Adult statistical word segmentation across two speakers

A finding reliably demonstrated in past research is that statistical learning mechanism facilitates the process of learning language. What remain poorly understood are the effects of multiple speakers in infants and adults learning a statistical artificial language. This study sought to examine the effects of two different speakers in adults because previous literature has suggested that infants lack the ability to segment words when the speech stream consists of two different speakers. Therefore, our experiment sought to understand if 1) adults could successfully segment words across two different speakers and 2) if they can generalize segmentation to a novel voice. Contrary to the infant study, it was found that adults could successfully segment and identify words even when exposed to different speakers. However, adults had difficulty in generalizing to a novel voice when exposed to a single talker. These results support the role of the exemplar theory and raise the possibility that adults are not that experienced language processors as previously expected

Systematic overview of reviews of instruments that evaluate teamwork in healthcare

Healthcare professionals working in teams is necessary, since good teamwork among healthcare professionals has been found to improve patient outcomes and reduce burnout. Surveys provide a quick and efficient way to capture the various constructs of teamwork to understand team functioning, areas of strength, and the potential areas for improvement. However, not all surveys are useful as majority of them remain to be validated. In this research, a systematic overview of reviews is conducted to identify robust instruments that are frequently identified in the literature. The databases searched include MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. After excluding duplicates and irrelevant articles, there were 15 articles that met the inclusion criteria for full assessment. Surveys appropriate for measuring teamwork in various healthcare settings were reported. It was determined there were seven surveys that were validated and most frequently identified in the literature. This overview provides a narrative for researchers and clinicians in deciding on instruments that is most appropriate for their goals and practice. More research is required to develop surveys that include involving patients as part of the healthcare team

Interdisciplinary Health Care Evaluation Instruments: A Review of Psychometric Evidence.

Teamwork among health care professionals has been found to improve patient outcomes and reduce burnout. Surveys from individual team members are often used to measure the effectiveness of teamwork performance, as they provide an efficient way to capture various constructs of teamwork. This allows evaluators to better understand team functioning, areas of strength, and to identify potential areas for improvement. However, the majority of published surveys are yet to be validated. We conducted a review of psychometric evidence to identify instruments frequently used in practice and identified in the literature. The databases searched included MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. After excluding duplicates and irrelevant articles, 15 articles met the inclusion criteria for full assessment. Seven surveys were validated and most frequently identified in the literature. This review aims to facilitate the selection of instruments that are most appropriate for research and clinical practice. More research is required to develop surveys that better reflect the current reality of teamwork in our evolving health system, including a greater consideration for patient as team members. Additionally, more research is needed to encompass an increasing development of team assessment tools

Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of Canadian medical students: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: While the importance of medical students\u27 demographic characteristics in influencing the scope and location of their future practice is recognized, these data are not systematically collected in Canada. This study aimed to characterize and compare the demographics of Canadian medical students with the Canadian population. METHODS: Through an online survey, delivered in 2018, medical students at 14 English-speaking Canadian medical schools provided their age, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, educational background, and rurality of the area they grew up in. Respondents also provided information on parental income, occupation, and education as markers of socioeconomic status. Data were compared to the 2016 Canadian Census. RESULTS: A total of 1388 students responded to the survey, representing a response rate of 16.6%. Most respondents identified as women (63.1%) and were born after 1989 (82.1%). Respondents were less likely, compared to the Canadian Census population, to identify as black (1.7% vs 6.4%) (P \u3c 0.001) or Aboriginal (3.5% vs. 7.4%) (P \u3c 0.001), and have grown up in a rural area (6.4% vs. 18.7%) (P \u3c 0.001). Respondents had higher socioeconomic status, indicated by parental education (29.0% of respondents\u27 parents had a master\u27s or doctoral degree, compared to 6.6% of Canadians aged 45-64), occupation (59.7% of respondents\u27 parents were high-level managers or professionals, compared to 19.2% of Canadians aged 45-64), and income (62.9% of respondents grew up in households with income \u3e$100,000/year, compared to 32.4% of Canadians). Assessment of non-response bias showed that our sample was representative of all students at English-speaking Canadian medical schools with respect to age, though a higher proportion of respondents were female. Additionally, there were no differences between early and late respondents with respect to ethnicity, rurality, and parental income, occupation, and education. CONCLUSIONS: Canadian medical students have different socioeconomic characteristics compared to the Canadian population. Collecting and analyzing these characteristics can inform evidence-based admissions policies

Benthic invertebrate fauna in the islets of Namuseom and Bukhyeongjeseom off Busan

AbstractThis study was conducted to examine the benthic invertebrate fauna inhabiting in the subtidal zone in and around the islets of Namuseom and Bukhyeongjeseom off the coast of Busan by SCUBA diving in September 2013. As a consequence, it was confirmed that a total of 6 phyla, 14 classes, 20 orders, 46 families, and 73 species of zoobenthos inhabit in and around those islets. The total number of species surveyed by taxon during the study is 22 species of Arthropoda (30%), 20 species of Mollusca (27%), 15 species of Cnidaria (21%), 10 species of Echinodermata (14%), four species of Poridera (5%), and two species of Chordata

COPA3 peptide supplementation alleviates the heat stress of chicken fibroblasts

Heat stress inhibits cellular proliferation and differentiation through the production of reactive oxygen species. Under stress conditions, antioxidant drugs promote stable cellular function by reducing the stress level. We sought to demonstrate 9-mer disulfide dimer peptide (COPA3) supplementation stabilizes fibroblast proliferation and differentiation even under heat stress conditions. In our study, fibroblasts were assigned to two different groups based on the temperature, like 38°C group presented as Control - and 43°C group presented as Heat Stress-. Each group was subdivided into two groups depending upon COPA3 treatment, like 38°C + COPA3 group symbolized Control+ and the 43°C + COPA3 group symbolized as Heat Stress+. Heat stress was observed to decrease the fibroblast viability and function and resulted in alterations in the fibroblast shape and cytoskeleton structure. In contrast, COPA3 stabilized the fibroblast viability, shape, and function. Moreover, heat stress and COPA3 were found to have opposite actions with respect to energy production, which facilitates the stabilization of cellular functions by increasing the heat tolerance capacity. The gene expression levels of antioxidant and heat shock proteins were higher after heat stress. Additionally, heat stress promotes the mitogen-activated protein kinase/ extracellular signal-regulated kinase–nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (MAPK/ERK-Nrf2). COPA3 maintained the MAPK/ERK-Nrf2 gene expressions that promote stable fibroblast proliferation, and differentiation as well as suppress apoptosis. These findings suggest that COPA3 supplementation increases the heat tolerance capacity, viability, and functional activity of fibroblasts

Challenges to Using Big Data in Health Services Research

Given the shift in current healthcare trends toward digitization of storing information, there has been an increase in the number of studies using administrative databases. These databases provide a powerful tool to conduct research on outcomes, health services, and epidemiology. However, these databases have limitations and biases that should be considered. Given the sensitive information regarding patients’ health in the database, security clearances must be granted before data is accessed. Furthermore, algorithms to link the different variables to create a cohort of people with specific disease are imperfect and may not yield an accurate representation. Due to a large volume of records, a statistically significant finding may be observed, but may provide insignificant clinical results. Despite the current limitations, administrative databases provide powerful data that researchers can use to identify gaps in performance to improve the healthcare system