Supporting User Participation in Local Policy Development: The Fife Dementia Strategy

This article reviews the consultation process during the development of a local dementia strategy. The processes of involvement by the range of stakeholders involved and how their different views shaped the strategy are considered. Particular attention is paid to the involvement of people with dementia as they are the recipients of the services to be shaped by the strategy and also form the group most difficult to reach. This article demonstrates the value of including a wide range of stakeholders in the development of local policy and the importance of involving people with dementia in policy development

Do smartphone usage scales predict behavior?

Understanding how people use technology remains important, particularly when measuring the impact this might have on individuals and society. However, despite a growing body of resources that can quantify smartphone use, research within psychology and social science overwhelmingly relies on self-reported assessments. These have yet to convincingly demonstrate an ability to predict objective behavior. Here, and for the first time, we compare a variety of smartphone use and ‘addiction’ scales with objective behaviors derived from Apple’s Screen Time application. While correlations between psychometric scales and objective behavior are generally poor, single estimates and measures that attempt to frame technology use as habitual rather than ‘addictive’ correlate more favorably with subsequent behavior. We conclude that existing self-report instruments are unlikely to be sensitive enough to accurately predict basic technology use related behaviors. As a result, conclusions regarding the psychological impact of technology are unreliable when relying solely on these measures to quantify typical usage

Social media addiction:technological déjà vu

Rapid responses are electronic comments to the editor. They enable our users to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com. A rapid response is first posted online. If you need the URL (web address) of an individual response, simply click on the response headline and copy the URL from the browser window. A proportion of responses will, after editing, be published online and in the print journal as letters, which are indexed in PubMed. Rapid responses are not indexed in PubMed and they are not journal articles. The BMJ reserves the right to remove responses which are being wilfully misrepresented as published articles

Volunteer contributions in the emergency department: A scoping review

The objective of this scoping review was to identify published and unpublished reports that described volunteer programs in the emergency department (ED) and determine how these programs impacted patient experiences or outcomes. Electronic searches of Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and CINAHL were conducted and reference lists were hand-searched. A grey literature search was also conducted. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, reviewed full text articles, and extracted data. The search strategy yielded 4,589 potentially relevant citations; 87 reports were included in the review. Volunteer activities were categorized as non-clinical tasks (e.g., provision of meals/snacks, comfort items and mobility assistance), navigation, emotional support/communication, and administrative duties. 52 (59.8%) programs had general volunteers in the ED and 35 (40.2%) had volunteers targeting a specific patient population, including pediatrics, geriatrics, patients with mental health and addiction issues and other vulnerable populations. 18 (20.6%) programs included an evaluative component describing how ED volunteers affected patient experiences and outcomes. Patient satisfaction, follow-up and referral rates, ED hospital costs and length of stay, subsequent ED visits, medical complications, and malnutrition in the hospital were all reported to be positively affected by volunteers in the ED. These findings demonstrate the important role volunteers play in enhancing patient and caregiver experience in the ED. Future volunteer engagement programs should be formally described and evaluated to share their success and experience with others interested in implementing similar programs in the ED. Experience Framework This article is associated with the Infrastructure & Governance lens of The Beryl Institute Experience Framework. (http://bit.ly/ExperienceFramework) Access other PXJ articles related to this lens. Access other resources related to this lens

The Association Between State-Level Health Information Exchange Laws and Hospital Participation in Community Health Information Organizations

Evidence suggests that health information exchange (HIE) is an effective strategy to improve efficiency and quality of care, as well as reduce costs. A complex patchwork of federal and state legislation has developed over time to encourage HIE activity. Hospitals and health systems have adopted various HIE models to meet the requirements of these statutes and regulations. Given the complexity of HIE laws, it is important to understand how these legal levers influence HIE engagement. We combined data from two unique data sources to examine the association between state-level HIE laws and hospital engagement in community HIEs. Our results identified three legal provisions of state laws (HIE authorization, financial & non-financial incentives, opt-out consent) that increased the likelihood of community HIE engagement. Other provisions decreased the likelihood of engagement. This analysis provides foundational evidence about the utility of HIE laws. More research is needed to determine causal relationships

Oral hygiene effects verbal and nonverbal displays of confidence

Although oral hygiene is known to impact self-confidence and self-esteem, little is known about how it influences our interpersonal behavior. Using a wearable, multi-sensor device, we examined differences in consumers’ individual and interpersonal confidence after they had or had not brushed their teeth. Students (N = 140) completed nine one-to-one, 3-minute “speed dating” interactions while wearing a device that records verbal, nonverbal, and mimicry behavior. Half of the participants brushed their teeth using Close-Up toothpaste (Unilever) prior to the interactions, whilst the other half abstained from brushing that morning. Compared to those who had not brushed their teeth, participants who had brushed were more verbally confident (i.e., spoke louder, over-talked more), showed less nonverbal nervousness (i.e., fidgeted less), and were more often perceived as being “someone similar to me.” These effects were moderated by attractiveness but not by self-esteem or self-monitoring

Quantifying Smartphone “Use”: Choice of Measurement Impacts Relationships Between “Usage” and Health

Problematic smartphone scales and duration estimates of use dominate research that considers the impact of smartphones on people and society. However, issues with conceptualization and subsequent measurement can obscure genuine associations between technology use and health. Here, we consider whether different ways of measuring “smartphone use,” notably through problematic smartphone use (PSU) scales, subjective estimates, or objective logs, lead to contrasting associations between mental and physical health. Across two samples including iPhone (n = 199) and Android (n = 46) users, we observed that measuring smartphone interactions with PSU scales produced larger associations between mental health when compared with subjective estimates or objective logs. Notably, the size of the relationship was fourfold in Study 1, and almost three times as large in Study 2, when relying on a PSU scale that measured smartphone “addiction” instead of objective use. Further, in regression models, only smartphone “addiction” scores predicted mental health outcomes, whereas objective logs or estimates were not significant predictors. We conclude that addressing people’s appraisals including worries about their technology usage is likely to have greater mental health benefits than reducing their overall smartphone use. Reducing general smartphone use should therefore not be a priority for public health interventions at this time

Assessing computational reproducibility in Behavior Research Methods

Psychological science has thrived thanks to new methods and innovative practices. Journals, including Behavior Research Methods (BRM), continue to support the dissemination and evaluation of research assets including data, software/hardware, statistical code, and databases of stimuli. However, such research assets rarely allow for computational reproducibility, meaning they are difficult to reuse. Therefore, in this preregistered report, we explore how BRM’s authors and BRM structures shape the landscape of functional research assets. Our broad research questions concern: (1) How quickly methods and analytical techniques reported in BRM can be used and developed further by other scientists; (2) Whether functionality has improved following changes to BRM journal policy in support of computational reproducibility; (3) Whether we can disentangle such policy changes from changes in reproducibility over time. We randomly sampled equal numbers of papers (N = 204) published in BRM before and after the implementation of policy changes. Pairs of researchers recorded how long it took to ensure assets (data, software/hardware, statistical code, and materials) were fully operational. They also coded the completeness and reusability of the assets. While improvements were observed in all measures, only changes to completeness were altered significantly following the policy changes (d = .37). The effects varied between different types of research assets, with data sets from experiments/surveys showing the largest improvements in completeness and reusability. Perhaps more importantly, changes to policy do appear to have improved the life span of research products by reducing natural decline. We conclude with a discussion of how, in the future, research and policy might better support computational reproducibility within and beyond psychological science

Volume 03

Introduction from Dean Dr. Charles Ross Little Shop of Horrors by Longwood Theater Department Who Has the Hottest Hotsauce in Farmville: A Quantitative Comparison of Sauces from Local Restaurants by Cheryl Peck and Charles Hoever Precipitation Effects on the Growth of White Oaks and Virginia Pines on the Mt. Vernon Plantation by Brittany Anderson Design and Synthesis of Novel Ion Binding Molecules for Self-Assembly and Sensing Applications by J. Ervin Sheldon A Statistical Analysis of Algorithms for Playing SameGame by Richard Hayden Intersecting Cylinders at Arbitrary Angles by Yuri Calustro Putting a Foot in the Revolving Door: Strategies for Reducing Teacher Attrition by Candice Fleming and Rebecca Franklin The Effect of Presentation on Spanish Vocabulary Recall by Ashley Yocum How Attractive Are You? Individuals Sensitivity to Number of Sexual Partners by Danielle M. Jagoda and Cristina M. Valdivieso Culturally Relevant Practices for Teaching Code-Switching to African-American Students in Kindergarten Classrooms by Jameka Jones Two Poems – “Dust” and “Check Out Girls” by Amy Ellis Three Poems – “Rosewood Massacre, 1923”, “Jarring” and “Reverence” by Ashley Maser Three Poems – “Dirty Thunderstorm”, “Summer Hide \u27N Seek Car Tag” and “Bliss” by Erikk Shupp Analysis of the Wilton Diptych by Jamie Yurasits “Nod”, “Corriline” “Flying” “Familiar” by Alexander Leonhart Papermaking by Kenny Wolfe and Sally Meadows “Plant” by J. Haley, Amy Jackson, and Morgan Howard “Dare to Dart” by Amy Jackson, Adrienne Heinbaugh and Melissa Dorton Untitled Photographs by Hopson “Lockets” by Morgan Howard Graphic Designs and Untitled Photographs by Ciarra Stalker Selections from a Senior Recital by Joshua Davi

Microglia-Specific Promoter Activities of HEXB Gene

Adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated genetic targeting of microglia remains a challenge. Overcoming this hurdle is essential for gene editing in the central nervous system (CNS). Here, we characterized the minimal/native promoter of the HEXB gene, which is known to be specifically and stably expressed in the microglia during homeostatic and pathological conditions. Dual reporter and serial deletion assays identified the critical role of the natural 5’ untranslated region (−97 bp related to the first ATG) in driving transcriptional activity of the mouse Hexb gene. The native promoter region of mouse, human, and monkey HEXB are located at −135, −134, and −170 bp to the first ATG, respectively. These promoters were highly active and specific in microglia with strong cross-species transcriptional activities, but did not exhibit activity in primary astrocytes. In addition, we identified a 135 bp promoter of CD68 gene that was highly active in microglia but not in astrocytes. Considering that HEXB is specifically expressed in microglia, these data suggest that the newly characterized microglia-specific HEXB minimal/native promoter can be an ideal candidate for microglia-targeting AAV gene therapy in the CNS