Forensic interviews with children in Scotland: a survey of interview practices among police.

The present study surveyed 91 police interviewers in Scottish police forces about their perceptions of how well they adhered to the Scottish Executive (2003) guidelines. Almost all respondents (97%) received the appropriate national training and overwhelmingly indicated (again 97%) that their training equipped them either quite, very, or extremely well for conducting their interviews. Not surprisingly, therefore, that most interviewers (88%) believed that their interviews allowed them to obtain full and complete accounts of the events being investigated. However, aside from this positive self evaluation there are reasons to be concerned about some aspects of the interviews being conducted; 1) Most interviewers (78%) received no refresher training, 2) no interviewers received formal feedback about the quality of interviews that they conducted, 3) practice interviews were reportedly not included in most interviews, 4) the use of open-ended prompts were not widely used with 20% of interviewers indicating that they were rarely used, and 5) interviews are not currently being electronically recorded. These results are discussed with respect to the context of child interviewing in Scotland and recommendations for future training

Are two interviews better than one? Eyewitness memory across repeated cognitive interviews

Eyewitnesses to a filmed event were interviewed twice using a Cognitive Interview to examine the effects of variations in delay between the repeated interviews (immediately & 2 days; immediately & 7 days; 7 & 9 days) and the identity of the interviewers (same or different across the two repeated interviews). Hypermnesia (an increase in total amount of information recalled in the repeated interview) occurred without any decrease in the overall accuracy. Reminiscence (the recall of new information in the repeated interview) was also found in all conditions but was least apparent in the longest delay condition, and came with little cost to the overall accuracy of information gathered. The number of errors, increased across the interviews, but the relative accuracy of participants’ responses was unaffected. However, when accuracy was calculated based on all unique details provided across both interviews and compared to the accuracy of recall in just the first interview it was found to be slightly lower. The identity of the interviewer (whether the same or different across interviews) had no effects on the number of correct details. There was an increase in recall of new details with little cost to the overall accuracy of information gathered. Importantly, these results suggest that witnesses are unlikely to report everything they remember during a single Cognitive Interview, however exhaustive, and a second opportunity to recall information about the events in question may provide investigators with additional information

Emergency Intraperitoneal Onlay Mesh Repair of Incarcerated Spigelian Hernia

This report suggests that Spigelian hernia in an emergency setting may be easily and quickly repaired with an intraperitoneal onlay method using composite mesh

Taking Synchrony Seriously: A Perceptual-Level Model of Infant Synchrony Detection

Synchrony detection between different sensory and/or motor channels appears critically important for young infant learning and cognitive development. For example, empirical studies demonstrate that audio-visual synchrony aids in language acquisition. In this paper we compare these infant studies with a model of synchrony detection based on the Hershey and Movellan (2000) algorithm augmented with methods for quantitative synchrony estimation. Four infant-model comparisons are presented, using audio-visual stimuli of increasing complexity. While infants and the model showed learning or discrimination with each type of stimuli used, the model was most successful with stimuli comprised of one audio and one visual source, and also with two audio sources and a dynamic-face visual motion source. More difficult for the model were stimuli conditions with two motion sources, and more abstract visual dynamics—an oscilloscope instead of a face. Future research should model the developmental pathway of synchrony detection. Normal audio-visual synchrony detection in infants may be experience-dependent (e.g., Bergeson, et al., 2004)

Normalized Affymetrix expression data are biased by G-quadruplex formation

Probes with runs of four or more guanines (G-stacks) in their sequences can exhibit a level of hybridization that is unrelated to the expression levels of the mRNA that they are intended to measure. This is most likely caused by the formation of G-quadruplexes, where inter-probe guanines form Hoogsteen hydrogen bonds, which probes with G-stacks are capable of forming. We demonstrate that for a specific microarray data set using the Human HG-U133A Affymetrix GeneChip and RMA normalization there is significant bias in the expression levels, the fold change and the correlations between expression levels. These effects grow more pronounced as the number of G-stack probes in a probe set increases. Approximately 14 of the probe sets are directly affected. The analysis was repeated for a number of other normalization pipelines and two, FARMS and PLIER, minimized the bias to some extent. We estimate that ∼15 of the data sets deposited in the GEO database are susceptible to the effect. The inclusion of G-stack probes in the affected data sets can bias key parameters used in the selection and clustering of genes. The elimination of these probes from any analysis in such affected data sets outweighs the increase of noise in the signal. © 2011 The Author(s)

In silico prediction of housekeeping long intergenic non-coding RNAs reveals HKlincR1 as an essential player in lung cancer cell survival

Prioritising long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs) for functional characterisation is a significant challenge. Here we applied computational approaches to discover lincRNAs expected to play a critical housekeeping (HK) role within the cell. Using the Illumina Human BodyMap RNA sequencing dataset as a starting point, we first identified lincRNAs ubiquitously expressed across a panel of human tissues. This list was then further refined by reference to conservation score, secondary structure and promoter DNA methylation status. Finally, we used tumour expression and copy number data to identify lincRNAs rarely downregulated or deleted in multiple tumour types. The resulting list of candidate essential lincRNAs was then subjected to co-expression analyses using independent data from ENCODE and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). This identified a substantial subset with a predicted role in DNA replication and cell cycle regulation. One of these, HKlincR1, was selected for further characterisation. Depletion of HKlincR1 affected cell growth in multiple lung cancer cell lines, and led to disruption of genes involved in cell growth and viability. In addition, HKlincR1 expression was correlated with overall survival in lung adenocarcinoma patients. Our in silico studies therefore reveal a set of housekeeping noncoding RNAs of interest both in terms of their role in normal homeostasis, and their relevance in tumour growth and maintenance

Spontaneous Erosion of a Lost Intra-Abdominal Gallstone Through the Back Eight Months Following Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

A prospectively maintained database of 856 laparoscopic cholecystectomies was analyzed to determine the complications of lost intra-abdominal gallstones which occurred in 165 patients

Motif effects in Affymetrix GeneChips seriously affect probe intensities

An Affymetrix GeneChip consists of an array of hundreds of thousands of probes (each a sequence of 25 bases) with the probe values being used to infer the extent to which genes are expressed in the biological material under investigation. In this article, we demonstrate that these probe values are also strongly influenced by their precise base sequence. We use data from >28 000 CEL files relating to 10 different Affymetrix GeneChip platforms and involving nearly 1000 experiments. Our results confirm known effects (those due to the T7-primer and the formation of G-quadruplexes) but reveal other effects. We show that there can be huge variations from one experiment to another, and that there may also be sizeable disparities between batches within an experiment and between CEL files within a batch. © 2012 The Author(s)

An overview of advances in biomass gasification

Biomass gasification is a widely used thermochemical process for obtaining products with more value and potential applications than the raw material itself. Cutting-edge, innovative and economical gasification techniques with high efficiencies are a prerequisite for the development of this technology. This paper delivers an assessment on the fundamentals such as feedstock types, the impact of different operating parameters, tar formation and cracking, and modelling approaches for biomass gasification. Furthermore, the authors comparatively discuss various conventional mechanisms for gasification as well as recent advances in biomass gasification. Unique gasifiers along with multi-generation strategies are discussed as a means to promote this technology into alternative applications, which require higher flexibility and greater efficiency. A strategy to improve the feasibility and sustainability of biomass gasification is via technological advancement and the minimization of socio-environmental effects. This paper sheds light on diverse areas of biomass gasification as a potentially sustainable and environmentally friendly technology

The Application of Human-Centric Lighting in Response to Working from Home Post-COVID-19

COVID-19 has caused a considerable proportion of the public to work from home, either part- or full-time, in unregulated domestic conditions, which have not been designed for commercial activities. This study determined what existing lighting conditions were present in a selection of work-from-home (WFH) environments (Objective One) through quantitative lux level and equivalent melanopic lux (EML) readings by evaluating them against regulatory standards, where further study is required to validate the results with a larger dataset. This study also investigated the social demand for human-centric lighting (HCL) installations within WFH environments (Objective Two) through qualitative questionnaires by considering key parameters: sustainability, practicality, and cost. The results of Objective One showed that compliance with general safety lighting requirements was achieved by 80% of the installations. The mean lux level recorded was 452.4 lux and 0.729 uniformity, which fell below commercial requirements defined for commonly performed WFH activities; 34.3% of recorded EML dropped below the regulatory requirements under daylight conditions. When isolated to artificial lighting, only 7.5% of the required EML was achieved. The results of Objective Two showed that generally participants did not feel that their WFH installations were unsuitably lit, however, 46.2% of participants identified noticeable headaches or eye strain when working from home. A total of 80% of participants highlighted that HCL task lighting would be preferable. It was also found that participants were willing to invest in circadian lighting for health, where 63.2% of them would not accept a reduction in efficiency of over 10% compared to non HCL. Wellbeing was found to be participants’ key preference for their lighting systems, followed by efficiency, home impact, and cost