Facial aesthetics: babies prefer attractiveness to symmetry

The visual preferences of human infants for faces that varied in their attractiveness and in their symmetry about the midline were explored. The aim was to establish whether infants' visual preference for attractive faces may be mediated by the vertical symmetry of the face. Chimeric faces, made from photographs of attractive and unattractive female faces, were produced by computer graphics. Babies looked longer at normal and at chimeric attractive faces than at normal and at chimeric unattractive faces. There were no developmental differences between the younger and older infants: all preferred to look at the attractive faces. Infants as young as 4 months showed similarity with adults in the 'aesthetic perception' of attractiveness and this preference was not based on the vertical symmetry of the face

Factors Used to Determine the Teaching Load for Chairs in Public Community Colleges

As the complexities of the departmental chair continued to increase, so did the importance of having a process to use to fairly assign the teaching load for departmental chairs. In 1982 Carolyn Branch conducted a survey to identify the factors that were being used. She received input from the chief academic officers that a process, procedure or formula was needed (Branch, 1982). The factors identified in Branch’s research did not lead to the development of a process for chief academic officers to use. There has been no published research on this topic since Branch’s research in 1982. Therefore, I decided to undertake this study with the purpose of determining what factors were being used to determine the teaching load and if weights were assigned to the factors. The target population for this research was the 982 public community colleges listed on the web-site of the American Association of Community Colleges. From this list, a stratified random sample was drawn resulting in a sample population of 375 public community colleges. A survey was sent out to the sample population via electronic e-mail. Completed surveys were submitted via the Qualtrics software. The survey results were downloaded from Qualtrics into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) analytical software to analyze, synthesize, and run descriptive statistical data on the results. The results indicated that eight of the ten factors identified by Branch in 1982 were still in use. Additional factors were reported via written text by the sample population. Just like in 1982, the chief academic officers are no closer to developing a formula to use for guidance. However, by a considerable percentage, three factors were identified and being used by a large majority of the respondents in the survey. Additionally, there were three reasons reported as being the top three reasons for making changes to the factors used to determine the teaching load. Based on the information provided, a recommendation for improved practice and several recommendations for future research are presented

Developing an Understanding of Literacy through Production of Pop-Up Books

This article presents a series of activities with pop-up and other movable books which allow children to produce meaning and should further their understanding of literacy

Securing future healthcare environments in a post-COVID-19 world: moving from frameworks to prototypes

The deployment of Internet of Things platforms as well as the use of mobile and wireless technologies to support healthcare environments have enormous potential to transform healthcare. This has also led to a desire to make eHealth and mHealth part of national healthcare systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the requirement to do this in order to reduce the number of patients needing to attend hospitals and General Practitioner surgeries. This direction however has resulted in a renewed need to look at security of future healthcare platforms including information and data security as well as network and cyber-physical security. There have been security frameworks that were developed to address such issues. However, it is necessary to develop a security framework with a combination of security mechanisms that can be used to provide all the essential security requirements for healthcare systems. In addition, there is now a need to move from frameworks to prototypes which is the focus of this paper. Several security frameworks for eHealth and mHealth are first examined. This leads to a new reference model from which an implementation framework is developed using new mechanisms such as Capabilities, Secure Remote Procedure Calls and a Service Management Framework. The prototype is then evaluated against practical security requirements

TREND ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX RELEASE AND RE-GRASP SKILLS ON THE HIGH BAR

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the Code of Points on the frequency and type of Kovacs performed on the high bar by elite gymnasts. Video recordings of high bar performances were collected from the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and 2006 Aarhus World Championships. Development of the Kovacs skill within the Code of Points was informed by a trend analysis of the type and frequency of release skills at the two international competitions. Kovacs variations contributed to 50% of the release skills at the Olympic Games and 40% post qualification round at the World Championships. The high frequency of the Kovacs was attributed to the increase in associated difficulty ranking, potential to increase difficulty through shape and twisting option and durability within the Code of Points. Biomechanical analysis is required for further understanding of the completion and development of the Kovacs

Regression Analysis of a Disease Onset Distribution Using Diagnosis Data

We consider methods for estimating the effect of a covariate on a disease onset distribution when the observed data structure consists of right-censored data on diagnosis times and current status data on onset times amongst individuals who have not yet been diagnosed. Dunson and Baird (2001) approached this problem using maximum likelihood, under the assumption that the ratio of the diagnosis and onset distributions is monotonic non-decreasing. As an alternative, we propose a two-step estimator, an extension of the approach of van der Laan, Jewell and Petersen (1997) in the single sample setting, that is computationally much simpler and requires no assumptions on this ratio. A simulation study is performed comparing estimates obtained from these two approaches, as well as that from a standard current status analysis that ignores diagnosis data. Results indicate that the Dunson and Baird estimator outperforms the two-step estimator when the monotonicity assumption holds, but the reverse is true when the assumption fails. The simple current status estimator loses only a small amount of precision in comparison to the two-step procedure but requires monitoring time information for all individuals. In the data that motivated this work, a study of uterine fibroids and chemical exposure to dioxin, the monotonicity assumption is seen to fail. Here, the two-step and current status estimators both show no significant association between the level of dioxin exposure and the hazard for onset of uterine fibroids; the two-step estimator of the relative hazard associated with increasing levels of exposure has the least estimated variance amongst the three estimators considered

Shooting the messenger: a systematic review investigating extracellular vesicle isolation and characterisation methods and their influence on understanding extracellular vesicles-radiotherapy interactions in glioblastoma

BACKGROUND: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) hold promise for improving our understanding of radiotherapy response in glioblastoma due to their role in intercellular communication within the tumour microenvironment (TME). However, methodologies to study EVs are evolving with significant variation within the EV research community. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review to critically appraise EV isolation and characterisation methodologies and how this influences our understanding of the findings from studies investigating radiotherapy and EV interactions in glioblastoma. 246 articles published up to 24/07/2023 from PubMed and Web of Science were identified using search parameters related to radiotherapy, EVs, and glioblastoma. Two reviewers evaluated study eligibility and abstracted data. RESULTS: In 26 articles eligible for inclusion (16 investigating the effects of radiotherapy on EVs, five investigating the effect of EVs on radiation response, and five clinical studies), significant heterogeneity and frequent omission of key characterisation steps was identified, reducing confidence that the results are related to EVs and their cargo as opposed to co-isolated bioactive molecules. However, the results are able to clearly identify interactions between EVs and radiotherapy bi-directionally within different cell types within the glioblastoma TME. These interactions facilitate transferable radioresistance and oncogenic signalling, highlighting that EVs are an important component in the variability of glioblastoma radiotherapy response. CONCLUSIONS: Future multi-directional investigations interrogating the whole TME are required to improve subsequent clinical translation, and all studies should incorporate up to date controls and reporting requirements to increase the validity of their findings. This would be facilitated by increased collaboration between less experienced and more experienced EV research groups

Emergency Department Clinicians’ Attitudes Toward Opioid Use Disorder and Emergency Department-initiated Buprenorphine Treatment: A Mixed-Methods Study

Introduction: Emergency department (ED) visits related to opioid use disorder (OUD) have increased nearly twofold over the last decade. Treatment with buprenorphine has been demonstrated to decrease opioid-related overdose deaths. In this study, we aimed to better understand ED clinicians’ attitudes toward the initiation of buprenorphine treatment in the ED.Methods: We performed a mixed-methods study consisting of a survey of 174 ED clinicians (attending physicians, residents, and physician assistants) and semi-structured interviews with 17 attending emergency physicians at a tertiary-care academic hospital.Results: A total of 93 ED clinicians (53% of those contacted) completed the survey. While 80% of respondents agreed that buprenorphine should be administered in the ED for patients requesting treatment, only 44% felt that they were prepared to discuss medication for addiction treatment. Compared to clinicians with fewer than five years of practice, those with greater experience were less likely to approve of ED-initiated buprenorphine. In our qualitative analysis, physicians had differing perspectives on the role that the ED should play in treating OUD. Most physicians felt that a buprenorphine-based intervention in the ED would be feasible with institutional support, including training opportunities, protocol support within the electronic health record, counseling and support staff, and a robust referral system for outpatient follow-up.Conclusion: ED clinicians’ perception of buprenorphine varied by years of practice and training level. Most ED clinicians did not feel prepared to initiate buprenorphine in the ED. Qualitative interviews identified several addressable barriers to ED-initiated buprenorphine