Do two and three year old children use an incremental first-NP-as-agent bias to process active transitive and passive sentences? : A permutation analysis

We used eye-tracking to investigate if and when children show an incremental bias to assume that the first noun phrase in a sentence is the agent (first-NP-as-agent bias) while processing the meaning of English active and passive transitive sentences. We also investi-gated whether children can override this bias to successfully distinguish active from passive sentences, after processing the remainder of the sentence frame. For this second question we used eye-tracking (Study 1) and forced-choice pointing (Study 2). For both studies, we used a paradigm in which participants simultaneously saw two novel actions with reversed agent-patient relations while listening to active and passive sentences. We compared English-speaking 25-month-olds and 41-month-olds in between-subjects sentence struc-ture conditions (Active Transitive Condition vs. Passive Condition). A permutation analysis found that both age groups showed a bias to incrementally map the first noun in a sentence onto an agent role. Regarding the second question, 25-month-olds showed some evidence of distinguishing the two structures in the eye-tracking study. However, the 25-month-olds did not distinguish active from passive sentences in the forced choice pointing task. In contrast, the 41-month-old children did reanalyse their initial first-NP-as-agent bias to the extent that they clearly distinguished between active and passive sentences both in the eye-tracking data and in the pointing task. The results are discussed in relation to the development of syntactic (re)parsing

CHARACTERISATION OF MICROSTRUCTURE AS A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO HIGH STRENGTH CEMENTS

Ultimately the strength of cement is determined by the properties, amounts and distributions of the phases it contains and by the way these are bonded together. Here an example is presented of the determination of the amount and distribution of calcium hydroxide, by BEI and quantitative image analysis, in a cement paste and cement/fly ash mixture which had previously been studied by TGA. Examination of crack paths on BEIs of polished cement surfaces gives some indication as to the importance of calcium hydroxide in determining the properties of the cement

Measuring the intensive care experience: A cross-sectional survey of patient and family experiences of critical care.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To report patient and family intensive care experiences using the Measuring the Intensive Care Experience (MICE) tool across two intensive care units (ICU). BACKGROUND: The patient and family experience of care is an important indicator for quality improvement of ICUs, yet few studies evaluate both patient and family experiences in relation to overall care quality as well as specifically measuring quality of medical care, nursing care and organisational care as well as overall experience of the quality of intensive care. DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey. METHODS: A 23 item survey was administered to ICU patients and their family members across two ICUs, a regional 189-bed hospital and a metropolitan 227-bed hospital in Queensland, Australia. The response rate was 272 of 394 ICU patients (36.4%). STROBE guidelines were used in reporting this study. RESULTS: Findings indicate a highly positive overall experience of ICU care among patients and families. However, patients reported areas of unmet needs following their stay in ICU broadly related to (1) symptom management, education and information support, and (2) improving the incorporation of patient and family care ICU-related shared decision-making. CONCLUSIONS: Supportive interventions are needed that target improve symptom management and inform and education ICU patients. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The MICE survey facilitated the identification of a range of areas requiring quality improvement. Improving the integration of patients and families into shared decision-making and support is a key aspect for quality improvement