Mating rituals of the Slender Hognosed Pitviper

This is where the abstract of this record would appear. This is only demonstration data

Using fNIRS to Measure Emotional Processing Following Mindful Meditation

Mindful meditation, an exercise which encourages its practitioners to be present in the moment and to be aware of their current emotions, thoughts, and sensations, has been shown to affect the processing of emotional information (Sobolewski et al., 2011) and to increase empathy (Tan, Lo, & Macrae, 2014). The prefrontal cortex has been implicated in these processes (Seitz, Nickel, & Azari, 2006). We sought to investigate the neural mechanisms which underlie how mindful meditation affects emotional processing and to determine whether any changes in brain activity could be linked to changes in empathy. Participants in our experimental group practiced mindful meditation for ten minutes. Those in the control groups either listened to an unexciting newscast or sat quietly for ten minutes. Next, participants in all conditions viewed a series of emotionally valenced images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2008). As they viewed the images, activity in the prefrontal cortex was monitored with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Following the presentation of the IAPS images, participants completed questionnaires and inventories that measured empathy, previous experience with meditation, and personality traits. As well as differences in empathy between participants who meditated and participants who did not, we expect to discover any variations in patterns of prefrontal cortical activity during the viewing of positive, negative, and neutral imagery. We hope that our results will elucidate how mindful meditation affects emotional processing and the development of empathy, and to determine whether certain personality traits, social conservatism, or lack of sleep may predict neural and behavioral responses to mindful meditation. Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M., & Cuthbert, B.N. (2008). International affective picture System (IAPS): Affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual. Technical Report A-8. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Seitz, R.J., Nickel, J., & Azari, N.P. (2006). Functional modularity of the medial prefrontal cortex: Involvement in human empathy. Neuropsychology, 20(6), 743-751. Sobolewski, A., Holt, E., Kublik, E., & Wróbel, A. (2011). Impact of meditation on emotional processing—A visual ERP study. Neuroscience Research, 71(1), 44–48. doi: 10.1016/j.neures.2011.06.002 Tan, L.B.G., Lo, B.C.Y., & Macrae, C.N. (2014). Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Mental State Attribution and Empathizing. PLoS ONE, 9(10). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.011051

Mating rituals of the Slender Hognosed Pitviper

This is where the abstract of this record would appear. This is only demonstration data

The implementation of medical revalidation: an assessment using normalisation process theory

Abstract Background Medical revalidation is the process by which all licensed doctors are legally required to demonstrate that they are up to date and fit to practise in order to maintain their licence. Revalidation was introduced in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2012, constituting significant change in the regulation of doctors. The governing body, the General Medical Council (GMC), envisages that revalidation will improve patient care and safety. This potential however is, in part, dependent upon how successfully revalidation is embedded into routine practice. The aim of this study was to use Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) to explore issues contributing to or impeding the implementation of revalidation in practice. Methods We conducted seventy-one interviews with sixty UK policymakers and senior leaders at different points during the development and implementation of revalidation: in 2011 (n = 31), 2013 (n = 26) and 2015 (n = 14). We selected interviewees using purposeful sampling. NPT was used as a framework to enable systematic analysis across the interview sets. Results Initial lack of consensus over revalidation’s purpose, and scepticism about its value, decreased over time as participants recognised the benefits it brought to their practice (coherence category of NPT). Though acceptance increased across time, revalidation was not seen as a legitimate part of their role by all doctors. Key individuals, notably the Responsible Officer (RO), were vital for the successful implementation of revalidation in organisations (cognitive participation category). The ease with which revalidation could be integrated into working practices varied greatly depending on the type of role a doctor held and the organisation they work for and the provision of resources was a significant variable in this (collective action category). Formal evaluation of revalidation in organisations was lacking but informal evaluation was taking place. Revalidation had not yet reached the stage where feedback was being used for improvement (reflexive monitoring category). Conclusions Requiring all organisations to use the same revalidation model made revalidation easy to integrate into existing work for some but problematic for others. In order for revalidation to be fully embedded and successful, impeding factors, such as a lack of resources, need to be addressed

Maximum-likelihood estimation of lithospheric flexural rigidity, initial-loading fraction, and load correlation, under isotropy

Topography and gravity are geophysical fields whose joint statistical structure derives from interface-loading processes modulated by the underlying mechanics of isostatic and flexural compensation in the shallow lithosphere. Under this dual statistical-mechanistic viewpoint an estimation problem can be formulated where the knowns are topography and gravity and the principal unknown the elastic flexural rigidity of the lithosphere. In the guise of an equivalent "effective elastic thickness", this important, geographically varying, structural parameter has been the subject of many interpretative studies, but precisely how well it is known or how best it can be found from the data, abundant nonetheless, has remained contentious and unresolved throughout the last few decades of dedicated study. The popular methods whereby admittance or coherence, both spectral measures of the relation between gravity and topography, are inverted for the flexural rigidity, have revealed themselves to have insufficient power to independently constrain both it and the additional unknown initial-loading fraction and load-correlation fac- tors, respectively. Solving this extremely ill-posed inversion problem leads to non-uniqueness and is further complicated by practical considerations such as the choice of regularizing data tapers to render the analysis sufficiently selective both in the spatial and spectral domains. Here, we rewrite the problem in a form amenable to maximum-likelihood estimation theory, which we show yields unbiased, minimum-variance estimates of flexural rigidity, initial-loading frac- tion and load correlation, each of those separably resolved with little a posteriori correlation between their estimates. We are also able to separately characterize the isotropic spectral shape of the initial loading processes.Comment: 41 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication by Geophysical Journal Internationa

Patterns of sports sponsorship by gambling, alcohol and food companies: an Internet survey

BACKGROUND: Sports sponsorship is a significant marketing tool. As such, it can promote products that pose risks to health (eg, high fat and high sugar foods) or it can promote health-supporting products (eg, sporting equipment and services). However, there is a lack of data on the proportion of sponsorship associated with "unhealthy" and "healthy" products and no methodology for systematically assessing it. This research aimed to explore this proportion with an Internet survey of sports sponsorship in the New Zealand setting. METHODS: A search methodology was developed to identify Internet-based evidence of sports sponsorship at the national level and at the regional and club level in one specific region (Wellington). The top eight sports for 5-17-year-olds were selected and products and services of sponsors were classified in terms of potential public health impact (using a conservative approach). RESULTS: Sponsorship of these popular sports was common at the national, regional and club levels (640 sponsors listed on 107 websites overall). Sports sponsorship associated with sponsors' products classified as "unhealthy" (eg, food high in fat and sugar, gambling and alcohol) were over twice as common as sponsorship associated with sponsors' products classified as "healthy" (32.7% (95% CI = 29.1, 36.5) versus 15.5% (95% CI = 12.8, 18.6) respectively). "Gambling" was the most common specific type of sponsorship (18.8%) followed by alcohol (11.3%). There were significantly more "alcohol" sponsors for rugby, compared to all the other sports collectively (rate ratio (RR) = 2.47; 95% CI = 1.60, 3.79), and for top male sports compared to female (RR = 1.83; 95% CI = 1.05, 3.18). Also there was significantly more "unhealthy food" sponsorship for touch rugby and for "junior" teams/clubs compared to other sports collectively (RR = 6.54; 95% CI = 2.07, 20.69; and RR = 14.72, 95% CI = 6.22, 34.8; respectively). A validation study gave an inter-rater reliability for number of sponsors of 95% (n = 87 sponsors), and an inter-rater reliability of classification and categorisation of 100%. CONCLUSION: This study found that the sponsorship of popular sports for young people is dominated by "unhealthy" sponsorship (ie, predominantly gambling, alcohol and unhealthy food) relative to "healthy" sponsorship. Governments may need to consider regulations that limit unhealthy sponsorship and/or adopt alternative funding mechanisms for supporting popular sports