What is the role of the film viewer? The effects of narrative comprehension and viewing task on gaze control in film

Film is ubiquitous, but the processes that guide viewers' attention while viewing film narratives are poorly understood. In fact, many film theorists and practitioners disagree on whether the film stimulus (bottom-up) or the viewer (top-down) is more important in determining how we watch movies. Reading research has shown a strong connection between eye movements and comprehension, and scene perception studies have shown strong effects of viewing tasks on eye movements, but such idiosyncratic top-down control of gaze in film would be anathema to the universal control mainstream filmmakers typically aim for. Thus, in two experiments we tested whether the eye movements and comprehension relationship similarly held in a classic film example, the famous opening scene of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (Welles & Zugsmith, Touch of Evil, 1958). Comprehension differences were compared with more volitionally controlled task-based effects on eye movements. To investigate the effects of comprehension on eye movements during film viewing, we manipulated viewers' comprehension by starting participants at different points in a film, and then tracked their eyes. Overall, the manipulation created large differences in comprehension, but only produced modest differences in eye movements. To amplify top-down effects on eye movements, a task manipulation was designed to prioritize peripheral scene features: a map task. This task manipulation created large differences in eye movements when compared to participants freely viewing the clip for comprehension. Thus, to allow for strong, volitional top-down control of eye movements in film, task manipulations need to make features that are important to narrative comprehension irrelevant to the viewing task. The evidence provided by this experimental case study suggests that filmmakers' belief in their ability to create systematic gaze behavior across viewers is confirmed, but that this does not indicate universally similar comprehension of the film narrative

Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and dyslipidemia in people living with HIV in Africa: re-emerging challenges not to be forgotten

Nazik Elmalaika Husain,1 Sufian K Noor,2 Wadie M Elmadhoun,3 Ahmed O Almobarak,4 Heitham Awadalla,5 Clare L Woodward,6 Dushyant Mital,6 Mohamed H Ahmed7 1Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Omdurman Islamic University, Khartoum, 2Department of Medicine, 3Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Nile Valley University, Atbara, 4Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Medical Sciences and Technology, 5Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan; 6Department of HIV and Genitourinary Medicine, Milton Keynes University Hospital, NHS Foundation Trust, Milton Keynes, UK; 7Department of Medicine and HIV Metabolic Clinic, Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Eaglestone, Milton Keynes, UK Background: The current challenge in managing people living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLWHIV) includes the identification and monitoring for comorbid health risks associated with HIV and its treatment and longer survival. Dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome are increasingly seen in PLWHIV. Objective: In this narrative review, we aimed to summarize the current knowledge about diabetes, dyslipidemia and metabolic syndrome in PLWHIV in Africa and also to discuss the challenges that patients as well as health authorities in Africa may face. Methods: PubMed and Google scholar published-English literatures concerning earlier mentioned entities regardless of time limit were critically reviewed. Results: The prevalence of metabolic disorders in HIV population in Africa was estimated to range from 2.1% to 26.5% for diabetes and 20.2% to 43.5% for pre-diabetes, 13% to 58% for metabolic syndrome and 13% to 70% for dyslipidemia. Conclusion: The management of metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease risks related to HIV is complex especially in Africa due to healthcare resources, but our experience suggests that metabolic clinic is beneficial to patients and staff and should be an important part of HIV services especially as the older HIV population is increasing. In this context, cardiovascular risk assessment of HIV-infected patients will become an important component of care in developing countries in Africa and strategies are needed to deal with progressive increase in the epidemic of type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia and metabolic syndrome. Keywords: dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular, NAFLD, HIV services, Africa, metabolic clini

An Investigation of Production Workers’ Performance Variations and the Potential Impact of Attitudes

In most manufacturing systems the contribution of human labour remains a vital element that affects overall performance and output. Workers’ individual performance is known to be a product of personal attitudes towards work. However, in current system design processes, worker performance variability is assumed to be largely insignificant and the potential impact of worker attitudes is ignored. This paper describes a field study that investigated the extent to which workers’ production task cycle times vary and the degree to which such variations are associated with attitude differences. Results show that worker performance varies significantly, much more than is assumed by contemporary manufacturing system designers and that this appears to be due to production task characteristics. The findings of this research and their implications are discussed

Earthquake safety in India: achievements, challenges and opportunities

The Indian subcontinent has suffered some of the greatest earthquakes in the world. The earthquakes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries triggered a number of early advances in science and engineering related to earthquakes that are discussed here. These include the development of early codes and earthquake-resistant housing after the 1935 Quetta earthquake in Baluchistan, and strengthening techniques implemented after the 1941 Andaman Islands earthquake, discovered by the author in remote islands of India. Activities in the late 1950s to institutionalize earthquake engineering in the country are also discussed. Despite these early developments towards seismic safety, moderate earthquakes in India continue to cause thousands of deaths, indicating the poor seismic resilience of the built environment. The Bhuj earthquake of 2001 highlighted a striking disregard for structural design principles and quality of construction. This earthquake was the first instance of an earthquake causing collapses of modern multi-storey buildings in India, and it triggered unprecedented awareness amongst professionals, academics and the general public. The earthquake led to the further development of the National Information Centre of Earthquake Engineering and the establishment of a comprehensive 4-year National Programme on Earthquake Engineering Education that was carried out by the seven Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. Earthquake engineering is a highly context-specific discipline and there are many engineering problems where appropriate solutions need to be found locally. Confined masonry construction is one such building typology that the author has been championing for the subcontinent. Development of the student hostels and staff and faculty housing on the new 400-acre campus of the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar has provided an opportunity to adopt this construction typology on a large scale, and is addressed in the monograph. The vulnerability of the building stock in India is also evident from the occasional news reports of collapses of buildings under construction or during rains (without any earthquake shaking). Given India’s aspirations to be counted as one of the world’s prosperous countries, there is a great urgency to address the safety of our built environment. There is a need: to create a more professional environment for safe construction, including a system for code enforcement and building inspection; for competence-based licensing of civil and structural engineers; for training and education of all stakeholders in the construction chain; to build a research and development culture for seismic safety; to encourage champions of seismic safety; to effectively use windows of opportunity provided by damaging earthquakes; to focus on new construction as opposed to retrofitting existing buildings; and to frame the problem in the broader context of overall building safety rather than the specific context of earthquakes. Sustained long-term efforts are required to address this multi-faceted complex problem of great importance to the future development of India. While the context of this paper is India, many of the observations may be valid and useful for other earthquake-prone countriesby Sudhir K. Jai