Patient perceptions regarding benefits of single visit scale and polish : a randomised controlled trial

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The productivity and financial impacts of eight types of environmental enrichment for broiler chickens

Reduced mobility in broilers can contribute to leg health problems. Environmental enrichment has been suggested as one approach to combat this through stimulating increased physical activity. Past studies have tested the effect of environmental enrichments on bird behaviour, health and welfare, but few have estimated their financial impacts. This study tested the impact of eight types of environmental enrichment on enterprise net margin, accounting for direct intervention costs plus indirect effects via changes to bird mortality, weight, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, and foot pad dermatitis. The trial used 58 pens each containing approximately 500 broilers (Ross 308) at a stocking density of 40 kg/m2. The environmental enrichments were: roughage, vertical panels, straw bales, elevated platforms (5 and 30 cm), increased distances between feed and water (7 and 3.5 m) and stocking density reduced to 34 kg/m2, plus a control group. Mortality was recorded daily and feed intake and weight weekly. Footpad dermatitis was assessed on day 35. Only one intervention improved financial performance (3.5 m between feed and water) above the control, suggesting that most environmental enrichment would have a negative financial impact due to the additional intervention costs, unless consumers were willing to pay a price premium

Negative priming in free recall reconsidered

Recent investigations of the phenomenon of forgetting have been driven mostly by the development of a novel theoretical framework which places great emphasis on inhibitory control (Anderson, 2003; Anderson & Spellman, 1995; Bjork, 1989). Whereas traditional, interference-based theories consider forgetting to be a by-product of storing new information, the inhibitory framework postulates a specialized mechanism, or a group of mechanisms, that serves the function of ‘deactivating’ information which is currently irrelevant. This process of inhibiting currently irrelevant information is thought to have lasting consequences, affecting memory for the irrelevant information on subsequent tests. The active and functional perspective on forgetting embedded in the inhibitory framework opens new fields for examining the role of forgetting in cognitive functioning. Differences in the ability to inhibit irrelevant information have been postulated to play important roles in a range of clinical conditions (e.g., Soriano, Jiménez, Román, & Bajo, 2009; Storm & White, 2010) and the trajectory of cognitive development (e.g., Aslan & Bäuml, 2010) as well as contributing to individual differences in many other cognitive and social domains (Redick, Heitz, & Engle, 2007)

A Step-by-step Guide to the Realisation of Advanced Optical Tweezers

Since the pioneering work of Arthur Ashkin, optical tweezers have become an indispensable tool for contactless manipulation of micro- and nanoparticles. Nowadays optical tweezers are employed in a myriad of applications demonstrating the importance of these tools. While the basic principle of optical tweezers is the use of a strongly focused laser beam to trap and manipulate particles, ever more complex experimental set-ups are required in order to perform novel and challenging experiments. With this article, we provide a detailed step- by-step guide for the construction of advanced optical manipulation systems. First, we explain how to build a single-beam optical tweezers on a home-made microscope and how to calibrate it. Improving on this design, we realize a holographic optical tweezers, which can manipulate independently multiple particles and generate more sophisticated wavefronts such as Laguerre-Gaussian beams. Finally, we explain how to implement a speckle optical tweezers, which permit one to employ random speckle light fields for deterministic optical manipulation.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figure

Creating a Cadre of Assessment Gurus (at Your Institution)

This article is a case study based on the efforts of two colleges to expand and strengthen faculty and staff assessment activities; it is also a road map for you and your institution to create a cadre of assessment gurus. Although we received a grant from the Teagle Foundation that led to a series of formal on-campus Assessment 101 workshops for faculty and staff, we suggest that your institution can create similar, highly successful assessment training workshops that are budget sensitive. At the end of this training, your newly minted assessment gurus will help themselves and their colleagues use assessment evidence to improve teaching and learning both inside and outside the classroom

Learning through clamor: the allocation and perception of study time in noise

Memory tasks involve a degree of judgment and strategic decision-making, based upon the perceived benefits of particular learning, maintenance and recall strategies. The consequences of these metacognitive judgments for memory have been amply documented under experimental conditions that require participants to focus upon a task in the absence of distractors. Eight experiments consider the impact of less benign environmental conditions —specifically, the presence of distracting speech —upon the metacognitive aspects of memory. Distraction reliably disrupted free recall and, as indicated by Judgments of Learning, participants were aware of this effect. However, because participants did not adjust study time in compensation, the distraction effect was exaggerated relative to experimenter-imposed presentation rates. This finding appears to be the consequence of distraction-induced disruption of time perception at encoding, rather than any deliberate strategy. The results are interpreted in terms of a limited self-regulation hypothesis and highlight the need to consider the impact of more challenging environments on metacognition generally

Stem cell patterning and fate in human epidermis

AbstractWithin human epidermis there are two types of proliferating keratinocyte: stem cells, which have high proliferative potential, and transit-amplifying cells, which are destined to undergo terminal differentiation after a few rounds of division. We show that, in vivo, stem cells express higher levels of the α2β1, and α3β1 integrins than transit-amplifying cells and that this can be used both to determine the location of stem cells within the epidermis and to isolate them directly from the tissue. The distribution of stem cells and transit-amplifying cells is not random: patches of integrin-bright and integrin-dull cells have a specific location with respect to the epidermal-dermal junction that varies between body sites and that correlates with the distribution of S phase cells. Stem cell patterning can be recreated in culture, in the absence of dermis, and appears to be subject to autoregulation

Coronary heart disease risks associated with high levels of HDL cholesterol.

BackgroundThe association between high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and coronary heart disease (CHD) events is not well described in individuals with very high levels of HDL-C (>80 mg/dL).Methods and resultsUsing pooled data from 6 community-based cohorts we examined CHD and total mortality risks across a broad range of HDL-C, including values in excess of 80 mg/dL. We used Cox proportional hazards models with penalized splines to assess multivariable, adjusted, sex-stratified associations of HDL-C with the hazard for CHD events and total mortality, using HDL-C 45 mg/dL and 55 mg/dL as the referent in men and women, respectively. Analyses included 11 515 men and 12 925 women yielding 307 245 person-years of follow-up. In men, the association between HDL-C and CHD events was inverse and linear across most HDL-C values; however at HDL-C values >90 mg/dL there was a plateau effect in the pattern of association. In women, the association between HDL-C and CHD events was inverse and linear across lower values of HDL-C, however at HDL-C values >75 mg/dL there were no further reductions in the hazard ratio point estimates for CHD. In unadjusted models there were increased total mortality risks in men with very high HDL-C, however mortality risks observed in participants with very high HDL-C were attenuated after adjustment for traditional risk factors.ConclusionsWe did not observe further reductions in CHD risk with HDL-C values higher than 90 mg/dL in men and 75 mg/dL in women

Plasmodiophora Lewisii, Nov. Sp.

Author Institution: University of Minnesot