Perspective-taking and social competence in adults

Theory of mind (ToM) research assumes an idealized ability in adults (Begeer et al., 2010). Links between ToM and social skills are often presupposed and some researchers argue that claims about the relationship between the two are often broad and unjustified (Hughes & Leekam, 2004; Liddle & Nettle, 2006). Perspective-taking (PT) has been heavily implicated in social cognition (Ruby & Decety, 2004) and is commonly placed under the title of ToM (Baron-Cohen, 2000). However, it is suggested that ToM and PT are not the same skills and may in fact be two distinct forms of social cognition (Cutting & Dunn, 1999). The current study explored the relationship between PT and social skills within a typically developed adult population. Eighty participants completed the Social Skills Inventory (SSI, Riggio & Carney, 2003) in addition to a computerised PT task. Greater PT ability was associated with greater social ability. Expressivity and control scores were predicted by PT ability, indicating that greater PT ability is predictive of greater control skills and expressivity skills in individuals and vice versa. Greater emotional intelligence has been associated with superior PT ability and higher expressivity in individuals (Goleman, 1995; Schutte et al., 2001). We suggest that emotional intelligence could be contributing to the relationship between expressivity and PT. Additionally, as both control behaviors and PT abilities place a demand on cognitive resources (Richards & Gross, 2000; Surtees et al., 2016), we argue that the same executive processes are utilized in both abilities

My independent streak may get in the way\u27: how older adults respond to falls prevention education in hospital

Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine how providing individualised falls prevention education facilitated behaviour change from the perspective of older hospital patients on rehabilitation wards and what barriers they identified to engaging in preventive strategies. Design: A prospective qualitative survey. Methods: Older patients (n=757) who were eligible (mini-mental state examination score\u3e23/30) received falls prevention education while admitted to eight rehabilitation hospital wards in Western Australia. Subsequently, 610 participants were surveyed using a semistructured questionnaire to gain their response to the in-hospital education and their identified barriers to engaging in falls prevention strategies. Deductive content analysis was used to map responses against conceptual frameworks of health behaviour change and risk taking. Results: Participants who responded (n=473) stated that the education raised their awareness, knowledge and confidence to actively engage in falls prevention strategies, such as asking for assistance prior to mobilising. Participants’ thoughts and feelings about their recovery were the main barriers they identified to engaging in safe strategies, including feeling overconfident or desiring to be independent and thinking that staff would be delayed in providing assistance. The most common task identified as potentially leading to risk-taking behaviour was needing to use the toilet. Conclusions: Individualised education assists older hospital rehabilitation patients with good levels of cognition to engage in suitable falls prevention strategies while on the ward. Staff should engage with patients to understand their perceptions about their recovery and support patients to take an active role in planning their rehabilitation

Educators\u27 perspectives about how older hospital patients can engage in a falls prevention education programme: a qualitative process evaluation

Objectives: Falls are the most frequent adverse event reported in hospitals. Patient and staff education delivered by trained educators significantly reduced falls and injurious falls in an older rehabilitation population. The purpose of the study was to explore the educators’ perspectives of delivering the education and to conceptualise how the programme worked to prevent falls among older patients who received the education. Design: A qualitative exploratory study. Methods: Data were gathered from three sources: conducting a focus group and an interview (n=10 educators), written educator notes and reflective researcher field notes based on interactions with the educators during the primary study. The educators delivered the programme on eight rehabilitation wards for periods of between 10 and 40 weeks. They provided older patients with individualised education to engage in falls prevention and provided staff with education to support patient actions. Data were thematically analysed and presented using a conceptual framework. Results: Falls prevention education led to mutual understanding between staff and patients which assisted patients to engage in falls prevention behaviours. Mutual understanding was derived from the following observations: the educators perceived that they could facilitate an effective three-way interaction between staff actions, patient actions and the ward environment which led to behaviour change on the wards. This included engaging with staff and patients, and assisting them to reconcile differing perspectives about falls prevention behaviours. Conclusions: Individualised falls prevention education effectively provides patients who receive it with the capability and motivation to develop and undertake behavioural strategies that reduce their falls, if supported by staff and the ward environment

Homeless drug users' awareness and risk perception of peer "Take Home Naloxone" use – a qualitative study

BACKGROUND Peer use of take home naloxone has the potential to reduce drug related deaths. There appears to be a paucity of research amongst homeless drug users on the topic. This study explores the acceptability and potential risk of peer use of naloxone amongst homeless drug users. From the findings the most feasible model for future treatment provision is suggested. METHODS In depth face-to-face interviews conducted in one primary care centre and two voluntary organisation centres providing services to homeless drug users in a large UK cosmopolitan city. Interviews recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically by framework techniques. RESULTS Homeless people recognise signs of a heroin overdose and many are prepared to take responsibility to give naloxone, providing prior training and support is provided. Previous reports of the theoretical potential for abuse and malicious use may have been overplayed. CONCLUSION There is insufficient evidence to recommend providing "over the counter" take home naloxone" to UK homeless injecting drug users. However a programme of peer use of take home naloxone amongst homeless drug users could be feasible providing prior training is provided. Peer education within a health promotion framework will optimise success as current professionally led health promotion initiatives are failing to have a positive impact amongst homeless drug users

Helicobacter pylori glycan biosynthesis modulates host immune cell recognition and response

IntroductionThe pathogenic bacterium Helicobacter pylori has evolved glycan-mediated mechanisms to evade host immune defenses. This study tests the hypothesis that genetic disruption of H. pylori glycan biosynthesis alters immune recognition and response by human gastric epithelial cells and monocyte-derived dendritic cells.MethodsTo test this hypothesis, human cell lines were challenged with wildtype H. pylori alongside an array of H. pylori glycosylation mutants. The relative levels of immune response were measured via immature dendritic cell maturation and cytokine secretion.ResultsOur findings indicate that disruption of lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis diminishes gastric cytokine production, without disrupting dendritic cell recognition and activation. In contrast, variable immune responses were observed in protein glycosylation mutants which prompted us to test the hypothesis that phase variation plays a role in regulating bacterial cell surface glycosylation and subsequent immune recognition. Lewis antigen presentation does not correlate with extent of immune response, while the extent of lipopolysaccharide O-antigen elaboration does.DiscussionThe outcomes of this study demonstrate that H. pylori glycans modulate the host immune response. This work provides a foundation to pursue immune-based tailoring of bacterial glycans towards modulating immunogenicity of microbial pathogens

Holistic spectroscopy: complete reconstruction of a wide-field, multiobject spectroscopic image using a photonic comb

The primary goal of Galactic archaeology is to learn about the origin of the Milky Way from the detailed chemistry and kinematics of millions of stars. Wide-field multifibre spectrographs are increasingly used to obtain spectral information for huge samples of stars. Some surveys (e.g. GALAH) are attempting to measure up to 30 separate elements per star. Stellar abundance spectroscopy is a subtle art that requires a very high degree of spectral uniformity across each of the fibres. However, wide-field spectrographs are notoriously non-uniform due to the fast output optics necessary to image many fibre outputs on to the detector. We show that precise spectroscopy is possible with such instruments across all fibres by employing a photonic comb – a device that produces uniformly spaced spots of light on the CCD to precisely map complex aberrations. Aberrations are parametrized by a set of orthogonal moments with ∼100 independent parameters. We then reproduce the observed image by convolving high-resolution spectral templates with measured aberrations as opposed to extracting the spectra from the observed image. Such a forward modelling approach also trivializes some spectroscopic reduction problems like fibre cross-talk, and reliably extracts spectra with a resolution ∼2.3 times above the nominal resolution of the instrument. Our rigorous treatment of optical aberrations also encourages a less conservative spectrograph design in the future

The GALAH survey and Gaia DR2: (non-)existence of five sparse high-latitude open clusters

Sparse open clusters can be found at high galactic latitudes where loosely populated clusters are more easily detected against the lower stellar background. Because most star formation takes place in the thin disc, the observed population of clusters far from the Galactic plane is hard to explain. We combined spectral parameters from the GALAH survey with the Gaia DR2 catalogue to study the dynamics and chemistry of five old sparse high-latitude clusters in more detail. We find that four of them (NGC 1252, NGC 6994, NGC 7772, NGC 7826) – originally classified in 1888 – are not clusters but are instead chance projections on the sky. Member stars quoted in the literature for these four clusters are unrelated in our multidimensional physical parameter space; the quoted cluster properties in the literature are therefore meaningless. We confirm the existence of visually similar NGC 1901 for which we provide a probabilistic membership analysis. An overdensity in three spatial dimensions proves to be enough to reliably detect sparse clusters, but the whole six-dimensional space must be used to identify members with high confidence, as demonstrated in the case of NGC 1901