illumiNITE

The convergence of textiles and science has opened an incredible number of doors for the future. Sue Teixeira (president), Meg DeCubellis (creative director) and Michelle Brennan (design and development) take advantage of this trend by creating technologically advanced reflective clothing for runners and cyclists. Their stylish products look ordinary by day, but glow in the light at night. Instead of using stiff reflective tapes and trims, their brand IllumiNITE by BackAtcha Apparel LLC embeds microscopic beads into the weave of the fabric. IllumiNITE calls these beads “sataLITE™ Dish” beads because their mirror-like surfaces direct light back to the source. When these beads are put into ink form and printed onto the fabric, the reflection is in the shape of the human, rather than just strips or spots of light

Systematic differences between Cochrane and non-Cochrane meta-analyses on the same topic: a matched pair analysis

BACKGROUND: Meta-analyses conducted via the Cochrane Collaboration adhere to strict methodological and reporting standards aiming to minimize bias, maximize transparency/reproducibility, and improve the accuracy of summarized data. Whether this results in differences in the results reported by meta-analyses on the same topic conducted outside the Cochrane Collaboration is an open question. METHODS: We conducted a matched-pair analysis with individual meta-analyses as the unit of analysis, comparing Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews. Using meta-analyses from the cardiovascular literature, we identified pairs that matched on intervention and outcome. The pairs were contrasted in terms of how frequently results disagreed between the Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews, whether effect sizes and statistical precision differed systematically, and how these differences related to the frequency of secondary citations of those reviews. RESULTS: Our search yielded 40 matched pairs of reviews. The two sets were similar in terms of which was first to publication, how many studies were included, and average sample sizes. The paired reviews included a total of 344 individual clinical trials: 111 (32.3%) studies were included only in a Cochrane review, 104 (30.2%) only in a non-Cochrane review, and 129 (37.5%) in both. Stated another way, 62.5% of studies were only included in one or the other meta-analytic literature. Overall, 37.5% of pairs had discrepant results. The most common involved shifts in the width of 95% confidence intervals that would yield a different statistical interpretation of the significance of results (7 pairs). Additionally, 20% differed in the direction of the summary effect size (5 pairs) or reported greater than a 2-fold difference in its magnitude (3 pairs). Non-Cochrane reviews reported significantly higher effect sizes (P < 0.001) and lower precision (P < 0.001) than matched Cochrane reviews. Reviews reporting an effect size at least 2-fold greater than their matched pair were cited more frequently. CONCLUSIONS: Though results between topic-matched Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews were quite similar, discrepant results were frequent, and the overlap of included studies was surprisingly low. Non-Cochrane reviews report larger effect sizes with lower precision than Cochrane reviews, indicating systematic differences, likely reflective of methodology, between the two types of reviews that could generate different interpretations of the interventions under question

Systematic differences between Cochrane and non-Cochrane meta-analyses on the same topic: a matched pair analysis

BACKGROUND: Meta-analyses conducted via the Cochrane Collaboration adhere to strict methodological and reporting standards aiming to minimize bias, maximize transparency/reproducibility, and improve the accuracy of summarized data. Whether this results in differences in the results reported by meta-analyses on the same topic conducted outside the Cochrane Collaboration is an open question. METHODS: We conducted a matched-pair analysis with individual meta-analyses as the unit of analysis, comparing Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews. Using meta-analyses from the cardiovascular literature, we identified pairs that matched on intervention and outcome. The pairs were contrasted in terms of how frequently results disagreed between the Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews, whether effect sizes and statistical precision differed systematically, and how these differences related to the frequency of secondary citations of those reviews. RESULTS: Our search yielded 40 matched pairs of reviews. The two sets were similar in terms of which was first to publication, how many studies were included, and average sample sizes. The paired reviews included a total of 344 individual clinical trials: 111 (32.3%) studies were included only in a Cochrane review, 104 (30.2%) only in a non-Cochrane review, and 129 (37.5%) in both. Stated another way, 62.5% of studies were only included in one or the other meta-analytic literature. Overall, 37.5% of pairs had discrepant results. The most common involved shifts in the width of 95% confidence intervals that would yield a different statistical interpretation of the significance of results (7 pairs). Additionally, 20% differed in the direction of the summary effect size (5 pairs) or reported greater than a 2-fold difference in its magnitude (3 pairs). Non-Cochrane reviews reported significantly higher effect sizes (P < 0.001) and lower precision (P < 0.001) than matched Cochrane reviews. Reviews reporting an effect size at least 2-fold greater than their matched pair were cited more frequently. CONCLUSIONS: Though results between topic-matched Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews were quite similar, discrepant results were frequent, and the overlap of included studies was surprisingly low. Non-Cochrane reviews report larger effect sizes with lower precision than Cochrane reviews, indicating systematic differences, likely reflective of methodology, between the two types of reviews that could generate different interpretations of the interventions under question

Provider Expectations for Recovery Scale: Refining a measure of provider attitudes

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to refine and test the psychometric properties of a scale to measure provider attitudes about recovery. METHODS: This was a secondary data analysis that combined survey data from 1,128 mental health providers from 3 state hospitals, 6 community mental health centers, and 1 VA Medical Center. Rasch analyses were used to examine item-level functioning to reduce the scale to a briefer, unidimensional construct. Convergent validity was assessed through correlations with related measures. RESULTS: The Provider Expectations for Recovery scale had strong internal consistency, was related to education and setting in expected ways, and was associated with lower levels of burnout and higher levels of job satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: A 10-item scale of Provider Expectations for Recovery appears to be a useful tool to measure an important construct in recovery-oriented care. The process of refining the measure also highlights potential factors in how providers view recovery

EXAMINING CONSUMER RACE, GENDER, AND AGE DIFFERENCES IN HOPE AND RECOVERY THROUGH NAMI’S IN OUR OWN VOICE PROGRAM

poster abstractThe United States mental health system is in the process of transforming mental health care from treating and reducing symptoms to a relatively new focus on education, awareness, and optimal consumer recovery. The Nation-al Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) developed the In Our Own Voice (IOOV) program where consumers present their mental illness and recovery stories as a direct educational and indirect anti-stigma tool. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact that NAMI’s IOOV Program has on con-sumer hope and recovery attitudes. Questionnaires were distributed to four NAMI sites throughout the United States and given to consumers (n = 118) both before and after the IOOV program. The Recovery Expectations Scale, an adaptation of the Consumer Optimism Scale, was used to measure con-sumer recovery attitudes. The Snyder State Hope Scale was used to meas-ure state level hope, with agency and pathways subscales. After the inter-vention, we hypothesized that younger consumers, females, and Caucasians would report greater increases in their hope and expectations for recovery. Contrary to hypotheses, overall state-level hope remained the same throughout the program. Examination of gender differences in hope agency reveals trends, in which females decrease and males only slightly increase after viewing the program. Trends towards significance are also indicated in hope pathways, in which African Americans reported decreased pathways and Caucasians reported increased pathways. In addition, recovery expecta-tions, improved overall, with no significant differences in improvement among demographic variables. Implications of these findings and their im-portance for consumer recovery programs are discussed

On The Anisotropy Of Perceived Ground Extents And The Interpretation Of Walked Distance As A Measure Of Perception

Two experiments are reported concerning the perception of ground extent to discover whether prior reports of anisotropy between frontal extents and extents in depth were consistent across different measures (visual matching and pantomime walking) and test environments (outdoor environments and virtual environments). In Experiment 1 it was found that depth extents of up to 7 m are indeed perceptually compressed relative to frontal extents in an outdoor environment, and that perceptual matching provided more precise estimates than did pantomime walking. In Experiment 2, similar anisotropies were found using similar tasks in a similar (but virtual) environment. In both experiments pantomime walking measures seemed to additionally compress the range of responses. Experiment 3 supported the hypothesis that range compression in walking measures of perceived distance might be due to proactive interference (memory contamination). It is concluded that walking measures are calibrated for perceived egocentric distance, but that pantomime walking measures may suffer range compression. Depth extents along the ground are perceptually compressed relative to frontal ground extents in a manner consistent with the angular scale expansion hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract

The Social Psychology Of Perception Experiments: Hills, Backpacks, Glucose, And The Problem Of Generalizability

Experiments take place in a physical environment but also a social environment. Generalizability from experimental manipulations to more typical contexts may be limited by violations of ecological validity with respect to either the physical or the social environment. A replication and extension of a recent study (a blood glucose manipulation) was conducted to investigate the effects of experimental demand (a social artifact) on participant behaviors judging the geographical slant of a large-scale outdoor hill. Three different assessments of experimental demand indicate that even when the physical environment is naturalistic, and the goal of the main experimental manipulation was primarily concealed, artificial aspects of the social environment (such as an explicit requirement to wear a heavy backpack while estimating the slant of a hill) may still be primarily responsible for altered judgments of hill orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract