Development and initial validation of an instrument measuring athletes’ volition

This study describes the development and initial validation of a new instrument for the measurement of athletes’ volition – the Measure Athletes’ Volition (MAV). The findings from the exploratory factor analyses, which used 371 adolescent athletes, provided evidence for a six-factor solution with 23-item – goal (three items), effort with difficulties (four items), effort continuous (three items), persistence on effort (five items), decision making (three items), and intention (five items). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a 23-item and six-factor structure provided acceptable model fit. In addition, the findings further supported the reliability of the above mentioned model

Duodenal volvulus of the sigmoid flexure in five cows. A retrospective study

Medical data of five Holstein Friesian cows with duodenal volvulus of the sigmoid flexure admitted to the Clinic for Cattle, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Hannover, Germany during a two-year period were reviewed in this study. The aim of this study was to present the clinical, laboratory and surgical findings as well as the postoperative healing progress and therapy of these five cases. All cows showed a loss of appetite and were dehydrated, with a marked drop in milk yield. The rumen motility was severely reduced and an untypical tympanic resonance or ping and a splashing sound were present at the right flank at auscultation. All the cows had only a small amount of faeces. All animals had hypochloraemic metabolic alkalosis and most of them hyperlactatemia. Two of the cows were hypokalaemic. Hyperbilirubinaemia was revealed in all cows. Four of the cows had an increased haematocrit level. A standing right flank laparotomy was performed in all cows. A common surgical finding was the severely dilated, dorsally dislocated and twisted sigmoid flexure of the duodenum, and the empty descending duodenum. The abomasum of all cows was dilated, but not displaced. An enlarged gall bladder was found in four animals. The duodenal sigmoid loop was manually untwisted, followed by promoting gas and ingesta flow aborally in the descending duodenum. Omentopexy was performed in each cow. No cow had had any history of omentopexy or other abdominal surgery. All cows received intravenous fluid therapy after the surgery. A total of 10-20 L 0.9 % NaCl solution containing an additional KCL (30 mmol/L) was administered intravenously via drip infusion daily for the first two days after surgery. Amoxicillin (10 mg/kg; s.c.) was administered once daily (SID) in two cases. Three of the cows were additionally drenched with 30 L water and 100-150 g KCL via an orogastric tube once per day for two days postoperatively. Four cows received neostigmine s.c. after surgery and for the following one to two days (every 8 or 12 hours; 0.02 mg/kg or 0.025 mg/kg, respectively). All cows were administered meloxicam (0.5 mg/kg; s.c.) before and on the first postoperative day. Sodium sulphate (250 g per os; SID) was administered to four cows for one to two days. Feed intake, rumen motility and defaecation were normalised gradually after surgery. All cows had a positive post-surgical outcome and were discharged from the clinic after 7 to 15 days. Keywords: ileus; dairy cattle; duodenum; intestinal obstructio

Caecal dilatation and dislocation in 20 dairy cows. A retrospective study.

A total of 20 cows with caecal dilatation and dislocation were included in this retrospective study. The aim of the study was to describe the findings of the initial clinical examination, the haematological, biochemical and venous blood gas analysis as well as the therapeutic management and the surgical findings of these cases. A positive simultaneous percussion and auscultation in the right flank as well as rectal palpation of the distended caecum were the most common findings in 90% of the animals. Increased haematocrit, hyperlactateaemia and hyperglycaemia were the most often occurring laboratory findings. Conservative treatment using neostigmine s.c. (0.025mg/kg) was successful in three out of four cases. Surgical therapy including laparotomy in the right flank and typhlotomy was performed in 17 cases. Caecal dilatation (n=9), retroflexion (n=4) and torsion (n=4) were revealed intraoperatively. During surgery in three cows, the caecum had filled once again with fluid content and typhlotomyhad to be repeated. Typhlectomy was not necessary in any of these cows. A relaparotomy due to recurrence of the caecal disorder was not required in any of the cases during hospitalisation. The postsurgical treatment included antibiotics, neostigmine in all cows and fluid therapy in the majority of the animals. Laxative treatment using 250 g sodium sulphate twice daily per os was applied in 10 cases. All cows were discharged from the clinic and returned to the farm

Algorithmic Complexity for Short Binary Strings Applied to Psychology: A Primer

Since human randomness production has been studied and widely used to assess executive functions (especially inhibition), many measures have been suggested to assess the degree to which a sequence is random-like. However, each of them focuses on one feature of randomness, leading authors to have to use multiple measures. Here we describe and advocate for the use of the accepted universal measure for randomness based on algorithmic complexity, by means of a novel previously presented technique using the the definition of algorithmic probability. A re-analysis of the classical Radio Zenith data in the light of the proposed measure and methodology is provided as a study case of an application.Comment: To appear in Behavior Research Method

Phrase-final words in Greek storytelling speech: a study on the effect of a culturally-specific prosodic feature on short-term memory

Prosodic patterns of speech appear to make a critical contribution to memoryrelated processing. We considered the case of a previously unexplored prosodic feature of Greek storytelling and its effect on free recall in thirty typically developing children between the ages of 10 and 12 years, using short ecologically valid auditory stimuli. The combination of a falling pitch contour and, more notably, extensive final-syllable vowel lengthening, which gives rise to the prosodic feature in question, led to statistically significantly higher performance in comparison to neutral phrase-final prosody. Number of syllables in target words did not reveal substantial difference in performance. The current study presents a previously undocumented culturally-specific prosodic pattern and its effect on short-term memory

The effect of a digital interactive game in distractibility, hyperactivity and impulsivity in individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and intellectual disability

The purpose of this study was examine the effect of a digital interactive game in distractibility, hyperactivity, impulsiveness and other relative symptoms in individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity -disorder (ADHD) and Intellectual Disability (ID). Methods: The study involved 20 adults (10 men and 10 women) with ADHD and ID aged 20-25 years who were enrolled in a special school and were divided randomly into two groups. Ten adults with ADHD and moderate ID (5 men and 5 women, with mean age 23.6 ± 1.65 years, IQ 35-50) constituted the intervention group (IG) participating in the digital interactive tennis game, for twelve weeks, three times a week for twenty minutes per session. On the other hand, ten adults with ADHD and moderate ID (5 men and 5 women with mean age 23.6 ± 1.78, IQ 35-50), constituted the control group (CG) who attended physical education lessons in their special school, twice a week, for forty five minutes per session. Results: Assessment for both groups included the use of the Instrumente zur Diagnose der Adulten ADHS (IDAA) questionnaire (Rösler et al. 2004), with no statistically significant differences noted between the two groups in all parameters evaluated prior intervention. Comparison between initial and final measurement revealed statistically significant differences in distractibility (p<.01), hyperactivity (p<.01), impulsivity (p<.01) and other evaluated sections (p =.127) of IG individuals. As to CG, statistically significant differences were noted between the initial and final measurement in distractibility (p<.01), impulsivity (p<.05) and other entries (p<.05), while there were no statistically significant differences in hyperactivity (p=.508). Conclusions: In conclusion, implementation of a digital interactive tennis game contributes effectively on reducing ADHD hyperactivity and impulsivity symptoms that characterize the behavior of adults with ADHD and ID. © JPES

The land snails (Mollusca, Gastropoda) of Kea island (Aegean, Greece)

Background Kea is the westernmost island of the Cyclades and is located between Syros and Attica, in central Greece. In this work, we have resampled the island after 43 years – i.e. when the island was first fully sampled – and we present its complete land snail fauna. New information We report 42 land snail species with 10 species being new records for the island. Based on our results we draw attention to the fact that sampling for land snails should be done during the wet period in order to survey the complete malacofauna in an island or a region. For such a complete survey, collection and inspection of soil and litter are also necessary. Finally, increased sampling effort through regular resurveys is a necessary prerequisite in order to effectively assess the temporal dynamics of biodiversity patterns © Maroulis L et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credite

Body mass index and flanker size: Does (over)weight modulate the Baldwin illusion?

Visuospatial processing is a complex process that is vulnerable to bias. Line bisection paradigms are used to help detect the factors that balance left and right hemispatial attention that go beyond the domains of perception and action. For example, studies have indicated the “pseudoneglect” phenomenon in the bisection of horizontally presented lines in healthy subjects. Among the modified versions of the traditional line bisection task is the “Baldwin illusion”. In the Baldwin illusion, the subjective midpoint of a line flanked by squares of different sizes is displaced towards the small square. The goal of the study was two-fold. First, we wanted to investigate whether there is an asymmetry in the Baldwin effect depending on leftward or rightward arrangement of the small square and second whether obesity (as measured by body mass index—BMI) would affect bisection of Baldwin-like flanked lines. Thirty-one healthy, right-handed female subjects (20 normal-weight and 11 overweight) had to repeatedly bisect a horizontal straight line using a series of Baldwin-type stimuli, including a photography of their own and the experimenter’s body. As predicted, this displacement was larger when the small square was on the left end of the line (M = −1.80 mm, SD = 2.71 mm, t = −10.48, p = <0.001) than when it flanked the right end (M = +0.71 mm, SD = 2.90 mm; t = 3.83, p = t = 4.35, p = <0.001). Across all stimulus types (irrespective of the size or type of a flanker), overweight subjects placed the subjective midpoint more leftward than the normal-weight subjects. In 13 out of 16 types the results differed significantly and in the remaining 3 types the tendency was clear (0.074 < p < 0.13). Limitations were addressed. Our results confirmed our asymmetry hypothesis. Also, these preliminary results demonstrated an influence of BMI on line bisection performance, i.e. a larger pseudoneglect for the overweight/obese subjects