Colorblind and Multicultural Prejudice Reduction Strategies in High-Conflict Situations

We tested colorblind and multicultural prejudice-reduction strategies under conditions of low and high interethnic conflict. Replicating previous work, both strategies reduced prejudice when conflict was low. But when conflict was high, only the colorblind strategy reduced prejudice (Studies 1 and 2). Interestingly, this colorblind response seemed to reflect suppression. When prejudice was assessed more subtly (with implicit measures), colorblind participants demonstrated bias equivalent to multicultural participants (Study 2). And, after a delay, colorblind participants showed a rebound, demonstrating greater prejudice than their multicultural counterparts (Study 3). Similar effects were obtained when ideology was measured rather than manipulated (Study 4). We suggest that conflict challenges the tenets of a colorblind ideology (predicated on the absence of group differences) but not those of a multicultural ideology (which acknowledges difference)

No evidence of real progress in treatment of acute pain, 1993–2012: scientometric analysis

Over the past 2 decades, many new techniques and drugs for the treatment of acute pain have achieved widespread use. The main aim of this study was to assess the progress in their implementation using scientometric analysis. The following scientometric indices were used: 1) popularity index, representing the share of articles on a specific technique (or a drug) relative to all articles in the field of acute pain; 2) index of change, representing the degree of growth in publications on a topic compared to the previous period; and 3) index of expectations, representing the ratio of the number of articles on a topic in the top 20 journals relative to the number of articles in all (>5,000) biomedical journals covered by PubMed. Publications on specific topics (ten techniques and 21 drugs) were assessed during four time periods (1993–1997, 1998–2002, 2003–2007, and 2008–2012). In addition, to determine whether the status of routine acute pain management has improved over the past 20 years, we analyzed surveys designed to be representative of the national population that reflected direct responses of patients reporting pain scores. By the 2008–2012 period, popularity index had reached a substantial level (≥5%) only with techniques or drugs that were introduced 30–50 years ago or more (epidural analgesia, patient-controlled analgesia, nerve blocks, epidural analgesia for labor or delivery, bupivacaine, and acetaminophen). In 2008–2012, promising (although modest) changes of index of change and index of expectations were found only with dexamethasone. Six national surveys conducted for the past 20 years demonstrated an unacceptably high percentage of patients experiencing moderate or severe pain with not even a trend toward outcome improvement. Thus, techniques or drugs that were introduced and achieved widespread use for acute pain management within the past 20 years have produced no changes in scientometric indices that would indicate real progress and have failed to improve national outcomes for relief of acute pain. Two possible reasons for this are discussed: 1) the difference between the effectiveness of old and new techniques is not clinically meaningful; and 2) resources necessary for appropriate use of new techniques in routine pain management are not adequate

Local Communication Protocols for Learning Complex Swarm Behaviors with Deep Reinforcement Learning

Swarm systems constitute a challenging problem for reinforcement learning (RL) as the algorithm needs to learn decentralized control policies that can cope with limited local sensing and communication abilities of the agents. While it is often difficult to directly define the behavior of the agents, simple communication protocols can be defined more easily using prior knowledge about the given task. In this paper, we propose a number of simple communication protocols that can be exploited by deep reinforcement learning to find decentralized control policies in a multi-robot swarm environment. The protocols are based on histograms that encode the local neighborhood relations of the agents and can also transmit task-specific information, such as the shortest distance and direction to a desired target. In our framework, we use an adaptation of Trust Region Policy Optimization to learn complex collaborative tasks, such as formation building and building a communication link. We evaluate our findings in a simulated 2D-physics environment, and compare the implications of different communication protocols.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, version 2, accepted at ANTS 201

Role of social media and the Internet in pathways to care for adolescents and young adults with psychotic disorders and non-psychotic mood disorders

AIMS: Although psychosis often occurs during adolescence, there has been little research on how the ubiquitously used Internet and social media could impact pathways to care. We examined how youth with psychotic spectrum disorders (PSD) versus non-psychotic mood disorders (NPMD) use online resources in the early illness stages. METHODS: Social media use and pathways to care data were collected using a semi-structured interview from 80 youth (PSD = 40 and NPMD = 40) aged 12-21 years within 2 years of symptom onset. RESULTS: A total of 97.5% of participants (mean age = 18.3 years) regularly used social media, spending approximately 2.6 +/- 2.5 h per day online. There were 22.4% of our sample (PSD = 19.4%, NPMD = 25.0%, P = 0.56) who reported waiting to reach out for help believing that symptoms would disappear. A total of 76.5% (PSD = 67.5%, NPMD = 85.0%, P = 0.06) noticed social media habit changes during symptom emergence. Thirty per cent reported discussing their symptoms on social media (PSD = 22.5%, NPMD = 37.5%, P = 0.14). NPMD patients sought information most on how to stop symptoms (40.0% vs. 13.5%, P = 0.01), while PSD youth were more commonly interested in what caused their symptoms (21.6% vs. 15.0%, P = 0.45). More PSD patients (42.9% vs. 25.0%, P = 0.10) would prefer to receive mental health information via the Internet. Altogether, 63.6% (PSD = 64.9%, NPMD = 62.5%, P = 0.83) were amenable to clinicians proactively approaching them via social media during symptom emergence. A total of 74.3% (PSD = 78.4%, NPMD = 70.0%, P = 0.40) liked the idea of obtaining help/advice from professionals via social media. CONCLUSIONS: The Internet and social media provide an unparalleled opportunity to supplement and potentially transform early intervention services, and acceptance of this approach appears to be high

Recent Developments: The Uniform Arbitration Act

Since 1983, this annual Article 2 has been prepared to provide a survey of recent developments in the case law interpreting and applying the various state versions of the Uniform Arbitration Act3. The purpose is to promote uniformity in the interpretation of the U.A.A. by developing and explaining the underlying principles and rationales courts have applied in recent cases.