The devil is not only in the details: gist and detail elaboration in intoxicated witnesses’ reports of interpersonal violence

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)The empirical base relating to alcohol's effects on underlying memory mechanisms among witnesses is sparse. Therefore, the effect of alcohol intoxication on memory mechanisms was investigated, as well as how degree of intoxication and interview delay affected gist and detail elaboration in these witnesses' reports. Participants (n = 136) were randomized to an alcohol group (men: 0.8 g/kg, women: 0.75 g/kg) (n = 70) or a control group (n = 66), given juice. After consumption, they witnessed an intimate partner violence-scenario, and performed tasks assessing memory mechanisms. Half of the intoxicated and sober groups were interviewed immediately. The remaining participants were interviewed one week later. Inter alia, intoxication decreased total gist recall and elaboration capacity. In general, high intoxication (BAC = 0.08-0.15) made witnesses report fewer gist categories, and also to elaborate them less, but there were differences in gist/detail elaboration between levels of intoxication due to emotional context. Less reported information among intoxicated witnesses was caused both by omitting parts of the scenario and to less detailed elaboration. Emotional context influenced reporting among intoxicated witnesses on a gist and detail level. However, intoxication had less impact on gist/detail-elaboration than did a one week delay before interview, suggesting that witnesses should be interviewed immediately, despite intoxication.The Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority [grant number 03403/2009]."Peer Reviewed

Meeting Highlights of the 11th Annual Scientific Sessions of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, Los Angeles, February 1–3, 2008

This paper features the most interesting presentations and discussions of the 2008 Annual Sessions of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, which were held in Los Angeles from February 1 to 3, 2008

A second order cone formulation of continuous CTA model

The final publication is available at link.springer.comIn this paper we consider a minimum distance Controlled Tabular Adjustment (CTA) model for statistical disclosure limitation (control) of tabular data. The goal of the CTA model is to find the closest safe table to some original tabular data set that contains sensitive information. The measure of closeness is usually measured using l1 or l2 norm; with each measure having its advantages and disadvantages. Recently, in [4] a regularization of the l1 -CTA using Pseudo-Huber func- tion was introduced in an attempt to combine positive characteristics of both l1 -CTA and l2 -CTA. All three models can be solved using appro- priate versions of Interior-Point Methods (IPM). It is known that IPM in general works better on well structured problems such as conic op- timization problems, thus, reformulation of these CTA models as conic optimization problem may be advantageous. We present reformulation of Pseudo-Huber-CTA, and l1 -CTA as Second-Order Cone (SOC) op- timization problems and test the validity of the approach on the small example of two-dimensional tabular data set.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Disowned recollections:denying true experiences undermines belief in occurrence but not judgments of remembering

Recent research findings have illustrated that false memories induced in the laboratory can be dissociated from the beliefs that the events had in fact occurred. In this study we assessed whether this dissociability is a quality peculiar to false memory, or whether it represents a general characteristic of autobiographical memory. To this end we examined whether people can be induced to stop believing in memories for true experiences. Participants observed and performed simple actions, and were later falsely informed that they had not performed some of them-that false memories for these actions had been implanted through the use of fabricated evidence. Before and after receiving this misinformation, participants rated their belief in and memory of performing those actions, other actions that they had also performed, and actions that they had not performed. Whereas the misinformation substantially undermined participants' beliefs in the specific performed actions about which they had been misinformed, it had little effect on their endorsement of remembering those actions. The misinformation thus boosted the proportion of occasions in which participants rated their memories as stronger than their beliefs, and it weakened the correlation between belief and memory ratings. Thus, this study provides the first experimental demonstration of non-believed memories of true experiences. We discuss our findings with reference to the small literature concerning the use of socially-communicated misinformation to undermine event memories, and with reference to the structure of autobiographical memory

Short-term efficacy of physical interventions in osteoarthritic knee pain. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised placebo-controlled trials.

BACKGROUND: Treatment efficacy of physical agents in osteoarthritis of the knee (OAK) pain has been largely unknown, and this systematic review was aimed at assessing their short-term efficacies for pain relief. METHODS: Systematic review with meta-analysis of efficacy within 1-4 weeks and at follow up at 1-12 weeks after the end of treatment. RESULTS: 36 randomised placebo-controlled trials (RCTs) were identified with 2434 patients where 1391 patients received active treatment. 33 trials satisfied three or more out of five methodological criteria (Jadad scale). The patient sample had a mean age of 65.1 years and mean baseline pain of 62.9 mm on a 100 mm visual analogue scale (VAS). Within 4 weeks of the commencement of treatment manual acupuncture, static magnets and ultrasound therapies did not offer statistically significant short-term pain relief over placebo. Pulsed electromagnetic fields offered a small reduction in pain of 6.9 mm [95% CI: 2.2 to 11.6] (n = 487). Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS, including interferential currents), electro-acupuncture (EA) and low level laser therapy (LLLT) offered clinically relevant pain relieving effects of 18.8 mm [95% CI: 9.6 to 28.1] (n = 414), 21.9 mm [95% CI: 17.3 to 26.5] (n = 73) and 17.7 mm [95% CI: 8.1 to 27.3] (n = 343) on VAS respectively versus placebo control. In a subgroup analysis of trials with assumed optimal doses, short-term efficacy increased to 22.2 mm [95% CI: 18.1 to 26.3] for TENS, and 24.2 mm [95% CI: 17.3 to 31.3] for LLLT on VAS. Follow-up data up to 12 weeks were sparse, but positive effects seemed to persist for at least 4 weeks after the course of LLLT, EA and TENS treatment was stopped. CONCLUSION: TENS, EA and LLLT administered with optimal doses in an intensive 2-4 week treatment regimen, seem to offer clinically relevant short-term pain relief for OAK

Data Linkage: A powerful research tool with potential problems

Background: Policy makers, clinicians and researchers are demonstrating increasing interest in using data linked from multiple sources to support measurement of clinical performance and patient health outcomes. However, the utility of data linkage may be compromised by sub-optimal or incomplete linkage, leading to systematic bias. In this study, we synthesize the evidence identifying participant or population characteristics that can influence the validity and completeness of data linkage and may be associated with systematic bias in reported outcomes

Efficiency of immediate postoperative inpatient physical therapy following total knee arthroplasty: an RCT

BACKGROUND: The main goal of physical therapy treatment (PT) in the clinical stage following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is to prepare patients for discharge from the hospital as soon as possible after their operation. Although aggressive rehabilitation is believed to be important, evidence of effects of different exercise programmes following TKA is limited. This led to the question whether the intensity of PT (once versus twice daily) following TKA affects short-term recovery, measured as range of motion. METHODS: A randomised controlled trial compared an exercise regimen of two sessions per day with a similar programme administered once daily. Primary outcome measure was ROM. RESULTS: At the time of hospital discharge, there was no difference between the experimental and control groups in range of motion. CONCLUSION: This study shows that in our setting twice daily PT sessions do not produce different results as daily PT sessions. It may be questioned whether multiple daily therapy sessions are needed as an in-hospital PT regimen in OA total knee patients

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal