Sociodemographic, cultural, linguistic, and test selection considerations for clinical neuropsychological assessment with Japanese and Japanese-American patients in the United States.

Objective: Japanese-Americans are the sixth largest Asian ethnicity in the United States and represent a highly heterogeneous population. Despite representing a large and diverse group, relatively little attention has been paid to clinical best practices for working with this population in the West, particularly for Japanese speakers and issei (first-generation in the United States). This paper offers guidance for providing competent neuropsychological services to Japanese-Americans. Method: Pertinent facets of Japanese culture are presented within the context of the ECLECTIC framework (education and literacy, culture and acculturation, language, economics, communication, testing situation: comfort and motivation, intelligence conceptualization, and context of immigration; Fujii, 2018). The available literature on clinical neuropsychological tests that are translated into Japanese and normed with Japanese samples was reviewed. Results: Specific recommendations for clinicians providing neuropsychological services to Japanese-Americans are presented with an aim of maximizing test fairness by addressing the following issues: comfort with the testing situation, test biases, accessibility, and validity (American Educational Research Association et al., 2014). Additional recommendations for the use of teleneuropsychology; working with geriatric, pediatric, and multiracial populations; and providing useful recommendations and feedback from clinical assessment are provided. Measures that are appropriately translated and/or adapted for use with Japanese populations are presented by cognitive domain to assist clinicians with test selection. Conclusions: This paper provides concrete recommendations for Western neuropsychologists working with patients of Japanese descent in order to address the current gap in cultural competence among clinicians when working with this heterogeneous population.

Radiological Society of North America/Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance Shear Wave Speed Bias Quantification in Elastic and Viscoelastic Phantoms.

OBJECTIVES: To quantify the bias of shear wave speed (SWS) measurements between different commercial ultrasonic shear elasticity systems and a magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) system in elastic and viscoelastic phantoms. METHODS: Two elastic phantoms, representing healthy through fibrotic liver, were measured with 5 different ultrasound platforms, and 3 viscoelastic phantoms, representing healthy through fibrotic liver tissue, were measured with 12 different ultrasound platforms. Measurements were performed with different systems at different sites, at 3 focal depths, and with different appraisers. The SWS bias across the systems was quantified as a function of the system, site, focal depth, and appraiser. A single MRE research system was also used to characterize these phantoms using discrete frequencies from 60 to 500 Hz. RESULTS: The SWS from different systems had mean difference 95% confidence intervals of ±0.145 m/s (±9.6%) across both elastic phantoms and ± 0.340 m/s (±15.3%) across the viscoelastic phantoms. The focal depth and appraiser were less significant sources of SWS variability than the system and site. Magnetic resonance elastography best matched the ultrasonic SWS in the viscoelastic phantoms using a 140 Hz source but had a - 0.27 ± 0.027-m/s (-12.2% ± 1.2%) bias when using the clinically implemented 60-Hz vibration source. CONCLUSIONS: Shear wave speed reconstruction across different manufacturer systems is more consistent in elastic than viscoelastic phantoms, with a mean difference bias of < ±10% in all cases. Magnetic resonance elastographic measurements in the elastic and viscoelastic phantoms best match the ultrasound systems with a 140-Hz excitation but have a significant negative bias operating at 60 Hz. This study establishes a foundation for meaningful comparison of SWS measurements made with different platforms.

[Judgment of gaze direction related to social anxiety: facial expressions and interpretation biases].

The present study investigated the effects of social anxiety on judgments about gaze direction. The participants (N = 123) were divided into two groups on the basis of social anxiety scores (social anxiety and control group). Participants who scored high on a social anxiety scale judged the direction of slightly averted gaze to be straight more often for angry faces than for neutral faces. This pattern was reversed for participants in control group. An angry face looking straight at a person may be seen as an overt threat. People suffering from social anxiety tend to interpret ambiguous situations as negative or threatening. This negativity bias may contribute to the increased judgments of straight-gaze responses for angry faces with slightly averted gazes.

Investigation of ultrasound image processing to improve perceptibility of microcalcifications.

PURPOSE: This article describes an investigation of the detectability of breast microcalcifications by ultrasound imaging. METHODS: Two kinds of experiments were performed to evaluate the spatial and contrast resolution of microstructures in an agar graphite phantom and to analyze human perception of tiny spots. RESULTS: The results showed that most of the difficulties in finding microstructures were not only due to lower echo levels but also to obstructions in the surrounding texture of the image. Based on these results, a new image processing method was proposed to emphasize microcalcifications in mammary glands. This method utilized statistical analysis of the echo signals and also considered the structural pattern of the mammary gland. Processed images from some clinical cases showed adequate extraction of the microcalcifications with efficient cancellation of the mammary gland structure. CONCLUSION: The results suggested that the perception of microcalcifications could be improved by the proposed method.