceanu, Ciprian and Ferrucci, Luigi} } @article {797, title = {Biomarkers of vascular calcification and mortality in patients with ESRD.}, journal = {Clin J Am Soc Nephrol}, volume = {9}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Apr}, pages = {745-55}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Vascular calcification is common among patients undergoing dialysis and is associated with mortality. Factors such as osteoprotegerin (OPG), osteopontin (OPN), bone morphogenic protein-7 (BMP-7), and fetuin-A are involved in vascular calcification.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, \& MEASUREMENTS: OPG, OPN, BMP-7, and fetuin-A were measured in blood samples from 602 incident dialysis patients recruited from United States dialysis centers between 1995 and 1998 as part of the Choices for Healthy Outcomes In Caring for ESRD Study. Their association with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality were assessed using Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for demographic characteristics, comorbidity, serum phosphate, and calcium. An interaction with diabetes was tested because of its known association with vascular calcification. Predictive accuracy of selected biomarkers was explored by C-statistics in nested models with training and validation subcohorts.

RESULTS: Higher OPG and lower fetuin-A levels were associated with higher mortality over up to 13 years of follow-up (median, 3.4 years). The adjusted hazard ratios (HR) for highest versus lowest tertile were 1.49 (95\% confidence interval [95\% CI], 1.08 to 2.06) for OPG and 0.69 (95\% CI, 0.52 to 0.92) for fetuin-A. In stratified models, the highest tertile of OPG was associated with higher mortality among patients without diabetes (HR, 2.42; 95\% CI, 1.35 to 4.34), but not patients with diabetes (HR, 1.26; 95\% CI, 0.82 to 1.93; P for interaction=0.001). In terms of cardiovascular mortality, higher fetuin-A was associated with lower risk (HR, 0.85 per 0.1 g/L: 95\% CI, 0.75 to 0.96). In patients without diabetes, higher OPG was associated with greater risk (HR for highest versus lowest tertile, 2.91; 95\% CI, 1.06 to 7.99), but not in patients with diabetes or overall. OPN and BMP-7 were not independently associated with outcomes overall. The addition of OPG and fetuin-A did not significantly improve predictive accuracy of mortality.

CONCLUSIONS: OPG and fetuin-A may be risk factors for all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in patients undergoing dialysis, but do not improve risk prediction.

}, issn = {1555-905X}, doi = {10.2215/CJN.05450513}, author = {Scialla, Julia J and Kao, W H Linda and Crainiceanu, Ciprian and Sozio, Stephen M and Oberai, Pooja C and Shafi, Tariq and Coresh, Josef and Powe, Neil R and Plantinga, Laura C and Jaar, Bernard G and Parekh, Rulan S} } @article {806, title = {Acute lesions that impair affective empathy.}, journal = {Brain}, volume = {136}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Aug}, pages = {2539-49}, abstract = {

Functional imaging studies of healthy participants and previous lesion studies have provided evidence that empathy involves dissociable cognitive functions that rely on at least partially distinct neural networks that can be individually impaired by brain damage. These studies converge in support of the proposal that affective empathy--making inferences about how another person feels--engages at least the following areas: prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal gyrus, anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, temporal pole, amygdala and temporoparietal junction. We hypothesized that right-sided lesions to any one of these structures, except temporoparietal junction, would cause impaired affective empathy (whereas bilateral damage to temporoparietal junction would be required to disrupt empathy). We studied 27 patients with acute right hemisphere ischaemic stroke and 24 neurologically intact inpatients on a test of affective empathy. Acute impairment of affective empathy was associated with infarcts in the hypothesized network, particularly temporal pole and anterior insula. All patients with impaired affective empathy were also impaired in comprehension of affective prosody, but many patients with impairments in prosodic comprehension had spared affective empathy. Patients with impaired affective empathy were older, but showed no difference in performance on tests of hemispatial neglect, volume of infarct or sex distribution compared with patients with intact affective empathy.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Brain, Brain Ischemia, brain mapping, Cognition, Emotions, Empathy, Female, Functional Laterality, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Nerve Net, Social Perception, Stroke}, issn = {1460-2156}, doi = {10.1093/brain/awt177}, author = {Leigh, Richard and Oishi, Kenichi and Hsu, John and Lindquist, Martin and Gottesman, Rebecca F and Jarso, Samson and Crainiceanu, Ciprian and Mori, Susumu and Hillis, Argye E} } @article {800, title = {Hierarchical Adaptive Regression Kernels for Regression with Functional Predictors.}, journal = {J Comput Graph Stat}, volume = {22}, year = {2013}, month = {2013}, abstract = {

We propose a new method for regression using a parsimonious and scientifically interpretable representation of functional predictors. Our approach is designed for data that exhibit features such as spikes, dips, and plateaus whose frequency, location, size, and shape varies stochastically across subjects. We propose Bayesian inference of the joint functional and exposure models, and give a method for efficient computation. We contrast our approach with existing state-of-the-art methods for regression with functional predictors, and show that our method is more effective and efficient for data that include features occurring at varying locations. We apply our methodology to a large and complex dataset from the Sleep Heart Health Study, to quantify the association between sleep characteristics and health outcomes. Software and technical appendices are provided in online supplemental materials.

}, issn = {1061-8600}, doi = {10.1080/10618600.2012.694765}, author = {Woodard, Dawn B and Crainiceanu, Ciprian and Ruppert, David} } @article {808, title = {Ironing out the statistical wrinkles in "ten ironic rules".}, journal = {Neuroimage}, volume = {81}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Nov 1}, pages = {499-502}, abstract = {

The article "Ten ironic rules for non-statistical reviewers" (Friston, 2012) shares some commonly heard frustrations about the peer-review process that all researchers can identify with. Though we found the article amusing, we have some concerns about its description of a number of statistical issues. In this commentary we address these issues, as well as the premise of the article.

}, keywords = {Neuroimaging, Peer Review, Research, Research Design, Statistics as Topic}, issn = {1095-9572}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.02.056}, author = {Lindquist, Martin A and Caffo, Brian and Crainiceanu, Ciprian} } @article {814, title = {Longitudinal scalar-on-functions regression with application to tractography data.}, journal = {Biostatistics}, volume = {14}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Jul}, pages = {447-61}, abstract = {

We propose a class of estimation techniques for scalar-on-function regression where both outcomes and functional predictors may be observed at multiple visits. Our methods are motivated by a longitudinal brain diffusion tensor imaging tractography study. One of the study{\textquoteright}s primary goals is to evaluate the contemporaneous association between human function and brain imaging over time. The complexity of the study requires the development of methods that can simultaneously incorporate: (1) multiple functional (and scalar) regressors; (2) longitudinal outcome and predictor measurements per patient; (3) Gaussian or non-Gaussian outcomes; and (4) missing values within functional predictors. We propose two versions of a new method, longitudinal functional principal components regression (PCR). These methods extend the well-known functional PCR and allow for different effects of subject-specific trends in curves and of visit-specific deviations from that trend. The new methods are compared with existing approaches, and the most promising techniques are used for analyzing the tractography data.

}, keywords = {Anisotropy, Biostatistics, Brain, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Humans, Linear Models, Models, Statistical, Multiple Sclerosis, Principal Component Analysis, Regression Analysis}, issn = {1468-4357}, doi = {10.1093/biostatistics/kxs051}, author = {Gertheiss, Jan and Goldsmith, Jeff and Crainiceanu, Ciprian and Greven, Sonja} }