Team Vigilance: The Effects of Co-Action on Workload and Stress

Operator vigilance is a vital concern to the Air Force in regard to cockpit monitoring, air-traffic control, and the supervisory control of unmanned aerial vehicles. A key interest is the performance of teams of observers because of the reliance of military operations on good teamwork. Previous literature has examined the efficacy of team vigilance performance by comparing the frequency of target detections by teams in comparison to those obtained by operators working alone. Team performance has consistently exceeded single-operator performance. The present study replicates this effect and provides the initial experimental investigation of the cost of being a team member. Results indicated that team members worked harder but reported less distress than single operators in the performance of a simulated UAV monitoring task

(5S,6S)-4,5-Dimethyl-3-methyl­acryloyl-6-phenyl-1,3,4-oxadiazinan-2-one

The title compound, C15H18N2O3, is an example of an oxadiazinan-2-one with significant inter­action between the N3-acyl and N4-methyl groups. These steric inter­actions result in a large torsion angle between the two carbonyl groups, not present with acyl substituents with less steric demand

Epiregulin and EGFR interactions are involved in pain processing

The EGFR belongs to the well-studied ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases. EGFR is activated by numerous endogenous ligands that promote cellular growth, proliferation, and tissue regeneration. In the present study, we have demonstrated a role for EGFR and its natural ligand, epiregulin (EREG), in pain processing. We show that inhibition of EGFR with clinically available compounds strongly reduced nocifensive behavior in mouse models of inflammatory and chronic pain. EREG-mediated activation of EGFR enhanced nociception through a mechanism involving the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway and matrix metalloproteinase-9. Moreover, EREG application potentiated capsaicin-induced calcium influx in a subset of sensory neurons. Both the EGFR and EREG genes displayed a genetic association with the development of chronic pain in several clinical cohorts of temporomandibular disorder. Thus, EGFR and EREG may be suitable therapeutic targets for persistent pain conditions

Effect of Hydrocortisone on Mortality and Organ Support in Patients With Severe COVID-19: The REMAP-CAP COVID-19 Corticosteroid Domain Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Evidence regarding corticosteroid use for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is limited. Objective: To determine whether hydrocortisone improves outcome for patients with severe COVID-19. Design, Setting, and Participants: An ongoing adaptive platform trial testing multiple interventions within multiple therapeutic domains, for example, antiviral agents, corticosteroids, or immunoglobulin. Between March 9 and June 17, 2020, 614 adult patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 were enrolled and randomized within at least 1 domain following admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) for respiratory or cardiovascular organ support at 121 sites in 8 countries. Of these, 403 were randomized to open-label interventions within the corticosteroid domain. The domain was halted after results from another trial were released. Follow-up ended August 12, 2020. Interventions: The corticosteroid domain randomized participants to a fixed 7-day course of intravenous hydrocortisone (50 mg or 100 mg every 6 hours) (n = 143), a shock-dependent course (50 mg every 6 hours when shock was clinically evident) (n = 152), or no hydrocortisone (n = 108). Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary end point was organ support-free days (days alive and free of ICU-based respiratory or cardiovascular support) within 21 days, where patients who died were assigned -1 day. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model that included all patients enrolled with severe COVID-19, adjusting for age, sex, site, region, time, assignment to interventions within other domains, and domain and intervention eligibility. Superiority was defined as the posterior probability of an odds ratio greater than 1 (threshold for trial conclusion of superiority >99%). Results: After excluding 19 participants who withdrew consent, there were 384 patients (mean age, 60 years; 29% female) randomized to the fixed-dose (n = 137), shock-dependent (n = 146), and no (n = 101) hydrocortisone groups; 379 (99%) completed the study and were included in the analysis. The mean age for the 3 groups ranged between 59.5 and 60.4 years; most patients were male (range, 70.6%-71.5%); mean body mass index ranged between 29.7 and 30.9; and patients receiving mechanical ventilation ranged between 50.0% and 63.5%. For the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively, the median organ support-free days were 0 (IQR, -1 to 15), 0 (IQR, -1 to 13), and 0 (-1 to 11) days (composed of 30%, 26%, and 33% mortality rates and 11.5, 9.5, and 6 median organ support-free days among survivors). The median adjusted odds ratio and bayesian probability of superiority were 1.43 (95% credible interval, 0.91-2.27) and 93% for fixed-dose hydrocortisone, respectively, and were 1.22 (95% credible interval, 0.76-1.94) and 80% for shock-dependent hydrocortisone compared with no hydrocortisone. Serious adverse events were reported in 4 (3%), 5 (3%), and 1 (1%) patients in the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively. Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients with severe COVID-19, treatment with a 7-day fixed-dose course of hydrocortisone or shock-dependent dosing of hydrocortisone, compared with no hydrocortisone, resulted in 93% and 80% probabilities of superiority with regard to the odds of improvement in organ support-free days within 21 days. However, the trial was stopped early and no treatment strategy met prespecified criteria for statistical superiority, precluding definitive conclusions. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02735707

Cost and Punishment: Reassessing Incarceration Costs and the Value of College-in-Prison Programs

This article is the first study examining college-in-prison programs as part of the cost-reducing and risk-management trends currently dominant in criminal justice systems. The article concedes that a college programs will not be of benefit to every inmate and may confer benefits on politically unpopular constituencies, but argues that such educational offerings are nevertheless a powerful tool for reducing recidivism and incarceration costs

Fractal Time Series Analysis of Human Heartbeat Intervals in a Change Blindness Task

Fractal analysis is a set of techniques used in the study of complex systems to understand patterns of variability that are often observed in non-linear and natural systems. These techniques have been successfully applied to the study of human physiology, such as gait, heart rate variability, and respiration (West, 2004). Understanding variability in physiological measures may provide insight into human performance, individual workload, and stress. As an exploration of the possible contributions of fractal analysis to human performance, heart rate data from an existing research study was re-analyzed using methods common in fractal analysis of time series data. Results indicate that variability was measurably different based on experimental manipulations, illustrating the potential utility of fractal analytic methods in understanding human performance. Researchers are encouraged to explore these methods for their own research

Fractal Time Series Analysis of Human Heartbeat Intervals for Physical and Mental Workload

As the environments and tasks that teams (in both military and civilian settings) are faced with increase in complexity, standard statistical methods may not fully capture team dynamics and processes. Nonlinear analyses provide alternative, mathematically derived descriptions quantifying the level of complexity and variability inherent in a data set, and may provide a more accurate understanding of dynamic systems. The goal of the present study was to investigate changes in heart interbeat interval associated with task workload using one type of nonlinear analysis, power spectral density analysis. In this study, physical and mental workload were manipulated in separate tasks to explore the contributions of each to interbeat interval variability. Results indicated that spectral analysis can identify large changes in overall workload, but may be insensitive to small or medium changes. However, these conclusions are based on preliminary results; follow-up research is necessary to determine the veracity of these conclusions

What Can a Multidimensional Measure of Stress Tell Us About Team Collaborative Tools?

A substantial body of research literature concerning the effects of collaborative tools on team performance has been generated, but the research has not considered subjective workload and stress associated with tool usage. The current experiment represents an initial, exploratory attempt to characterize the relationship between usage of collaborative tools, mental workload, and the subjective experience of stress. The NASA-TLX and the DSSQ-S were used to assess the workload and stress experienced by participants completing a simulated team command and control task. Task demands and collaborative tool availability were experimentally manipulated. Analysis of the data revealed that participants experienced increases in stress and workload with high task demands which were alleviated by the availability of collaborative tools under certain conditions. The results of this experiment demonstrate the complex relationships between collaborative technologies, workload, and stress