In a prospective, remote natural history study of 277 individuals with (60) and genetically at risk for (217) Parkinson’s disease (PD), we examined interest in the return of individual research results (IRRs) and compared characteristics of those who opted for versus against the return of IRRs. Most (n = 180, 65%) requested sharing of IRRs with either a primary care provider, neurologist, or themselves. Among individuals without PD, those who requested sharing of IRRs with a clinician reported more motor symptoms than those who did not request any sharing (mean (SD) 2.2 (4.0) versus 0.7 (1.5)). Participant interest in the return of IRRs is strong.

Objectives: Adverse effects of heavy drinking on cognition have frequently been reported. In the present study, we systematically examined for the first time whether clinical neuropsychological assessments may be sensitive to alcohol abuse in elderly patients with suspected minor neurocognitive disorder. Methods: A total of 144 elderly with and without alcohol abuse (each group n=72; mean age 66.7 years) were selected from a patient pool of n=738 by applying propensity score matching (a statistical method allowing to match participants in experimental and control group by balancing various covariates to reduce selection bias). Accordingly, study groups were almost perfectly matched regarding age, education, gender, and Mini Mental State Examination score. Neuropsychological performance was measured using the CERAD (Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease). Classification analyses (i.e., decision tree and boosted trees models) were conducted to examine whether CERAD variables or total score contributed to group classification. Results: Decision tree models disclosed that groups could be reliably classified based on the CERAD variables “Word List Discriminability” (tapping verbal recognition memory, 64% classification accuracy) and “Trail Making Test A” (measuring visuo-motor speed, 59% classification accuracy). Boosted tree analyses further indicated the sensitivity of “Word List Recall” (measuring free verbal recall) for discriminating elderly with versus without a history of alcohol abuse. Conclusions: This indicates that specific CERAD variables seem to be sensitive to alcohol-related cognitive dysfunctions in elderly patients with suspected minor neurocognitive disorder. (JINS, 2018, 24, 360–371)

Microcompression test was applied to determine the Young’s modulus for elastically anisotropic materials for two different orientations of single crystalline Si. Although there is a clear difference in the apparent Young’s moduli for the different orientations, a significant underestimation of Young’s modulus was observed resulting from the substrate deformation as observed in both finite element simulation and experiment. This effect decreases with increasing aspect ratio. To correct the deviation of the apparent Young’s modulus from the theoretical values, a systematic framework of microcompression test is suggested. The modified Sneddon correction using the indentation modulus instead of Young’s modulus successfully yields Young’s moduli of single crystalline silicon in the [100] and [111] directions to within 5.3% and 2.0% deviation, respectively.

This paper summarizes the methodology of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project, and related analytical issues. The WGI has covered over two hundred countries and territories, measuring six dimensions of governance starting in 1996: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. The aggregate indicators are based on several hundred individual underlying variables, taken from a wide variety of existing data sources. The data reflect the views on governance of survey respondents and public, private, and NGO sector experts worldwide. We also explicitly report margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. We find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country and over-time comparisons. The aggregate indicators, together with the disaggregated underlying source data, are available at <www.govindicators.org>.

Legislative speech records from the 101st to 108th Congresses of the US Senate are analysed to study political ideologies. A widely-used text classification algorithm – Support Vector Machines (SVM) – allows the extraction of terms that are most indicative of conservative and liberal positions in legislative speeches and the prediction of senators’ ideological positions, with a 92 per cent level of accuracy. Feature analysis identifies the terms associated with conservative and liberal ideologies. The results demonstrate that cultural references appear more important than economic references in distinguishing conservative from liberal congressional speeches, calling into question the common economic interpretation of ideological differences in the US Congress.

The objective of this work is to increase the open circuit voltage of CuGaSe2(CGS)-based solar cells without decreasing their efficiency. For that, the interface between the p-type CGS absorber and the n-type CdS/ZnO window layer is compared using three different recipes for the growth of the buffer layer. Results show the importance of the adaptation of the CdS buffer layer to the CuGaSe2 absorber film. A maximum open circuit voltage of 922 mV is achieved for the devices when using 60ºC as the chemical bath temperature and a low thiourea concentration. Drive-level capacitance profiling, external quantum efficiency and temperature dependent current-voltage measurements reveal a better quality of the CdS/CuGaSe2 interface for this buffer layer deposition conditions. Factors such as the larger depletion region width and the lower doping level, reducing the tunnelling component, are pointed out as responsible of the higher Voc.

Chalcopyrite-type thin films - CuInS2, CuInSe2, CuGaSe2, and Cu(In,Ga)Se2 - in various completed solar cells were studied in cross-section by means of electron-backscatter diffraction (EBSD). Valuable information on grain sizes, local grain orientations, film textures, and grain boundaries were extracted from the EBSD linescans and maps. The grain-size distributions from the chalcopyrite-type thin films can be represented well by lognormal distribution functions. The EBSD measurements on CuGaSe2 thin film reveal a <110> fiber texture, in good agreement with x-ray diffraction texture analysis performed on the same sample. The EBSD maps from all samples studied exhibit considerable twinning in the chalcopyrite-type thin films. Indeed, the most frequent types of grain boundaries in these thin films are (near) Σ3 60°-<221> and 71°-<110> twins. It is shown that rotational 180°-<221> twins (which are symmetrically equivalent to 71°-<110>) are more frequently found than anion- or cation-terminated 60°-<221> twin boundaries.