Antecedents and outcomes of consumer environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviour

With the intensification of problems relating to the environment, a growing number of consumers are becoming more ecologically conscious in their preferences and purchases of goods. This paper presents the results of a study conducted among 500 Cypriot consumers, focusing on the factors that shape consumer environmental attitudes and behaviour, as well as on the resulting outcomes. The findings confirmed that both the inward and outward environmental attitudes of a consumer are positively influenced by his/her degree of collectivism, long-term orientation, political involvement, deontology, and law obedience, but have no connection with liberalism. The adoption of an inward environmental attitude was also found to be conducive to green purchasing behaviour that ultimately leads to high product satisfaction. On the other hand, an outward environmental attitude facilitates the adoption of a general environmental behaviour, which is responsible for greater satisfaction with life. The findings of the study have important implications for shaping effective company offerings to consumers in target markets, as well as formulating appropriate policies at the governmental level to enhance environmental sensitivity among citizens

Moving to capture children’s attention: developing a methodology for measuring visuomotor attention

Attention underpins many activities integral to a child’s development. However, methodological limitations currently make large-scale assessment of children’s attentional skill impractical, costly and lacking in ecological validity. Consequently we developed a measure of ‘Visual Motor Attention’ (VMA) - a construct defined as the ability to sustain and adapt visuomotor behaviour in response to task-relevant visual information. In a series of experiments, we evaluated the capability of our method to measure attentional processes and their contributions in guiding visuomotor behaviour. Experiment 1 established the method’s core features (ability to track stimuli moving on a tablet-computer screen with a hand-held stylus) and demonstrated its sensitivity to principled manipulations in adults’ attentional load. Experiment 2 standardised a format suitable for use with children and showed construct validity by capturing developmental changes in executive attention processes. Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that children with and without coordination difficulties would show qualitatively different response patterns, finding an interaction between the cognitive and motor factors underpinning responses. Experiment 4 identified associations between VMA performance and existing standardised attention assessments and thereby confirmed convergent validity. These results establish a novel approach to measuring childhood attention that can produce meaningful functional assessments that capture how attention operates in an ecologically valid context (i.e. attention's specific contribution to visuomanual action)

Eurythmy therapy in chronic disease: a four-year prospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many patients with chronic diseases use complementary therapies, often provided by their physicians. In Germany, several physician-provided complementary therapies have been reimbursed by health insurance companies as part of health benefit programs. In most of these therapies, the patient has a predominantly passive role. In eurythmy therapy, however, patients actively exercise specific movements with the hands, the feet or the whole body. The purpose of this study was to describe clinical outcomes in patients practising eurythmy therapy exercises for chronic diseases.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In conjunction with a health benefit program, 419 outpatients from 94 medical practices in Germany, referred to 118 eurythmy therapists, participated in a prospective cohort study. Main outcomes were disease severity (Disease and Symptom Scores, physicians' and patients' assessment on numerical rating scales 0–10) and quality of life (adults: SF-36, children aged 8–16: KINDL, children 1–7: KITA). Disease Score was documented after 0, 6 and 12 months, other outcomes after 0, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, and (SF-36 and Symptom Score) 48 months.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Most common indications were mental disorders (31.7% of patients; primarily depression, fatigue, and childhood emotional disorder) and musculoskeletal diseases (23.4%). Median disease duration at baseline was 3.0 years (interquartile range 1.0–8.5). Median number of eurythmy therapy sessions was 12 (interquartile range 10–19), median therapy duration was 119 days (84–188).</p> <p>All outcomes improved significantly between baseline and all subsequent follow-ups (exceptions: KITA Psychosoma in first three months and KINDL). Improvements from baseline to 12 months were: Disease Score from mean (standard deviation) 6.65 (1.81) to 3.19 (2.27) (p < 0.001), Symptom Score from 5.95 (1.75) to 3.49 (2.12) (p < 0.001), SF-36 Physical Component Summary from 43.13 (10.25) to 47.10 (9.78) (p < 0.001), SF-36 Mental Component Summary from 38.31 (11.67) to 45.01 (11.76) (p < 0.001), KITA Psychosoma from 69.53 (15.45) to 77.21 (13.60) (p = 0.001), and KITA Daily Life from 59.23 (21.78) to 68.14 (18.52) (p = 0.001). All these improvements were maintained until the last follow-up. Improvements were similar in patients not using diagnosis-related adjunctive therapies within the first six study months.</p> <p>Adverse reactions to eurythmy therapy occurred in 3.1% (13/419) of patients. No patient stopped eurythmy therapy due to adverse reactions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Patients practising eurythmy therapy exercises had long-term improvement of chronic disease symptoms and quality of life. Although the pre-post design of the present study does not allow for conclusions about comparative effectiveness, study findings suggest that eurythmy therapy can be useful for patients motivated for this therapy.</p

Training compliance control yields improvements in drawing as a function of beery scores

Many children have difficulty producing movements well enough to improve in sensori-motor learning. Previously, we developed a training method that supports active movement generation to allow improvement at a 3D tracing task requiring good compliance control. Here, we tested 7–8 year old children from several 2nd grade classrooms to determine whether 3D tracing performance could be predicted using the Beery VMI. We also examined whether 3D tracing training lead to improvements in drawing. Baseline testing included Beery, a drawing task on a tablet computer, and 3D tracing. We found that baseline performance in 3D tracing and drawing co-varied with the visual perception (VP) component of the Beery. Differences in 3D tracing between children scoring low versus high on the Beery VP replicated differences previously found between children with and without motor impairments, as did post-training performance that eliminated these differences. Drawing improved as a result of training in the 3D tracing task. The training method improved drawing and reduced differences predicted by Beery scores

The relationship between manual coordination and mental health

Motor coordination impairments frequently co-occur with other developmental disorders and mental health problems in clinically referred populations. But does this reflect a broader dimensional relationship within the general population? A clearer understanding of this relationship might inform improvements in mental health service provision. However, ascertainment and referral bias means that there is limited value in conducting further research with clinically referred samples. We, therefore, conducted a cross-sectional population-based study investigating children’s manual coordination using an objective computerised test. These measures were related to teacher-completed responses on a behavioural screening questionnaire [the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)]. We sampled 298 children (4–11 years old; 136 males) recruited from the general population. Hierarchical (logistic and linear) regression modelling indicated significant categorical and continuous relationships between manual coordination and overall SDQ score (a dimensional measure of psychopathology). Even after controlling for gender and age, manual coordination explained 15 % of the variance in total SDQ score. This dropped to 9 % after exclusion of participants whose SDQ responses indicated potential mental health problems. These results: (1) indicate that there is a clear relationship between children’s motor and mental health development in community-based samples; (2) demonstrate the relationship’s dimensional nature; and (3) have implications for service provision

Observation of metal nanoparticles at atomic resolution in Pt-based cancer chemotherapeutics

The chemotherapeutics cisplatin and oxaliplatin are important tools in the fight against cancer. Both compounds are platinum complexes. Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy using the annular dark-field imaging mode now routinely provides single-atom sensitivity with atomic number contrast. Here, this imaging mode is used to directly image the platinum within the two drugs in their dried form on an amorphous carbon support film. The oxaliplatin is found to have wetted the supporting amorphous carbon, forming disordered clusters suggesting that the platinum has remained within the complex. Conversely, the cisplatin sample reveals 1.8-nm-diameter metallic platinum clusters. The size and shape of the clusters do not appear to be dependent on drying rate nor formed by beam damage, which may suggest that they were present in the original drug solution