The relative importance of perceptual and memory sampling processes in determining the time course of absolute identification

In absolute identification, the EGCM–RT (Kent & Lamberts, 2005, 2016) proposes that perceptual processing determines systematic response time (RT) variability; all other models of RT emphasise response selection rocesses. In the EGCM-RT the bow effect in RTs (longer responses for stimuli in the middle of the range) occurs because these middle stimuli are less isolated and so as perceptual information is accumulated, the evidence supporting a correct response grows more slowly than for stimuli at the ends of the range. More perceptual information is therefore accumulated in order to increase certainty in response for middle stimuli, lengthening RT. According to the model reducing perceptual sampling time should reduce the size of the bow effect in RT. We tested this hypothesis in two pitch identification experiments. Experiment 1 found no effect of stimulus duration on the size of the RT bow. Experiment 2 used multiple short stimulus durations as well as manipulating set size and stimulus spacing. Contrary to EGCM-RT predictions, the bow effect on RTs was large for even very short durations. A new version of the EGCM-RT could only capture this, alongside the effect of stimulus duration on accuracy, by including both a perceptual and a memory sampling process. A modified version of the SAMBA model (Brown, Marley, Donkin, & Heathcote, 2008) could also capture the data, by assuming psychophysical noise diminishes with increased exposure duration. This modelling suggests systematic variability in RT in absolute identification is largely determined by memory sampling and response selection processes

General practitioners’ perspectives on campaigns to promote rapid help-seeking behaviour at the onset of rheumatoid arthritis

Objective. To explore general practitioners’ (GPs’ ) perspectives on public health campaigns to encourage people with the early symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to seek medical help rapidly. Design. Nineteen GPs participated in four semistructured focus groups. Focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using thematic analysis. Results. GPs recognised the need for the early treatment of RA and identified that facilitating appropriate access to care was important. However, not all held the view that a delay in help seeking was a clinically significant issue. Furthermore, many were concerned that the early symptoms of RA were often non-specific, and that current knowledge about the nature of symptoms at disease onset was inadequate to inform the content of a help-seeking campaign. They argued that a campaign might not be able to specifically target those who need to present urgently. Poorly designed campaigns were suggested to have a negative impact on GPs’ workloads, and would “clog up” the referral pathway for genuine cases of RA. Conclusions. GPs were supportive of strategies to improve access to Rheumatological care and increase public awareness of RA symptoms. However, they have identified important issues that need to be considered in developing a public health campaign that forms part of an overall strategy to reduce time to treatment for patients with new onset RA. This study highlights the value of gaining GPs’ perspectives before launching health promotion campaigns

Team-taught versus individually taught undergraduate education: A qualitative study of student experiences and preferences

Team teaching is becoming more common in undergraduate programmes of study although the relative merits to the more traditional individually taught courses have not been determined for best practice. For this study, 15 final year undergraduate students were interviewed to gain insight into their learning experiences. A thematic analysis of the interview data identified the perceived advantages and disadvantages of each mode of teaching. The advantages of individually taught courses included: Consistency of content delivery and advice, Familiarity with the lecturer’s teaching style and better Continuity of the subject content. The disadvantage of individually taught modules included Missing knowledge, compared to a team approach. Advantages of team taught modules included: Greater insight into a topic delivered by multiple team members. Disadvantages included: Content overlap, Conflicting messages relating to assessment, team members not taking Ownership of their roles and responsibilities and a belief that overall Team failure is worse than individual failure to deliver a module well. The results revealed that individually taught modules were generally preferred to team taught modules. A set of best practice recommendations are proposed to address the challenges when delivering team-taught teaching and become more student focused

Designing Origami-Adapted Deployable Modules for Soft Continuum Arms

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019. Origami has several attractive attributes including deployability and portability which have been extensively adapted in designs of robotic devices. Drawing inspiration from foldable origami structures, this paper presents an engineering design process for fast making deployable modules of soft continuum arms. The process is illustrated with an example which adapts a modified accordion fold pattern to a lightweight deployable module. Kinematic models of the four-sided Accordion fold pattern is explored in terms of mechanism theory. Taking account of both the kinematic model and the materials selection, a 2D flat sheet model of the four-sided Accordion fold pattern is obtained for 3D printing. Following the design process, the deployable module is then fabricated by laminating 3D printed origami skeleton and flexible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) coated fabric. Preliminary tests of the prototype shown that the folding motion are enabled mainly by the flexible fabric between the gaps of thick panels of the origami skeleton and matches the kinematic analysis. The proposed approach has advantages of quick scaling dimensions, cost effective and fast fabricating thus allowing adaptive design according to specific demands of various tasks

Transition from paediatric to adult ophthalmology services: what matters most to young people with visual impairment

Purpose: To identify the views and experiences and thus the transition-related needs of young people with visual impairment (VI), so as to inform future practice and policies. Patients and methods: Qualitative study of 17 young people aged 16–19 years (ie the conventional transition age threshold) with VI (best-corrected acuity logMAR worse than 0.48) and without additional impairments, drawn from a sampling frame of paediatric ophthalmology patients attending Great Ormond Street Hospital and Moorfields Eye Hospital (London, UK). In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted to elicit their experiences, preferences, and attitudes towards transitioning within health care. Qualitative thematic analysis identified themes related to participants’ experience of transition. Results: Eight of 17 participants had transitioned out of paediatric ophthalmology services, 7 had not, and 2 were unsure. Their views and experiences varied. Only 2 of those who had transitioned preferred their prior paediatric service, and 1 still in a paediatric services did not want to transition. Age-appropriate communication and physical clinical environment were two key components of care, both associated with greater confidence to self-manage health care in the future as an adult. Emotional attachment to paediatric services/teams was associated with reluctance to transition. Conclusions: Generic guidance on transition is broadly applicable to children/young people with VI. Age-appropriate communication and appropriate physical clinical environments may be optimally delivered through adolescent ophthalmology services bridging paediatric and adult provision. Lack of research on transitions in paediatric ophthalmology has thus far restricted intervention studies; our findings serve to aid in developing an evidence base to achieve this

A cross-national study on the antecedents of work–life balance from the fit and balance perspective

Drawing on the perceived work–family fit and balance perspective, this study investigates demands and resources as antecedents of work–life balance (WLB) across four countries (New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain), so as to provide empirical cross-national evidence. Using structural equation modelling analysis on a sample of 870 full time employees, we found that work demands, hours worked and family demands were negatively related to WLB, while job autonomy and supervisor support were positively related to WLB. We also found evidence that resources (job autonomy and supervisor support) moderated the relationships between demands and work–life balance, with high resources consistently buffering any detrimental influence of demands on WLB. Furthermore, our study identified additional predictors of WLB that were unique to some national contexts. For example, in France and Italy, overtime hours worked were negatively associated with WLB, while parental status was positively associated with WLB. Overall, the implications for theory and practice are discussed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

What evidence exists on ecotechnologies for recycling carbon and nutrients from domestic wastewater? a systematic map

Abstract: Background: Eutrophication of the Baltic Sea, and many other water bodies, is partly the result of point-source emissions of nutrients and carbon from wastewater. At the same time, nitrogen and phosphorus planetary boundaries have been breached. There is a need for more efficient resource management, including the recovery and reuse of nutrients and carbon in waste. The aim of this paper is to collate evidence on ecotechnologies intended for use in the wastewater sector globally to facilitate the recovery or reuse of carbon and/or nutrients. Methods: Searches were performed on literature published between 2013 and 2017 and in 5 bibliographic databases, 1 search engine, and 38 specialist websites. Database searches were performed in English. Searches in specialist websites were also performed in Finnish, Polish and Swedish. There was no geographical limitation. Screening was conducted at title and abstract level, and on full texts. Apart from bibliographical information, we extracted information on ecotechnology type, intervention, details of the recovery or reuse, the type of wastewater stream to which the ecotechnology is applied, the study location, type and design. Prior to screening and coding, we conducted consistency checks amongst reviewers. We generated a searchable database of coded studies. Findings were synthesised narratively and visualised in a geographical information system (i.e. an evidence atlas). We identified a series of knowledge gaps and clusters that warrant further research. Results: The search resulted in 4024 records, out of which 413 articles were retained after the screening process. In addition, 35 pre-screened studies from the specialist website searches were added. Together, these 448 articles contained 474 individual studies of 28 types of ecotechnologies. A combination of ecotechnologies (16.7%), followed by microalgae cultivation (14.1%) were the most frequent ecotechnologies in the evidence base. Ecotechnologies for recovery composed 72.6% of the evidence base. The most common wastewater streams for recovery were mixed wastewater and sludge (73.8%). There was a relative lack of studies on recovery from source-separated wastewater. The most common type of recovery was energy (27.3%), followed by simultaneous recovery of nitrogen and phosphorus (22.1%). Reuse of recovered substances was described in 22.8% of the studies. The most common type of reuse was of nitrogen and phosphorus (57.4%), followed by joint reuse of organic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus (35.2%). Reuse ecotechnologies were mostly focused on the use of wastewater for irrigation or reuse of biosolids, and not on the nutrients that had been extracted through e.g. precipitation of struvite. In 22 studies both recovery and reuse were described. In total, 60 different study countries were reported in the evidence base, and the most common study location was China

A mathematical and computational review of Hartree-Fock SCF methods in Quantum Chemistry

We present here a review of the fundamental topics of Hartree-Fock theory in Quantum Chemistry. From the molecular Hamiltonian, using and discussing the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, we arrive to the Hartree and Hartree-Fock equations for the electronic problem. Special emphasis is placed in the most relevant mathematical aspects of the theoretical derivation of the final equations, as well as in the results regarding the existence and uniqueness of their solutions. All Hartree-Fock versions with different spin restrictions are systematically extracted from the general case, thus providing a unifying framework. Then, the discretization of the one-electron orbitals space is reviewed and the Roothaan-Hall formalism introduced. This leads to a exposition of the basic underlying concepts related to the construction and selection of Gaussian basis sets, focusing in algorithmic efficiency issues. Finally, we close the review with a section in which the most relevant modern developments (specially those related to the design of linear-scaling methods) are commented and linked to the issues discussed. The whole work is intentionally introductory and rather self-contained, so that it may be useful for non experts that aim to use quantum chemical methods in interdisciplinary applications. Moreover, much material that is found scattered in the literature has been put together here to facilitate comprehension and to serve as a handy reference.Comment: 64 pages, 3 figures, tMPH2e.cls style file, doublesp, mathbbol and subeqn package