bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction
Authors: Lieu Judith M. , de Boer Martinus C.
Published: September 2018

This introduction to the Handbook explains why the Fourth Gospel and Letters conventionally ascribed to ‘John’ can be treated as a cohesive body of literature, and justifies the exclusion of the Revelation of John from discussion of ‘Johannine literature’. It traces how some of the major developments in New Testament criticism during the twentieth and twenty-first centures have impacted on the study of the Johannine literature, and the different new questions that have been provoked in recent decades. The final part of the introduction explains the agenda and the shape of the Handbook and its usefulness for readers with different needs or levels of prior knowledge.
Language in Deaf Populations
Authors: Corina David P. , Lawyer Laurel A.
Published: September 2018

The study of language processing by deaf individuals presents new opportunities to expand our understanding of core psycholinguistic principles that have traditionally been predicated on the studies of oral and written languages. While psycholinguistic studies of signed languages reveal familiar effects of lexicality, semantic- and form-based priming, increasingly, studies of signed languages have begun to explore properties that appear to be unique to signing, such as the effects of iconicity and the role of spatial processing of the sign language signal. Studies of alphabetic reading in deaf individuals who cannot fully access the sound forms of the language they read present challenges to existing models of reading. This chapter summarizes these phenomena and discusses the ways in which the psycholinguistic processing of spoken and signed language are similar and identifies points of divergence.
Links Between Perception and Production
Authors: McGettigan Carolyn , Tremblay Pascale
Published: September 2018

Speaking requires learning to map the relationships between oral movements and the resulting acoustical signal, which demands a close interaction between perceptual and motor systems. Though historically seen as distinct, the neural mechanisms controlling speech perception and production mechanisms are now conceptualized as largely interacting and possibly overlapping. This chapter charts the history of theoretical and empirical approaches to the interaction of perception and production, focusing on the Motor Theory of Speech Perception and its later revival within the field of cognitive neuroscience. Including insights from recent advances in neuroscience methods, as well as evidence from aging and patient populations, the chapter offers an up-to-date assessment of the question of how motor and premotor cortices contribute to speech perception.
Cross-Linguistic/Bilingual Language Production
Authors: Branzi Francesca M. , Calabria Marco , Costa Albert
Published: September 2018

The bilingual population nowadays represents a global majority. Hence, the need of elaborating comprehensive theories of lexical access reflecting this reality is becoming increasingly relevant. This chapter presents a critical overview of the most prominent psycholinguistic models of bilingual language production and it tackles different theoretical issues that are currently controversial in the field. The first one concerns whether bilingual lexical access is competitive. Does competition occur between nodes in all of a speaker’s languages, or only between nodes in the target language? A second issue concerns the nature of the mechanisms applied during lexical access (i.e. is language selection resolved through domain-general or language-specific mechanisms?). If bilingual lexical access is competitive and language-non-specific, do the current theories account for the data or do we need to update them? This chapter tries to answer these questions by providing the most recent evidence on mechanisms of bilingual language production.
Spoken Word Recognition
Authors: Vitevitch Michael S. , Siew Cynthia S. Q. , Castro Nichol
Published: September 2018

Spoken word recognition occurs when listeners use the auditory signal to retrieve a word from long-term memory. The present chapter provides a historical overview of key theoretical developments and reviews how these developments contributed toward our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in spoken word recognition. Despite the maturity of this field, research in spoken word recognition continues to advance in interesting directions. The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of three recent, innovative approaches in spoken word recognition research: Bayesian models, network science, and discriminative learning, and a discussion of challenges that remain to be addressed in models of spoken word recognition.
Role of Gesture in Language Processing
Authors: Özyürek Asli
Published: September 2018

Use of language in face-to-face context is multimodal. Production and perception of speech take place in the context of visual articulators such as lips, face, or hand gestures which convey relevant information to what is expressed in speech at different levels of language. While lips convey information at the phonological level, gestures contribute to semantic, pragmatic, and syntactic information, as well as to discourse cohesion. This chapter overviews recent findings showing that speech and gesture (e.g. a drinking gesture as someone says, “Would you like a drink?”) interact during production and comprehension of language at the behavioral, cognitive, and neural levels. Implications of these findings for current psycholinguistic theories and how they can be expanded to consider the multimodal context of language processing are discussed.
Artificial Grammar Learning and Its Neurobiology in Relation to Language Processing and Development
Authors: Uddén Julia , Männel Claudia
Published: September 2018

The artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm enables systematic investigation of the acquisition of linguistically relevant structures. It is a paradigm of interest for language processing research, interfacing with theoretical linguistics, and for comparative research on language acquisition and evolution. This chapter presents a key for understanding major variants of the paradigm. An unbiased summary of neuroimaging findings of AGL is presented, using meta-analytic methods, pointing to the crucial involvement of the bilateral frontal operculum and regions in the right lateral hemisphere. Against a background of robust posterior temporal cortex involvement in processing complex syntax, the evidence for involvement of the posterior temporal cortex in AGL is reviewed. Infant AGL studies testing for neural substrates are reviewed, covering the acquisition of adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies as well as algebraic rules. The language acquisition data suggest that comparisons of learnability of complex grammars performed with adults may now also be possible with children.
Developmental Language Disorder
Authors: McKean Cristina , Law James , Morgan Angela , Reilly Sheena
Published: September 2018

This chapter describes the history of research in Language Disorders (LD) outlining changes in terminology and methodology and focuses on three newer research methodologies: population studies, the characterization of longitudinal change, and neuroimaging. Population studies have identified a clear social gradient in language ability, challenged assumptions about the role of non-verbal skills, and highlighted vulnerabilities in associated developmental domains. The fluidity of pre-school language development and increasing stability in the middle school years has become apparent in longitudinal population analyses and the importance of social disadvantage and the home-learning environment underlined. Neurobiological “differences” between those with and without LD are recognized, however little is known about the developmental pathways or the role of biological and environmental mechanisms in shaping them. Fully describing and understanding the ontogony of LD remains elusive. How environmental, genetic, epigenetic, and neurobiological effects interact and unfold over developmental time and across population samples remain priorities for research.
Visual Word Recognition in Multilinguals
Authors: Dijkstra Ton , van Heuven Walter J. B.
Published: September 2018

This chapter on the reading of words by multilinguals considers how retrieving words in two or more languages is affected by the lexical properties of the words, the sentence context in which they occur, and the language to which they belong. Reaction time and event-related potential (ERP) studies are discussed that investigate the processing of cognates, interlingual homographs, and words with different numbers of neighbors, both in isolation and in sentence context. After reviewing different models for multilingual word retrieval, it is concluded that multilingual word recognition involves a language-independent, context-sensitive, and interactive pattern recognition routine, with temporal properties that can be determined not only by “classical” reaction time techniques, but even better by up-to-date research techniques such as eye-tracking and ERP recordings.
Historical Method In The Study of Law And Culture
Authors: Wagner Bryan
Published: September 2018

This chapter explores some of the ways that legal historical research has been conditioned by the concept of culture. It argues for the importance of understanding key terms of analysis in light of their intellectual history. No matter how we draw the distinction between law and culture, legal historical research becomes skewed when we presume that we are able to distinguish law from culture without attending to the intellectual and institutional history that made law and culture understandable as opposed entities separated into distinct domains. Legal historians must proceed inductively, but they also need to expand their analysis dialectically through a genealogy that conceives law and culture not as natural kinds but as inherited ideas.
Legal History As The History of Legal Texts
Authors: Fernandez Angela
Published: September 2018

The use and reliance on casebooks and law-review articles informed the background understanding of famous leading cases as they developed over time, particularly into the twentieth century and the context of an academic law school using the case method of instruction. The case is still the primary unit of analysis. However, investigations of how cases came to be included in casebooks are few and far between. This chapter asks: Why did that happen to some cases and not others? What were editors thinking when they dragged one of these specimens out of obscurity? Did the weight of past practice dictate their continued inclusion or were other factors at play? Did they actually become useful in new ways to new generations of teachers and students or was it just a strange kind of deference or inertia that kept them in the casebook where they continued to be read and discussed?
From Evolutionary Functionalism to Critical Transnationalism
Authors: Schmidt Katharina Isabel
Published: September 2018

This chapter explores practices of legal-historical comparison from their beginnings as an occasional element of ancient, medieval, and early modern treatises to their institutionalization as a discipline at the turn of the twentieth century. It also makes a case for ‘critical transnationalism’ as a way for legal-historical comparativists to produce works that are both timely and interesting. Finally, it surveys promising areas of and approaches to transnational legal research, all the while bearing in mind the particular challenge law poses to transnational history.
Marxist Legal History
Authors: Tomlins Christopher
Published: September 2018

Forty years after the 1975–1985 decade of socialism’s macro-political crisis, and of Western Marxism’s metastasizing theoretical crisis and eventual dispersal, we are in the grip of a new fast-forming historical conjuncture. Both globally, and within its historic Anglophone heartlands, capital is at war with itself, and it is liberalism’s turn to feel the cold pinch of disintegration. This chapter asks: What opportunities exist for renewing the attempt to create a Marxist legal historiography? What responsibilities attend that effort? It suggests that legal historians need to realize that what makes Marxist legal history useful and attractive is less that it is a particular way of doing legal history that produces specific outcomes than that it is an explicitly historical method.
Critical legal studies
Authors: Christodoulidis Emilios , van der Walt Johan
Published: September 2018

This chapter traces the tradition of critical theory in Europe in the way it has informed and framed legal thought. A key, and distinctive, element of this legal tradition is that it characteristically connects to the state as constitutive reference; in other words it understands the institution of law as that which organizes and mediates the relation of the state to civil society. The other constitutive reference is political economy, a reference that typically grounds this tradition of thinking about the law in the materiality of the practices of social production and reproduction. It is in these connections, of the institution of law to the domains of the state and of the political economy, that critical legal theory locates the function of law, and the emancipatory potentially it affords on the one hand, and the obstacles to emancipation it imposes, on the other.
Critical Race Theory and The Political Uses of Legal History
Authors: Lovelace H. Timothy
Published: September 2018

In 1976, Derrick Bell, a former lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, wrote about the inability of modern civil rights litigation to advance real racial justice. His willingness to dissent from civil rights orthodoxy would radically reshape the study of race, law, and history. The result would lead to the creation of critical race theory. This chapter begins by examining the role of historical analysis in the development of critical race theory. It then explores how legal historians of the civil rights movement imported insights from critical race theory to develop three decades of movement scholarship. Next, it charts new scholarly directions for both critical race theorists and legal historians. The chapter concludes with reflections on how legal history and critical race theory have influenced contemporary struggles for racial justice.
Literary Analysis of Law
Authors: Stern Simon
Published: September 2018

This chapter shows what digital resources can reveal about the prehistory of the Miranda warning. The first part of the chapter offers an extensive, database-driven survey that takes novelistic representation as its focus. Conversely, by studying a particular work, and focusing not only on its content but also on how it uses plot and character, we can ask about its animating logic, posing questions about how a text works rather than what it says or shows overtly. The second part takes a more intensive approach, asking how Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890–1891) uses various techniques of representation to explore the logic of obscenity law—a logic that also applies to the legal regulation of language in other contexts, such as libel and sedition.
Doing Things with Legal History
Authors: Brophy Alfred L.
Published: September 2018

This chapter discusses the role of historical analysis in property law. The history of property has been used to offer support for property rights. Their long history makes the distribution of property look normal, indeed natural and something that cannot or should not be challenged. However, historically in the U.S there have been competing visions of property. From the Progressive era onward especially, the history of property has been used to show the unequal distribution of property and to offer an alternative vision that expands the rights of non-owners of property. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the history of opposition to feudalism and protection of the rights of non-owners was used to protect the rights of non-owners. Thus, the history of property has been a tool of judges and legislators to support property rights and it has also been, less frequently, a tool of critique.
The Historical Method in Public Law
Authors: Loughlin Martin
Published: September 2018

This chapter highlights the importance of the historical method in public law by showing the way that public law was established as a distinct field of knowledge in European jurisprudence. Since developments in French legal thought in the sixteenth century provided the catalyst for generating this modern concept of public law, this is the focus of the chapter. This approach exposes the constituent elements of public law and shows how the historical method becomes a central element of the modern practice of public law. It suggests that the modern idea of public law was created as a local, contextual, source-based practice in opposition to the universal metaphysics of medieval scholasticism. It was established by setting in place a conception of law as a body of practical knowledge that is historical in orientation and geared to the concerns of civil government.
Adjudication of Indigenous-Settler Relations
Authors: Boast Richard P.
Published: September 2018

This chapter examines the connections between the field of legal history and the various ways in which claims against states by indigenous groups are adjudicated and resolved. It focuses on ‘indigenous’ and ‘settler’ relationships, and on redress mechanisms in Australia and New Zealand. In both cases, the establishment of such mechanisms arose out of political and legal conjunctures within each country, and owed little to developments in international law. The Waitangi Tribunal in New Zealand and the Native Title Tribunal in Australia have very different functions, utilize different kinds of expert evidence, and operate in very different political and constitutional settings. While both bodies require expert evidence typically provided by non-indigenous specialist researchers, the required expertise in each case is different: anthropology in the Australian case, and history in New Zealand.
Legal History as Political History
Authors: Kreitner Roy
Published: September 2018

This chapter takes the phrase ‘legal history as political history’ as gesturing at two existing, perhaps by now classic debates. One is the question of political history’s meaning, or its differentiation from social or cultural history. The other is the relationship between law and politics, especially regarding the Critical Legal Studies view of that relationship. The chapter begins by briefly considering these preliminary questions. It then advances a suggestion about what to look for when trying to understand legal history as political history. It suggests that there is a body of legal history being written and published today, not generally considered as a group or in any way related, that would be considered profitably as political history. The common feature for this work is that it shows change over time in the way law functions.
Textese: Language in the Online World
Authors: Kemp Nenagh
Published: September 2018

This chapter discusses the written language of digital communication. It considers the reasons for the use of the casual, abbreviated writing style “textese” and the ways that researchers have categorized individual “textisms”. It reviews the pros and cons of the various message collection methods and covers the factors that seem to influence the extent and type of textese that people use. A review of research on the relationship between textese use and literacy skills leads to the conclusion that there is a positive link in children, and no obvious link in adults. The chapter explains how work on the social meaning of textese suggests that message writers are generally careful to vary their writing style to suit their recipient, and that they judge others on their textese use. Finally, it shows the need to continue research on the written language of digital communication as it continues to develop.
Truth and Truthlikeness
Authors: Oddie Graham
Published: September 2018

Truth is widely held to be a cognitive value—perhaps because, other things being equal, it is better to believe a proposition if it is true than if it is false. But even if this is a genuine aspect of the value of truth, it is rather coarse-grained. Not all truths are equally valuable, from a cognitive point of view, and neither are all falsehoods equally disvaluable. The concept of truthlikeness, or of closeness to the truth, holds out the promise of a richer, more fine-grained classification of propositions, suitable not just for the up or down evaluation of isolated beliefs, but for the calibrated evaluation of cognitive progress in an inquiry. This chapter reviews approaches to truthlikeness, and some of the problems they face.
Truth and the Sciences
Authors: Chakravartty Anjan
Published: September 2018

Conceptions of truth in relation to the sciences vary extensively along two dimensions. The first concerns the applicability of the notion of truth to scientific knowledge, resulting in a number of contentions regarding the relevance or importance of truth in this context. The second dimension concerns the particular theory of truth one might think applicable, and here one finds a variety of preferences, including: truth as coherence, especially suited to historicist and sociological approaches to science; truth as utility, described by pragmatist approaches to science; and truth via correspondence or truth-making, especially in the context of various forms of “realism” in connection with scientific knowledge. This chapter travels along the first dimension in the direction of increasing commitment to the applicability of truth, and in each case explores the second dimension: how different views of scientific knowledge appeal, explicitly or implicitly, to different theories of truth.
The Moral Truth
Authors: Schroeder Mark
Published: September 2018

This chapter explores the relationship between truth and metaethical noncognitivism. It looks at an important puzzle about moral truth as it is faced by early noncognitivists and by metaethical expressivists, the early noncognitivists’ contemporary cousins. It looks at what it would take for expressivists to “earn the right” to talk about moral truths at all, and in particular at what it would take for them to earn the right to claim that moral truths behave in the ways that we should expect—including that meaningful moral sentences which lack presuppositions are true or false, and that classically valid arguments are truth-preserving, along the way developing the tools of an approach that is called here “commitment theory.” And finally, the chapter looks at whether the assumptions about truth which expressivists need in order to do these things have any independent plausibility or merit.
The Axiomatic Approach to Truth
Authors: Fujimoto Kentaro , Halbach Volker
Published: September 2018

This chapter sketches the motivations for treating truth as a primitive notion and developing axiomatic theories of truth. Then the main axiomatic systems of typed and type-free truth are surveyed.
A Systematic Comparison of Designs to Study Human Fecundity
Authors: Eijkemans Marinus J. C. , Leridon Henri , Keiding Niels , Slama Rémy
Published: September 2018

Background:

Several epidemiologic designs allow studying fecundability, the monthly probability of pregnancy occurrence in noncontracepting couples in the general population. These designs may, to varying extents, suffer from attenuation bias and other biases. We aimed to compare the main designs: incident and prevalent cohorts, pregnancy-based, and current duration approaches.

Methods:

A realistic simulation model produced individual reproductive lives of a fictitious population. We drew random population samples according to each study design, from which the cumulative probability of pregnancy was estimated. We compared the abilities of the designs to highlight the impact of an environmental factor influencing fecundability, relying on the Cox model with censoring after 12 or 6 months.

Results:

Regarding the estimation of the cumulative probability of pregnancy, the pregnancy-based approach was the most prone to bias. When we considered a hypothetical factor associated with a hazard ratio (HR) of pregnancy of 0.7, the estimated HR was in the 0.78–0.85 range, according to designs. This attenuation bias was largest for the prevalent cohort and smallest for the current duration approach, which had the largest variance. The bias could be limited in all designs by censoring durations at 6 months.

Conclusion:

Attenuation bias in HRs cannot be ignored in fecundability studies. Focusing on the effect of exposures during the first 6 months of unprotected intercourse through censoring removes part of this bias. For risk factors that can accurately be assessed retrospectively, retrospective fecundity designs, although biased, are not much more strongly so than logistically more intensive designs entailing follow-up.
A High Fidelity Cleft Lip Simulator
Authors: Podolsky Dale J. , Wong Riff Karen W. , Drake James M. , Forrest Christopher R. , Fisher David M.
Published: September 2018

Background:

Cleft lip surgery is technically difficult requiring precise planning and understanding of 3-dimensional structures to obtain an optimal outcome. A physical cleft lip simulator was developed that allows trainees to gain experience in cleft lip repair and primary rhinoplasty before operating on real patients.

Methods:

A cleft lip simulator that comprises multilayered soft tissues, bone, and realistic dissection planes was developed using 3D printing, adhesive and polymer techniques. Four experienced cleft surgeons performed a total of 7 simulated repairs on the simulator. Feedback on the realism and value of the simulator was obtained from the surgeons.

Results:

Six of the repairs were a Fisher anatomic subunit approximation technique, and 1 was a rotation advancement repair. All repairs were completed with successful performance of markings, incisions, dissections, and multilayered closure. All surgeons agreed that the simulator is realistic and that the simulator is a valuable tool for training in cleft lip surgery.

Conclusions:

A cleft lip simulator that allows performance of a cleft lip repair and primary rhinoplasty from start to finish was developed and pilot tested. The simulator provides a training platform to gain experience in cleft lip repair before operating on real patients.
Quadruped and Dermal Bridge Flap for Nipple Reconstruction
Authors: Fujisawa Daisuke , Asato Hirotaka , Suzuki Yasutoshi , Hasegawa Koki
Published: September 2018

Background:

This report describes the authors' novel preferred method of nipple reconstruction over 10 years.

Methods:

The procedure was used in 39 patients (unilateral 38, bilateral 1). The circle is designed as the new nipple cap. Then, 4 fan-shapes (one-quarter of the circle) are drawn so that the base portion is in contact with the circumference. These fanshapes are deepithelialized, and their linear portions are cut with full thickness of skin and elevated as dermal flaps. Then, the cross-type flap is elevated with sufficient subcutaneous fat. The two pairs of dermal flaps are sutured to each other on a diagonal line. Double-layer dermal bridge flaps sustain the base of the pocket. As a result, the cross flap becomes a birdcage-like tower. The rolled auricular cartilage is placed into the pocket.

Results:

In one early case, the cartilage was exposed. Early postoperatively, the other three cases underwent reoperation during other procedures because the reconstructed nipple was too large or too small. The projection of the flap was designed to be 7–15 mm (average, 9.3 mm). The average follow-up period was 25.7 ± 22.0 months. The reconstructed nipple projection was maintained at 4.4 ± 2.4 mm (maintenance rate, 48.4% ± 27.0%).

Conclusions:

All scars were contained within the periareolar region and thus could be completely camouflaged by tattooing. The perfusion of the skin flap is stable because of sufficient circulation from quadruped pedicle. The cartilage supported by the double-layered dermal bridge flaps contributes to nipple projection. We recommend it for patients seeking nipple reconstruction.
The Expanding Role of Diagnostic Ultrasound in Plastic Surgery
Authors: Swanson Eric
Published: September 2018

Background:

Ultrasound in plastic surgery is quickly finding new applications. Ultrasound surveillance may replace ineffective individual risk stratification and chemoprophylaxis for deep venous thromboses. Abdominal penetration can be a catastrophic complication of liposuction. Preoperative screening for fascial defects may reduce risk. Limiting buttock fat injections to the subcutaneous plane is critical for patient safety, but it is difficult to know one’s injection plane.

Methods:

The author’s use of diagnostic ultrasound was evaluated from May 2017 to May 2018. Ultrasound scans were used routinely to detect deep venous thromboses. Patients undergoing abdominal liposuction and/or abdominoplasty were scanned for possible hernias. Other common applications included the evaluation of breast implants, breast masses, and seroma management. The device was used in surgery in 3 patients to assess the plane of buttock fat injection.

Results:

One thousand ultrasound scans were performed during the 1-year study period. A distal deep venous thrombosis was detected in 2 patients. In both cases, the thrombosis resolved within 1 month, confirmed by follow-up ultrasound scans. A lateral (tangential) fat injection method was shown to safely deposit fat above the gluteus maximus fascia.

Conclusions:

Ultrasound scans are highly accurate, noninvasive, and well-tolerated by patients. Some of these applications are likely to improve patient safety. Early detection of deep venous thromboses is possible. Unnecessary anticoagulation may be avoided. Subclinical abdominal defects may be detected. Ultrasound may be used in the office to evaluate breast implants, masses, and seromas. In surgery, this device confirms the level of buttock fat injection.
Improving Patient and Caregiver New Medication Education Using an Innovative Teach-back Toolkit
Authors: Prochnow Jenny A. , Meiers Sonja J. , Scheckel Martha M.
Published: September 2018

Background:

Patients and caregivers are often not adequately informed about new medications. Nurses can lead innovations that improve new medication education.

Local Problem:

Healthcare Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores on medication questions trailed state and national levels in one Midwestern hospital.

Methods:

This quality improvement project, guided by the Ottawa Model of Research Use and the Always Use Teach-back! innovative toolkit, used a 1-group pre- and posteducation design with RNs, patients, and caregivers.

Intervention:

RNs (n = 25) were observed in patient/caregiver education and surveyed in confidence/con-viction in the teach-back method before and after education. Patients' (n = 74) and caregivers' (n = 33) knowledge was assessed.

Results:

RNs reported significant increases in conviction in the importance of (P < .0001), confidence in using (P < .0001), and frequency in using (P < .0001) teach-back. With teach-back, both patients and caregivers recalled the purpose and side effects of new medications. Specific HCAHPS scores increased from 6% to 10%.

Conclusion:

The teach-back method strengthened safe nursing practice and enhanced quality in new medication education.
Video Monitoring for Fall Prevention and Patient Safety
Authors: Sand-Jecklin Kari , Johnson Jennifer , Tringhese Amanda , Daniels Christine , White Freda
Published: September 2018

Background:

Although video monitoring has been shown to reduce falls among at-risk hospitalized patients, there are no identified best practices for the monitoring process.

Purpose:

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the monitoring process at a large teaching hospital, with the goal of making improvements and standardizing monitoring practices.

Methods:

Patients and nursing staff perceptions about the video monitoring process were elicited via survey, and perceptions of monitor technicians were obtained through structured interview.

Results:

Video monitoring was perceived by all groups as effective in promoting patient safety. Nursing staff and monitor technicians also indicated that monitoring protects patient safety in other high-risk situations. Suggestions for improvement and standardization in the monitoring process were made by study participants.

Conclusions:

Suggested changes and standardization of the monitoring process have been implemented in the study facility. Insights are provided for other facilities considering video monitoring for patient safety.
Quality Improvement Project to Manage Workplace Violence in Hospitals
Authors: Schwartz Franklin , Bjorklund Pamela
Published: September 2018

Background:

The study of workplace violence has focused on quantifying the problem and profiling perpetrators and victims. Intervention studies are scarce. The diverse nature of violence risk in hospitals highlights the need for broad training in risk recognition and de-escalation.

Local Problem:

A violence management program was piloted on a general medical unit following staff requests for measures to protect them from patient and visitor violence.

Methods:

An independent pre/posttest design measured changes in participant knowledge. The Staff Observation Assessment Scale Revised (SOAS-R) was used for data collection on aggression pre- and postimplementation.

Interventions:

The violence management training program included in situ simulation training in de-escalation techniques.

Results:

Knowledge of de-escalation techniques to reduce violence risk increased. Important lessons were learned for ongoing program implementation.

Conclusions:

Violence management programs can lead to more effective risk management. Instruments to collect data on aggression should be linked to mandatory incident reporting, and existing behavioral response teams should be involved in incident tracking.
Quiet Time Improves the Patient Experience
Authors: Hedges Christine , Hunt Candice , Ball Pamela
Published: September 2018

Background:

A quiet environment promotes rest and healing but is often challenging to provide in a busy acute care setting. Improving quiet in the hospital for designated hours improves patient satisfaction. Such efforts have typically been the primary responsibility of the nursing staff.

Local Problem:

Two medical units with consistently low Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) “always quiet” scores were chosen for this study.

Methods:

A multidisciplinary team used Lean methods and the Model for Improvement to test interventions for quiet time (QT) and used HCAHPS “always quiet” scores as the primary outcome measure.

Interventions:

The team instituted nighttime and afternoon QT supported by rounding and scripting, dimming lights, lowering staff voices, offering a sleep menu at night, and replacing noisy wheels.

Results:

Quiet scores improved on both units after 11 months.

Conclusions:

Noise in hospitals is often beyond the scope of nurse-driven improvement; however, a QT protocol led by nurses, developed by multiple stakeholders, and focused on changing expectations for quiet can lead to measurable improvements in patient perception of quiet.
Nursing Students' Transfer of Learning During a Disaster Tabletop Exercise
Authors: Evans Cathleen A. , Baumberger-Henry Mary , Schwartz Rose , Veenema Tener
Published: September 2018

Background

Disasters require nurses to make decisions. A tabletop exercise, used in disaster education, is a classroom activity for solving problems.

Purpose

The study purposes were to (1) describe, as scores, the transfer of learning from basic medical-surgical coursework to student decisions made during a disaster scenario tabletop exercise and (2) identify students' attitudes about their use of their previous learning during this experience.

Method

Researcher-designed instruments and a tabletop exercise were used to measure prelicensure students' transfer of select basic medical-surgical learning to their decisions during the exercise.

Results

Mean (SD) student scores during the tabletop exercise were as follows—Tabletop Matrix: infection, 17.61 (6.03); bleeding, 14.93 (5.36); pain, 11.17 (5.08); electrolyte, 13.73 (6.19); disaster knowledge: 19.46 (3.08); and attitudes: 51.41 (5.43).

Conclusion

During this tabletop exercise, students demonstrated transfer of learning.
The Effect of Static Stretching of Peroneal and Tibialis Anterior Muscles on Reaction Time
Authors: Sekir Ufuk , Arslan Gufat , Ilhan Osman , Akova Bedrettin
Published: September 2018

Objective

The aim of this study was to investigate the acute and chronic effects of static stretching on peroneal and tibialis anterior reaction characteristics.

Design

All 23 participants who volunteered for this study were randomly divided into static (n = 12) and control (n = 11) groups. The subjects in the static stretching group performed stretching exercises for the ankle evertor and dorsiflexor muscles 5 days a week for 6 wks. Peroneal and tibialis anterior muscle reaction characteristics were evaluated at the beginning (2 times for acute effect) and end of this period. Electromyographic activity parameters of the muscles were measured using an ankle inversion tilting platform that simulated a sudden ankle inversion. The following were the four different ankle inversion conditions: (a) ankle-neutral, 15-degree inversion; (b) ankle-neutral, 30-degree inversion; (c) ankle–20-degree plantarflexion, 15-degree inversion; and (d) ankle–20-degree plantarflexion, 30-degree inversion.

Results

Either in terms of acute or chronic effects, no significant differences were found after static stretching exercises for peroneal and tibialis anterior muscle reaction time, reaction duration, and muscle activity evaluated in four positions on the ankle inversion simulation platform (P > 0.05).

Conclusions

In light of these results, it is possible to state that the short duration of static stretching exercises can still be applied before sports activities.
Availability of researcher-led eHealth tools for pain assessment and management: barriers, facilitators, costs, and design
Authors: Higgins Kristen S. , Tutelman Perri R. , Chambers Christine T. , Witteman Holly O. , Barwick Melanie , Corkum Penny , Grant Doris , Stinson Jennifer N. , Lalloo Chitra , Robins Sue , Orji Rita , Jordan Isabel
Published: September 2018

Introduction: Numerous eHealth tools for pain assessment and management have been developed and evaluated with promising results regarding psychometric properties, efficacy, and effectiveness. Although considerable resources are spent on developing and evaluating these tools with the aim of increasing access to care, current evidence suggests they are not made available to end users, reducing their impact and creating potential research waste. Methods: This study consisted of 2 components: (1) a systematic review of eHealth tools for pediatric pain assessment and/or management published in the past 10 years, and (2) an online survey, completed by the authors of identified tools, of tool availability, perceived barriers or facilitators to availability, grant funding used, and a validated measure of user-centeredness of the design process (UCD-11). Results: Ninety articles (0.86% of citations screened) describing 53 tools met inclusion criteria. Twenty-six survey responses were completed (49.06%), 13 of which (50.00%) described available tools. Commonly endorsed facilitators of tool availability included researchers' beliefs in tool benefits to the target population and research community; barriers included lack of infrastructure and time. The average cost of each unavailable tool was $314,425.31 USD ($3,144,253.06 USD total, n = 10). Authors of available tools were more likely to have followed user-centered design principles and reported higher total funding. Conclusion: Systemic changes to academic and funding structures could better support eHealth tool availability and may reduce potential for research waste. User-centered design and implementation science methods could improve the availability of eHealth tools and should be further explored in future studies.
Bovine blastocyst development depends on threonine catabolism
Authors: Najafzadeh V , Henderson H , Martinus R , Oback B
Published: September 2018

Increasing evidence suggests that pluripotency is a metabolically specialised state. In mouse, inner cell mass (ICM) cells and ICM-derived pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) critically depend on catabolising the amino acid threonine, while human PSCs require leucine, lysine, methionine or tryptophan. However, little is known about the specific amino acid requirements of putative pluripotent cells in bovine. We selectively depleted candidate essential amino acids (EAAs) from individually cultured bovine embryos to study their role in blastocyst development. Depleting one (-T, -M), two (-MT, -CM, -CT, -IL, -IK, -KL) or three (-CMT, -IKL) EAAs from chemically defined protein-free culture medium did not affect the morula-to-blastocyst transition from day five (D5) to D8 in vitro. By contrast, removing six (-CIKLMT, -FHRYVW), nine (+CMT, +IKL), eleven EAAs (+T, +M) or all twelve EAAs increasingly impaired blastocyst development. As no clear candidate emerged from this targeted screen, we focussed on threonine dehydrogenase (TDH), which catalyses threonine catabolism. TDH mRNA and protein was present at similar levels in trophectoderm (TE) and ICM but absent from several adult somatic tissues. We then treated morulae with an inhibitor (Qc1) that blocks TDH from catabolising threonine. Continuous exposure to Qc1 reduced total and high-quality blastocyst development from 37% to 26% and 18% to 8%, respectively (P<0.005). This was accompanied by ∼2-fold decrease in ICM, TE and total cell numbers (P<0.005), which was due to increased autophagy (P<0.05). At the same time, ICM-(NANOG) and TE-restricted (KRT8) genes were up-and down-regulated, respectively (P<0.05). In summary, bovine blastocyst viability depended on TDH-mediated threonine catabolism. However, ICM and TE cells did not metabolically differ in this regard, highlighting species-specific connections between metabolism and pluripotency regulation in mouse vs cattle.
Genome-wide association studies on endometriosis and endometriosis-related infertility
Authors: Galarneau Geneviève , Fontanillas Pierre ,   the Celmatix Research Team,   the 23andMe Research Team, Clementi Caterina , Hu-Seliger Tina , Parfitt David-Emlyn , Tung Joyce Y. , Beim Piraye Yurttas
Published: September 2018

Endometriosis affects ∼10% of women of reproductive age. It is characterized by the growth of endometrial-like tissue outside the uterus and is frequently associated with severe pain and infertility. We performed the largest endometriosis genome-wide association study (GWAS) to date, with 37,183 cases and 251,258 controls. All women were of European ancestry. We also performed the first GWAS of endometriosis-related infertility, including 2,969 cases and 3,770 controls. Our endometriosis GWAS study replicated, at genome-wide significance, seven loci identified in previous endometriosis GWASs (CELA3A-CDC42, SYNE1, KDR, FSHB-ARL14EP, GREB1, ID4, andCEP112) and identified seven new candidate loci with genome-wide significance (NGF, ATP1B1-F5, CD109, HEY2, OSR2-VPS13B, WT1, andTEX11-SLC7A3). No loci demonstrated genome-wide significance for endometriosis-related infertility, however, the three most strongly associated loci (MCTP1, EPS8L3-CSF1, andLPIN1) were in or near genes associated with female fertility or embryonic lethality in model organisms. These results reveal new candidate genes with potential involvement in the pathophysiology of endometriosis and endometriosis-related infertility.
Chromatic bacteria – A broad host-range plasmid and chromosomal insertion toolbox for fluorescent protein expression in bacteria
Authors: Schlechter Rudolf O. , Jun Hyunwoo , Bernach Michał , Oso Simisola , Boyd Erica , Muñoz-Lintz Dian A. , Dobson Renwick C. J. , Remus Daniela M. , Remus-Emsermann Mitja N. P.
Published: September 2018

Differential fluorescent labelling of bacteria has become instrumental for many aspects of microbiological research, such as the study of biofilm formation, bacterial individuality, evolution, and bacterial behaviour in complex environments. We designed a variety of plasmids, each bearing one of eight unique, constitutively expressed fluorescent protein genes in conjunction with one of four different antibiotic resistance combinations. The fluorophores mTagBFP2, mTurquoise2, sGFP2, mClover3, sYFP2, mOrange2, mScarlet-I, and mCardinal, encoding for blue, cyan, green, green-yellow, yellow, orange, red, and far-red fluorescent proteins, respectively, were combined with selectable markers conferring tetracycline, gentamicin, kanamycin, and/or chloramphenicol resistance. These constructs were cloned into three different plasmid backbones: a broad host-range plasmid, a Tn5transposon delivery plasmid, and a Tn7transposon delivery plasmid. The utility of the plasmids and transposons was tested in bacteria from the phyla Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes. We were able to tag representatives from the phylum Proteobacteria at least via our Tn5transposon delivery system. The here constructed plasmids are available to the community and provide a valuable tool to investigate bacteria-bacteria, bacteria-host, and bacteria-environmental interactions.
The geometry of abstraction in hippocampus and pre-frontal cortex
Authors: Bernardi Silvia , Benna Marcus K. , Rigotti Mattia , Munuera Jérôme , Fusi Stefano , Salzman C. Daniel
Published: September 2018

The curse of dimensionality plagues models of reinforcement learning and decision-making. The process of abstraction solves this by constructing abstract variables describing features shared by different specific instances, reducing dimensionality and enabling generalization in novel situations. Here we characterized neural representations in monkeys performing a task where a hidden variable described the temporal statistics of stimulus-response-outcome mappings. Abstraction was defined operationally using the generalization performance of neural decoders across task conditions not used for training. This type of generalization requires a particular geometric format of neural representations. Neural ensembles in dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus, and in simulated neural networks, simultaneously represented multiple hidden and explicit variables in a format reflecting abstraction. Task events engaging cognitive operations modulated this format. These findings elucidate how the brain and artificial systems represent abstract variables, variables critical for generalization that in turn confers cognitive flexibility.