Driving the Future: The Relation between Driving and Prospective Memory in Adults with an Autism Spectrum Disorder

Difficulties with autonomy impact several quality-of-life outcomes in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Driving is an important step towards gaining autonomy by allowing the development and maintenance of work- and social-related contacts. Nonetheless, people with ASD depend highly on friends and family for their transportation needs. Due to the complexity of the driving task, specific ASD characteristics might interfere negatively with driving. The driving task consists of several subtasks, running in parallel. This requires the ability to switch in a smooth manner (e.g., shifting, steering, changing lanes, and keeping traffic rules into account). An additional difficulty concerns sudden changes in the traffic environment (e.g., traffic density, weather conditions). Therefore, driving is a complex goal-directed task that places high demands on perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes. The little research that exists suggests that people with ASD experience difficulties more specifically in complex driving situations, requiring multi-tasking and inducing increased cognitive load. Applied to autonomy, in order to maintain work and social contacts, it is not only necessary to handle the vehicle, but also to navigate through rural, urban, and highway traffic environments while concurrently remembering appointments and obeying a schedule. People with ASD however experience difficulties with coordinating and sequencing activities, and with planning ahead. Following this, prospective memory (PM) might interfere negatively with driving. PM is the ability to remember to carry out intended actions in the future while being engaged in other ongoing activities. Two subtypes of PM are event-based PM (EBPM) and time-based PM (TBPM). The former refers to the execution of intentions at certain events (i.e., prospective cues), the latter refers to the execution of intentions at certain times. This driving simulator study aims to investigate PM (i.e., EBPM and TBPM) as an underlying mechanism of driving in adults with ASD. To this end, a pc-based ‘virtual reality (VR) city task’ was translated to a driving simulator environment. The influence of several cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory, planning), from which the importance is indicated in previous literature, is also investigated. Data collection is ongoing and will be finished in December. The analyses are planned in January

Foaming and air-water interfacial characteristics of solutions containing both gluten hydrolysate and egg white protein

Enzymatically hydrolyzed wheat gluten can be a viable alternative for traditional animal-based foam stabilizing proteins in food systems. Gluten hydrolysates (GHs) can be considered for (partially) replacing surface-active food proteins such as those of egg white (EW). We here studied the foaming and air-water (A-W) interfacial characteristics of mixed GH + EW protein solutions. GH solutions had much higher (P < 0.05) foaming capacities than EW solutions, while the latter had much higher (P < 0.05) foam stability than the former. When only one sixth of EW proteins was replaced by GHs, the foaming capacity of the mixtures was as high as or higher than that of the GH solutions. Furthermore, when half of the EW protein was replaced by GH, the mixtures still had high foam stability. It thus seems that both GH and EW proteins contribute positively to the foaming characteristics of the mixtures. However, measurements of the early stages of diffusion to and adsorption at the interface, plus measurements of surface dilatational moduli at the interface, both suggested that the adsorbed protein film consists primarily of GHs rather than of EW proteins. Nonetheless, FS was higher when EW proteins were present. Mixed GH + EW solutions have a higher resistance to coalescence than GH solutions. Therefore, it is hypothesized that EW proteins form a secondary protein layer below the A-W interface which is maintained by interactions with adsorbed GH constituents, thereby providing bubbles with an additional resistance to coalescence

Prevalence and severity of cardiac abnormalities and arteriosclerosis in farmed rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Cardiovascular disease may pose a major threat to the health and welfare of farmed fish. By investigating a range of established cardiovascular disease indicators, we aimed to determine the prevalence, severity and consequences of this affliction in farmed rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) from an open cage farm in the Baltic Sea, an open cage farm in a freshwater lake, and a land-based recirculating aquaculture system. We also aimed to identify environmental, anthropogenic and physiological factors contributing towards the development of the disease. The majority of trout possessed enlarged hearts with rounded ventricles (mean height:width ratios of 1.0-1.1 c.f. similar to 1.3 in wild fish) and a high degree of vessel misalignment (mean angles between the longitudinal ventricular axis and the axis of the bulbus arteriosus of 28-31 degrees c.f. similar to 23 degrees in wild fish). The prevalence and severity of coronary arteriosclerosis was also high, as 92-100% of fish from the different aquaculture facilities exhibited coronary lesions. Mean lesion incidence and severity indices were 67-95% and 3.1-3.9, respectively, which resulted in mean coronary arterial blockages of 19-32%. To evaluate the functional significance of these findings, we modelled the effects of arterial blockages on coronary blood flow and experimentally tested the effects of coronary occlusion in a sub-sample of fish. The observed coronary blockages were estimated to reduce coronary blood flow by 34-54% while experimental coronary occlusion adversely affected the electrocardiogram of trout. Across a range of environmental (water current, predation), anthropogenic (boat traffic intensity, hatchery of origin, brand of feed pellets) and physiological factors (condition factor, haematological and plasma indices), the hatchery of origin was the main factor contributing towards the observed variation in the development of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, further research on the effects of selective breeding programs and rearing strategies on the development of cardiovascular disease is needed to improve the welfare and health of farmed fish

The New Era of Physio-Logging and Their Grand Challenges.

International audienc

Demographics of extra-articular calcaneal fractures: Including a review of the literature on treatment and outcome

Introduction: Extra-articular calcaneal fractures represent 25-40% of all calcaneal fractures and an even higher percentage of up to 60% is seen in children. A disproportionately small part of the literature on calcaneal fractures involves the extra-articular type. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of extra-articular calcaneal fractures in a Level 1 trauma centre, define the distribution of the various types of fractures and compare patient demographics between extra- and intra-articular calcaneal fractures. In addition the literature was reviewed for the most common types of extra-articular calcaneal fractures with regard to incidence, treatment and clinical outcome. Methods: The radiological records between 2003 and 2005 were reviewed for intra- and extra-articular calcaneal fractures. Patient gender-distribution and age were compared. A literature search was conducted for the treatment of extra-articular calcaneal fractures. Results: In this 3-year study period a total of 49 patients with 50 extra-articular calcaneal fractures and 91 patients with 101 intra-articular fractures were identified. The median age for the first group was 32.7 years, and for the second group 40.3 years; P = 0.04. Male predominance was significantly less pronounced for extra-articular (63%) compared with intra-articular fractures (79%; P = 0.04). Conclusion: One-third of all calcaneal fractures are extra-articular. Significant differences exist between the intra- and extra-articular groups, in terms of lower age and male-female ratio. The literature study shows inconsistencies in treatment options, but most extra-articular fractures are well manageable conservatively

Boat electrofishing survey of common smelt and common bully in the Ohau Channel in December 2009

We conducted a boat electrofishing survey of the Ohau Channel, which flows from Lake Rotorua to Lake Rotoiti, on 7 December 2009. The purpose of this was to repeat surveys that took place on 13 December 2007 and 11 December 2008 concerning the longitudinal pattern in densities of common smelt (Retropinna retropinna) and common bully (Gobiomorphus cotidianus). Due to run timing and possibly low water clarity and high water flows, catch rates were lower than those found in 2007 and 2008 as we only caught 353 fish comprising three native species and two introduced species in 2.72 km of fished distance at a total of 10 sites. Native species caught were common smelt, common bully and longfin eel (Anguilla dieffenbachii) and introduced species were rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and goldfish (Carassius auratus). The total are fished was 10,884 m² (1.088 ha) giving an estimated density of 3.2 fish 100 m⁻²