@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 {794, title = {Estimating energy expenditure from heart rate in older adults: a case for calibration.}, journal = {PLoS One}, volume = {9}, year = {2014}, month = {2014}, pages = {e93520}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Accurate measurement of free-living energy expenditure is vital to understanding changes in energy metabolism with aging. The efficacy of heart rate as a surrogate for energy expenditure is rooted in the assumption of a linear function between heart rate and energy expenditure, but its validity and reliability in older adults remains unclear.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the validity and reliability of the linear function between heart rate and energy expenditure in older adults using different levels of calibration.

DESIGN: Heart rate and energy expenditure were assessed across five levels of exertion in 290 adults participating in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Correlation and random effects regression analyses assessed the linearity of the relationship between heart rate and energy expenditure and cross-validation models assessed predictive performance.

RESULTS: Heart rate and energy expenditure were highly correlated (r=0.98) and linear regardless of age or sex. Intra-person variability was low but inter-person variability was high, with substantial heterogeneity of the random intercept (s.d. =0.372) despite similar slopes. Cross-validation models indicated individual calibration data substantially improves accuracy predictions of energy expenditure from heart rate, reducing the potential for considerable measurement bias. Although using five calibration measures provided the greatest reduction in the standard deviation of prediction errors (1.08 kcals/min), substantial improvement was also noted with two (0.75 kcals/min).

CONCLUSION: These findings indicate standard regression equations may be used to make population-level inferences when estimating energy expenditure from heart rate in older adults but caution should be exercised when making inferences at the individual level without proper calibration.

}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0093520}, author = {Schrack, Jennifer A and Zipunnikov, Vadim and Goldsmith, Jeff and Bandeen-Roche, Karen and Crainiceanu, Ciprian M and Ferrucci, Luigi} } @article {796, title = {Smooth Scalar-on-Image Regression via Spatial Bayesian Variable Selection.}, journal = {J Comput Graph Stat}, volume = {23}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Jan 1}, pages = {46-64}, abstract = {

We develop scalar-on-image regression models when images are registered multidimensional manifolds. We propose a fast and scalable Bayes inferential procedure to estimate the image coefficient. The central idea is the combination of an Ising prior distribution, which controls a latent binary indicator map, and an intrinsic Gaussian Markov random field, which controls the smoothness of the nonzero coefficients. The model is fit using a single-site Gibbs sampler, which allows fitting within minutes for hundreds of subjects with predictor images containing thousands of locations. The code is simple and is provided in less than one page in the Appendix. We apply this method to a neuroimaging study where cognitive outcomes are regressed on measures of white matter microstructure at every voxel of the corpus callosum for hundreds of subjects.

}, issn = {1061-8600}, doi = {10.1080/10618600.2012.743437}, author = {Goldsmith, Jeff and Huang, Lei and Crainiceanu, Ciprian M} } @article {786, title = {Statistical normalization techniques for magnetic resonance imaging.}, journal = {Neuroimage Clin}, volume = {6}, year = {2014}, month = {2014}, pages = {9-19}, abstract = {

While computed tomography and other imaging techniques are measured in absolute units with physical meaning, magnetic resonance images are expressed in arbitrary units that are difficult to interpret and differ between study visits and subjects. Much work in the image processing literature on intensity normalization has focused on histogram matching and other histogram mapping techniques, with little emphasis on normalizing images to have biologically interpretable units. Furthermore, there are no formalized principles or goals for the crucial comparability of image intensities within and across subjects. To address this, we propose a set of criteria necessary for the normalization of images. We further propose simple and robust biologically motivated normalization techniques for multisequence brain imaging that have the same interpretation across acquisitions and satisfy the proposed criteria. We compare the performance of different normalization methods in thousands of images of patients with Alzheimer{\textquoteright}s disease, hundreds of patients with multiple sclerosis, and hundreds of healthy subjects obtained in several different studies at dozens of imaging centers.

}, issn = {2213-1582}, doi = {10.1016/j.nicl.2014.08.008}, author = {Shinohara, Russell T and Sweeney, Elizabeth M and Goldsmith, Jeff and Shiee, Navid and Mateen, Farrah J and Calabresi, Peter A and Jarso, Samson and Pham, Dzung L and Reich, Daniel S and Crainiceanu, Ciprian M} } @article {807, title = {Bayesian scalar-on-image regression with application to association between intracranial DTI and cognitive outcomes.}, journal = {Neuroimage}, volume = {83}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Dec}, pages = {210-23}, abstract = {

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures water diffusion within white matter, allowing for in vivo quantification of brain pathways. These pathways often subserve specific functions, and impairment of those functions is often associated with imaging abnormalities. As a method for predicting clinical disability from DTI images, we propose a hierarchical Bayesian "scalar-on-image" regression procedure. Our procedure introduces a latent binary map that estimates the locations of predictive voxels and penalizes the magnitude of effect sizes in these voxels, thereby resolving the ill-posed nature of the problem. By inducing a spatial prior structure, the procedure yields a sparse association map that also maintains spatial continuity of predictive regions. The method is demonstrated on a simulation study and on a study of association between fractional anisotropy and cognitive disability in a cross-sectional sample of 135 multiple sclerosis patients.

}, issn = {1095-9572}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.020}, author = {Huang, Lei and Goldsmith, Jeff and Reiss, Philip T and Reich, Daniel S and Crainiceanu, Ciprian M} } @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} } @article {813, title = {Movelets: A dictionary of movement.}, journal = {Electron J Stat}, volume = {6}, year = {2012}, month = {2012}, pages = {559-578}, abstract = {

Recent technological advances provide researchers with a way of gathering real-time information on an individual{\textquoteright}s movement through the use of wearable devices that record acceleration. In this paper, we propose a method for identifying activity types, like walking, standing, and resting, from acceleration data. Our approach decomposes movements into short components called "movelets", and builds a reference for each activity type. Unknown activities are predicted by matching new movelets to the reference. We apply our method to data collected from a single, three-axis accelerometer and focus on activities of interest in studying physical function in elderly populations. An important technical advantage of our methods is that they allow identification of short activities, such as taking two or three steps and then stopping, as well as low frequency rare(compared with the whole time series) activities, such as sitting on a chair. Based on our results we provide simple and actionable recommendations for the design and implementation of large epidemiological studies that could collect accelerometry data for the purpose of predicting the time series of activities and connecting it to health outcomes.

}, issn = {1935-7524}, doi = {10.1214/12-EJS684}, author = {Bai, Jiawei and Goldsmith, Jeff and Caffo, Brian and Glass, Thomas A and Crainiceanu, Ciprian M} }