Personality, Motivation, Anxiety, Strategies, and Language Proficiency of Japanese Students

This study is the lirst io simultaneously examinc the relationships anong live language learning variables (personality, motivation, anxiety, leaning strategies, and language proficiency) as they cooccur in a group of students with a single language background. The 320 students in this study were all Japanese nationals enrolled in the Intensive English Language Program at Temple Univenity Japan in Tokyo. The six insruments were: the Yatabe-Guilford Personalily Inventory, the Attitude/MIotivation Test Battery, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, a cloze test, and the structure subtest of the Michigan Placement Test. Descriptive statistics indicated the characteristics of Japaness students. Cronbach alpha analysis indicated that the personality, motivation, anxiety, and learning strategies measures were all reasonably reliable in this situation. Factor analysis (with varimax rotation), used to study the validity of the instruments, indicated a reasonably high degree of convergence of subscales within the measures and divergence between measures. Discriminant function analysis showed that five of the subscales reliably classified students into high, middle, and low proficiency groups, two on the first function (between low proficiency students and the other two groups) and three on the second function (between high proficiency students and the other two groups). The classifications were shown to be 55.19% accurate overall (with 66.3% accuracy in classirying low proliciency students, 48.1% for middle proficiency students, and 51.5% for high proficiency students). Patterns in the intercorrelations ofthe subscales are also interpreted and discussed.This study is the lirst io simultaneously examinc the relationships anong live language learning variables (personality, motivation, anxiety, leaning strategies, and language proficiency) as they cooccur in a group of students with a single language background. The 320 students in this study were all Japanese nationals enrolled in the Intensive English Language Program at Temple Univenity Japan in Tokyo. The six insruments were: the Yatabe-Guilford Personalily Inventory, the Attitude/MIotivation Test Battery, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, a cloze test, and the structure subtest of the Michigan Placement Test. Descriptive statistics indicated the characteristics of Japaness students. Cronbach alpha analysis indicated that the personality, motivation, anxiety, and learning strategies measures were all reasonably reliable in this situation. Factor analysis (with varimax rotation), used to study the validity of the instruments, indicated a reasonably high degree of convergence of subscales within the measures and divergence between measures. Discriminant function analysis showed that five of the subscales reliably classified students into high, middle, and low proficiency groups, two on the first function (between low proficiency students and the other two groups) and three on the second function (between high proficiency students and the other two groups). The classifications were shown to be 55.19% accurate overall (with 66.3% accuracy in classirying low proliciency students, 48.1% for middle proficiency students, and 51.5% for high proficiency students). Patterns in the intercorrelations ofthe subscales are also interpreted and discussed.This study is the lirst io simultaneously examinc the relationships anong live language learning variables (personality, motivation, anxiety, leaning strategies, and language proficiency) as they cooccur in a group of students with a single language background. The 320 students in this study were all Japanese nationals enrolled in the Intensive English Language Program at Temple Univenity Japan in Tokyo. The six insruments were: the Yatabe-Guilford Personalily Inventory, the Attitude/MIotivation Test Battery, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, a cloze test, and the structure subtest of the Michigan Placement Test. Descriptive statistics indicated the characteristics of Japaness students. Cronbach alpha analysis indicated that the personality, motivation, anxiety, and learning strategies measures were all reasonably reliable in this situation. Factor analysis (with varimax rotation), used to study the validity of the instruments, indicated a reasonably high degree of convergence of subscales within the measures and divergence between measures. Discriminant function analysis showed that five of the subscales reliably classified students into high, middle, and low proficiency groups, two on the first function (between low proficiency students and the other two groups) and three on the second function (between high proficiency students and the other two groups). The classifications were shown to be 55.19% accurate overall (with 66.3% accuracy in classirying low proliciency students, 48.1% for middle proficiency students, and 51.5% for high proficiency students). Patterns in the intercorrelations ofthe subscales are also interpreted and discussed

A UK perspective on human factors and patient safety education in pharmacy curricula.

Objective: - To take a systematic approach to exploring patient safety teaching in health care curricula, particularly in relation to how educators ensure students achieve patient safety competencies. Findings: - There is a lack of formally articulated patient safety curricula, which means that student learning about safety is largely informal and influenced by the quality and culture of the practice environment. Human Factors and Ergonomics appeared largely absent from curricula. Summary: - Despite its absence from health care curricula, Human Factors and Ergonomics approaches offer a vehicle for embedding patient safety teaching. The authors suggest a possible model, with Human Factors and Ergonomics forming the central structure around which the curriculum can be built

Lipoprotein metabolism in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), an escalating health problem worldwide, covers a spectrum of pathologies characterized by fatty accumulation in hepatocytes in early stages, with potential progression to liver inflammation, fibrosis, and failure. A close, yet poorly understood link exists between NAFLD and dyslipidemia, a constellation of abnormalities in plasma lipoproteins including triglyceride-rich very low density lipoproteins. Apolipoproteins are a group of primarily liver-derived proteins found in serum lipoproteins; they not only play an extracellular role in lipid transport between vital organs through circulation, but also play an important intracellular role in hepatic lipoprotein assembly and secretion. The liver functions as the central hub for lipoprotein metabolism, as it dictates lipoprotein production and to a significant extent modulates lipoprotein clearance. Lipoprotein metabolism is an integral component of hepatocellular lipid homeostasis and is implicated in the pathogenesis, potential diagnosis, and treatment of NAFLD

Infanticide and Human Self Domestication

Our hypothesis, which is largely complementary to Wrangham, is that band elders engaged in infanticide and direct and indirect child homicide against the offspring of reactive aggressive adults through decisions during the foraging period of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. We hypothesize that elders may have targeted the offspring of reactively aggressive males (and females) as retaliation for behaviors that were not good for the elders or their offspring and because surreptitiously killing the offspring of violent males was much less dangerous to the elders than killing the violent males. Such retaliation could have selected against reactive aggression as a genetic consequence. In other words, infanticide could have been Wrangham\u27s “different stimulus” initiating HSD. Our argument is that the earliest language of single words (kill), and certainly the crude compounds, “kill-baby or “like father” and “like son,” would be enough to organize the “execution of an infant” in a relatively secluded birthing site. Infanticide effectively becomes a second moment of mate choice. Such an action could have been relatively safely concealed since an infant dying in childbirth in forager socio-ecological conditions was likely not unusual (see below). The relative simplicity of the language capacities necessary for infanticide contrasts with the more sophisticated language necessary to organize a safe coup and execution of a reactively aggressive alpha male

Survival disparities in Indigenous and non-Indigenous New Zealanders with colon cancer: the role of patient comorbidity, treatment and health service factors

Background Ethnic disparities in cancer survival have been documented in many populations and cancer types. The causes of these inequalities are not well understood but may include disease and patient characteristics, treatment differences and health service factors. Survival was compared in a cohort of Maori ( Indigenous) and non-Maori New Zealanders with colon cancer, and the contribution of demographics, disease characteristics, patient comorbidity, treatment and healthcare factors to survival disparities was assessed. Methods Maori patients diagnosed as having colon cancer between 1996 and 2003 were identified from the New Zealand Cancer Registry and compared with a randomly selected sample of non-Maori patients. Clinical and outcome data were obtained from medical records, pathology reports and the national mortality database. Cancer-specific survival was examined using Kaplane-Meier survival curves and Cox hazards modelling with multivariable adjustment. Results 301 Maori and 328 non-Maori patients with colon cancer were compared. Maori had a significantly poorer cancer survival than non-Maori ( hazard ratio (HR) 1.33, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.71) that was not explained by demographic or disease characteristics. The most important factors contributing to poorer survival in Maori were patient comorbidity and markers of healthcare access, each of which accounted for around a third of the survival disparity. The final model accounted for almost all the survival disparity between Maori and non-Maori patients ( HR 1.07, 95% CI 0.77 to 1.47). Conclusion Higher patient comorbidity and poorer access and quality of cancer care are both important explanations for worse survival in Maori compared with non-Maori New Zealanders with colon cancer

Low LDL-C and High HDL-C Levels Are Associated with Elevated Serum Transaminases amongst Adults in the United States: A Cross-sectional Study

Background: Dyslipidemia, typically recognized as high serum triglyceride, high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) or low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels, are associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, low LDL-C levels could result from defects in lipoprotein metabolism or impaired liver synthetic function, and may serve as ab initio markers for unrecognized liver diseases. Whether such relationships exist in the general population has not been investigated. We hypothesized that despite common conception that low LDL-C is desirable, it might be associated with elevated liver enzymes due to metabolic liver diseases. Methods and Findings: We examined the associations between alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and major components of serum lipid profiles in a nationally representative sample of 23,073 individuals, who had no chronic viral hepatitis and were not taking lipid-lowering medications, from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999 to 2010. ALT and AST exhibited non-linear U-shaped associations with LDL-C and HDL-C, but not with triglyceride. After adjusting for potential confounders, individuals with LDL-C less than 40 and 41–70 mg/dL were associated with 4.2 (95% CI 1.5–11.7, p = 0.007) and 1.6 (95% CI 1.1–2.5, p = 0.03) times higher odds of abnormal liver enzymes respectively, when compared with those with LDL-C values 71–100 mg/dL (reference group). Surprisingly, those with HDL-C levels above 100 mg/dL was associated with 3.2 (95% CI 2.1–5.0, p<0.001) times higher odds of abnormal liver enzymes, compared with HDL-C values of 61–80 mg/dL. Conclusions: Both low LDL-C and high HDL-C, often viewed as desirable, were associated with significantly higher odds of elevated transaminases in the general U.S. adult population. Our findings underscore an underestimated biological link between lipoprotein metabolism and liver diseases, and raise a potential need for liver evaluation among over 10 million people with particularly low LDL-C or high HDL-C in the United States

Tracking of physical activity, fitness, body composition and diet from adolescence to young adulthood: The Young Hearts Project, Northern Ireland

BACKGROUND: The assumption that lifestyles formed early in life track into adulthood has been used to justify the targeting of health promotion programmes towards children and adolescents. The aim of the current study was to use data from the Northern Ireland Young Hearts Project to ascertain the extent of tracking, between adolescence and young adulthood, of physical activity, aerobic fitness, selected anthropometric variables, and diet. METHODS: Males (n 245) and females (n 231) were assessed at age 15 y, and again in young adulthood [mean (SD) age 22 (1.6) y]. At both timepoints, height, weight and skinfold thicknesses were measured, and physical activity and diet were assessed by questionnaire and diet history method respectively. At 15y, fitness was assessed using the 20 metre shuttle run, while at young adulthood, the PWC170 cycle ergometer test was used. For each measurement made at 15y, subjects were ranked into 'low' (L1; lowest 25%), 'medium' (M1; middle 50%) or 'high' (H1; highest 25%) categories. At young adulthood, similar categories (L2, M2, H2) were created. The extent of tracking of each variable over time was calculated using 3 × 3 matrices constructed using these two sets of categories, and summarised using kappa (κ) statistics. RESULTS: Tracking of diet and fitness was poor (κ ≤ 0.20) in both sexes, indicating substantial drift of subjects between the low, medium and high categories over time. The tracking of physical activity in males was fair (κ 0.202), but was poor in females (κ 0.021). In contrast, anthropometric variables such as weight, body mass index and sum of skinfolds tracked more strongly in females (κ 0.540, κ 0.307, κ 0.357 respectively) than in males (κ 0.337, κ 0.199, κ 0.216 respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The poor tracking of fitness and diet in both sexes, and physical activity in females, suggests that these aspects of adolescent lifestyle are unlikely to be predictive of behaviours in young adulthood. In contrast, the fair to moderate tracking of anthropometric variables, particularly in females, suggests that attempts to reduce the ever increasing incidence of overweight and obesity in adults, should probably begin in earlier life

Fruit and vegetable consumption and bone mineral density; the Northern Ireland Young Hearts Project

BackgroundStudies examining the relation between bone mineral density (BMD) and fruit and vegetable consumption during adolescence are rare.ObjectiveOur objective was to determine whether usual fruit and vegetable intakes reported by adolescents have any influence on BMD.DesignBMD was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry at the nondominant forearm and dominant heel in a random sample of 12-y-old boys (n = 324), 12-y-old girls (n = 378), 15-y-old boys (n = 274), and 15-y-old girls (n = 369). Usual fruit and vegetable consumption was assessed by an interviewer-administered diet history method. Relations between BMD and fruit and vegetable intake were assessed by using regression modeling.ResultsUsing multiple linear regression to adjust for the potential confounding influence of physical and lifestyle factors, we observed that 12-y-old girls consuming high amounts of fruit had significantly higher heel BMD (β = 0.037; 95% CI: 0.017, 0.056) than did the moderate fruit consumers. No other associations were observed.ConclusionHigh intakes of fruit may be important for bone health in girls. It is possible that fruit's alkaline-forming properties mediate the body's acid-base balance. However, intervention studies are required to confirm the findings of this observational study