Oxytocin makes us trusting but not gullible

Originally known for its role in childbirth and lactation, oxytocin (OT) has recently proved to play a key role in social behavior. Deprived of OT, humans are unable to recognize and to bond to their peers. Inversely, once boosted with OT, people become more caring, trusting and generous. Effect-sizes on trust and generosity were sufficiently large that OT started to be perceived as a natural drug that would make people credulous. But could OT really impede judgment and lead individuals to trust untrustworthy peers? Here we show that oxytocin makes people trusting, but not gullible. Namely, OT did not have a trust-enhancing effect on people who interacted with seemingly unreliable peers. These results emphasize that the effect of OT is much more context-dependent than previously thought. This finding therefore invalidates some of the potential commercial or military applications of oxytocin

Nearby Gas-Rich Low Surface Brightness Galaxies

We examine the Fisher-Tully cz<1000 km/s galaxy sample to determine whether it is a complete and representative sample of all galaxy types, including low surface brightness populations, as has been recently claimed. We find that the sample is progressively more incomplete for galaxies with (1) smaller physical diameters at a fixed isophote and (2) lower HI masses. This is likely to lead to a significant undercounting of nearby gas-rich low surface brightness galaxies. However, through comparisons to other samples we can understand how the nearby galaxy counts need to be corrected, and we see some indications of environmental effects that probably result from the local high density of galaxies.Comment: 12 page, 2 figures, to appear in Ap

Solution-Focused. Wellness Coaching*

Understanding wellness as a multi-dimensional construct has significant implica­tions for both physical and psychological health treatment. links between chronic illness and lifestyle factors such as inactivity, diet, and stress, present a need for professionals with specialized training who can support individuals in devel­oping skills and resources related to making lifestyle changes. To facilitate well­ ness-based lifestyle change, models that integrate evidence-based approaches are needed. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and Solution-Focused Coaching a1-e evidence-based approaches that emphasize client strengths and building solutions in both clinical and non-clinical contexts. Establishing a Solution-Focused Wellness Coaching (SFWC) model provides a short-term, effective approach to coaching that is applicable in a variety of health and wellness contexts including primary care, counseling, social work, occupational and physical therapies, and exercise and fitness. The SF\JvC model provides a framework that utilizes specific, replicable therapeutic techniques for supporting clients in enhancing wellness across physi­cal, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and social domains

Do Poor Students Benefit from China’s Merger Program? Transfer Path and Educational Performance.

Aiming to provide better education facilities and improve the educational attainment of poor rural students, China’s government has been merging remote rural primary schools to centralized village, town, or county schools since the late 1990s. To accompany the policy, boarding facilities have been constructed that allow (mandate) primary school-aged children to live at school rather than at home. More generally, there also have been efforts to improve rural schools, especially those in counties and towns. Unfortunately, little empirical work has been available to evaluate the impact of the new merger and investment programs on the educational performance of students. Drawing on a unique dataset that records both the path by which students navigate their primary school years (i.e., which different types of schools did students attend) as well as math test scores in three poverty-stricken counties, we use descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis (both OLS and covariate matching) to analyze the relationship between different transfer paths and student educational performance. This allows us to examine the costs and benefits of the school merger and investment programs. The results of the analysis show that students who attend county schools perform systematically better than those attend village or town schools. However, completing primary school in town schools seems to have no effect on students’ academic performance. Surprisingly, starting primary education in a teaching point does not hurt rural students; on the contrary, it increases their test scores in some cases. Finally, in terms of the boarding effect, the neutral estimate in OLS and the negative estimate in covariate matching results confirm that boarding at school does not help the students; in some cases it may even reduce their academic performance.

The potential for deprescribing in care home residents with Type 2 diabetes

Background: Type 2 diabetes is a common diagnosis in care home residents that is associated with potentially inappropriate prescribing and thus risk of additional suffering. Previous studies found that diabetes medicines can be safely withdrawn in care home residents, encouraging further investigation of the potential for deprescribing amongst these patients. Objectives: Describe comorbidities and medicine use in care home residents with Type 2 diabetes; identify number of potentially inappropriate medicines prescribed for these residents using a medicines optimisation tool; assess clinical applicability of the tool. Setting Thirty care homes for older people, East Anglia, UK. Method: Data on diagnoses and medicines were extracted from medical records of 826 residents. Potentially inappropriate medicines were identified using the tool ‘Optimising Safe and Appropriate Medicines Use’. Twenty percent of results were validated by a care home physician. Main outcome measure: Number of potentially inappropriate medicines. Results: The 106 residents with Type 2 diabetes had more comorbidities and prescriptions than those without. Over 90 % of residents with Type 2 diabetes had at least one potentially inappropriate medication. The most common was absence of valid indication. The physician unreservedly endorsed 39 % of the suggested deprescribing, and would consider discontinuing all but one of the remaining medicines following access to additional information. Conclusion: UK care home residents with Type 2 diabetes had an increased burden of comorbidities and prescriptions. The majority of these patients were prescribed potentially inappropriate medicines. Validation by a care home physician supported the clinical applicability of the medicines optimisation tool

Progress in Operational Analysis of Launch Vehicles in Nonstationary Flight

This paper presents recent results in an ongoing effort to understand and develop techniques to process launch vehicle data, which is extremely challenging for modal parameter identification. The primary source of difficulty is due to the nonstationary nature of the situation. The system is changing, the environment is not steady, and there is an active control system operating. Hence, the primary tool for producing clean operational results (significant data lengths and data averaging) is not available to the user. This work reported herein uses a correlation-based two step operational modal analysis approach to process the relevant data sets for understanding and development of processes. A significant drawback for such processing of short time histories is a series of beating phenomena due to the inability to average out random modal excitations. A recursive correlation process coupled to a new convergence metric (designed to mitigate the beating phenomena) is the object of this study. It has been found in limited studies that this process creates clean modal frequency estimates but numerically alters the damping

Clinical study to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the Aesculap Activ-L™ artificial disc in the treatment of degenerative disc disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective of this clinical study is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the Activ-L Artificial Disc for treatment of single-level degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine in patients who have been unresponsive to at least six months of prior conservative care. The hypothesis of the study is that the Activ-L Disc is non-inferior to the control (the Charité^®Artificial Disc [DePuy Spine] or ProDisc-L^®Total Disc Replacement [Synthes Spine]) with respect to the rate of individual subject success at 24 months. Individual subject success is a composite of effectiveness and safety.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The study proposed is a prospective, randomized, single-masked, controlled, multi-center clinical trial consisting of an estimated 414 subjects with single-level DDD of the lumbar spine (L4/L5, or L5/S1) who have failed to improve with conservative treatment for at least six months prior to enrollment. After enrollment, subjects will be randomized in a 2:1 ratio to either the Activ-L Disc (investigational device) or the control (Charité or ProDisc-L). Radiographic endpoints will be evaluated by an independent reviewer at an imaging core laboratory. Each subject will be followed for 5 years post-treatment.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The safety and effectiveness of the Activ-L Artificial Disc for treatment of single-level degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine will be equivalent to Charité^®Artificial Disc [DePuy Spine] or ProDisc-L^®Total Disc Replacement [Synthes Spine] at 24 months.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>Current Controlled Trials NCT00589797.</p

Safety and efficacy of vismodegib in patients aged ≥65 years with advanced basal cell carcinoma.

Because many patients with unresectable basal cell carcinoma (BCC) are aged ≥65 years, this study explores the efficacy and safety of vismodegib in these patients with locally advanced (la) or metastatic (m) basal cell carcinoma (BCC) in the ERIVANCE BCC trial and the expanded access study (EAS).We compared patients aged ≥65 years to patients aged &lt;65 years taking vismodegib 150 mg/day, using descriptive statistics for response and safety. Patients aged ≥65 years (laBCC/mBCC) were enrolled in ERIVANCE BCC (33/14) and EAS (27/26). Investigator-assessed best overall response rate in patients ≥65 and &lt;65 years was 46.7%/35.7% and 72.7%/52.6% (laBCC/mBCC), respectively, in ERIVANCE BCC and 45.8%/33.3% and 46.9%/28.6%, respectively, in EAS. These differences were not clinically meaningful. Safety was similar in both groups, although those aged ≥65 years had a higher percentage of grade 3-5 adverse events than those aged &lt;65 years. Vismodegib demonstrated similar clinical activity and adverse events regardless of age