A More Powerful Familywise Error Control Procedure for Evaluating Mean Equivalence

When one wishes to show that there are no meaningful differences between two or more groups, equivalence tests should be used, as a nonsignificant test of mean difference does not provide evidence regarding the equivalence of groups. When conducting all possible post-hoc pairwise comparisons, C, Caffo, Lauzon and Rohmel (2013) suggested dividing the alpha level by a correction of k2/4, where k is the number of groups to be compared, however this procedure can be conservative in some situations. This research proposes two modified stepwise procedures, based on this correction of k2/4, for controlling the familywise Type I error rate. Using a Monte Carlo simulation method, we show that, across a variety of conditions, adopting a stepwise procedure increases power, particularity when a configuration of means has greater than C - k2/4 power comparisons, while maintaining the familywise error rate at or below . Implications for psychological research and directions for future study are discussed

Interprofessional Education Enhancement: Inclusion of Occupational Therapy

The increase in interprofessional education (IPE) opportunities provides an excellent opportunity for occupational therapy (OT) educators to partner with other health professions to deepen the understanding of how the OT profession adds value to future healthcare teams. The purpose of this study was to describe the development and impact of a curricular unit about the OT profession that was integrated into an established IPE program for medical, advanced practice nursing, pharmacy and social work students. A Needs Assessment was conducted by embedding an OT consultant within interprofessional student teams working in clinical environments over six weeks to observe baseline understanding of how student primary care teams work with OT professionals. From these observations, a curricular unit was designed that included lecture, interactive work stations, and case studies. Students completed pre and post surveys in order to assess their learning. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of pre and post surveys indicated a significant increase in knowledge, application of information, and confidence to refer to and utilize OT in clinical practice. Interprofessional students learned about OT scope of practice, possible interventions, and examples of appropriate referrals. The curricular unit provided an excellent example of how OT professionals can partner with health professions schools to provide content about OT when OT students are not accessible. Future improvements include assessment of longitudinal impact of the curriculum on health professions behavior, including impact on patient referrals to OT by primary care teams

Experimental manipulation of food bodies in Cecropia

Journal ArticleNeotropical Cecropia trees range from Mexico to Argentina and are typical of disturbed habitats. Cecropia plants provide food and housing for the ants in return for known or presumed protection from herbivores and vine cover. Glycogen-rich Mullerian bodies (MB's) are the predominant food source for ants and are produced at sites called trichilia. Working with Cecropia (prov.) "tessmannii", we continuously removed MB's from 10 of 20 plants in a common garden and left the remaining control plants unmanipulated. Control plants produced fewer MB's over the lifespan of a trichilia. Therefore, plants appear to regulate MB production so that energy is not wasted in biotic defense if appropriate ants are not present

Rewriting the History of the Native Mounted Police in Queensland

The Archaeology of the Native Mounted Police in Queensland project, jointly led by Nulungu research fellow Dr Lynley Wallis, is a long-overdue exploration into the nature of frontier invasion. Several of our team members have worked in Queensland for many decades and, in every Aboriginal community in which we’ve worked, stories are told about the ‘killing times’ or the ‘war’, as community members call the period when the Native Mounted Police (NMP, also referred to as the ‘Native Police’) were operating. Many community members have asked us over the years to record their stories about the massacres that took place, or have shown us places associated with the police camps or the massacre sites, and often told us that they would like to know more about what happened. These requests eventually led to the archaeologists on this project coming together, talking with key Aboriginal people and communities, and developing a research project to address their interests — the project described in this paper is the result.https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/nulungu_insights/1000/thumbnail.jp

Failure to regulate: counterproductive recruitment of top-down prefrontal-subcortical circuitry in major depression

Although depressed mood is a normal occurrence in response to adversity in all individuals, what distinguishes those who are vulnerable to major depressive disorder (MDD) is their inability to effectively regulate negative mood when it arises. Investigating the neural underpinnings of adaptive emotion regulation and the extent to which such processes are compromised in MDD may be helpful in understanding the pathophysiology of depression. We report results from a functional magnetic resonance imaging study demonstrating left-lateralized activation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) when downregulating negative affect in nondepressed individuals, whereas depressed individuals showed bilateral PFC activation. Furthermore, during an effortful affective reappraisal task, nondepressed individuals showed an inverse relationship between activation in left ventrolateral PFC and the amygdala that is mediated by the ventromedial PFC (VMPFC). No such relationship was found for depressed individuals, who instead show a positive association between VMPFC and amygdala. Pupil dilation data suggest that those depressed patients who expend more effort to reappraise negative stimuli are characterized by accentuated activation in the amygdala, insula, and thalamus, whereas nondepressed individuals exhibit the opposite pattern. These findings indicate that a key feature underlying the pathophysiology of major depression is the counterproductive engagement of right prefrontal cortex and the lack of engagement of left lateral-ventromedial prefrontal circuitry important for the downregulation of amygdala responses to negative stimuli