67,500 research outputs found
Using child confederates in social stress testing: impact on child cortisol reactivity
No full textBackground: Social evaluative threat (SET) is well recognised as key characteristic in activation of the stress response and has been repeatedly manipulated in the laboratory with adult populations. Yet lab stress testing in children has yielded comparatively inconsistent findings. The majority of work has utilised a live audience of adult confederates on the stress panel, whether testing adults or children. The use of adult testing panels when testing children may explain some of these inconsistent findings. The aim of this study was to design a more meaningful stress test for children using age matched peers as panel actors and a sham audience portrayed as live but using a pre-recorded video.Method: An experimental laboratory design was employed. Thirty-three participants aged 7-11 years underwent a ten minute social stress test, the Bath Experimental Stress Test for Children (BEST-C). This composed a public speaking task and maths challenge in front of a panel of their peers, pre-recorded and presented as a live feed. Salivary cortisol was assessed at four points, pre–post stress testing. Participants were interviewed about their experience of the test as a post manipulation check and responses thematically coded.Findings: Cortisol levels significantly increased in response to the BEST-C (p=.029). Significant main effects and interactions during the recovery period suggested that the BEST-C generated a typical stress response but the sample showed age and gender differences during the recovery period. Three distinct patterns of subjective response emerged from the post stress interviews: i) task stressful, quickly recovered; ii) task stressful, stress continued post task; iii) task not stressful. Cortisol responses over the task and recovery period mapped directly onto these three response patterns.Discussion: Child confederates of participant target age reliably induced a stress response in young children using the BEST-C. This is the first social stress test for children using both child confederates and a sham panel. It offers a meaningful acute stress paradigm with potential application to other child and adolescent age groups for investigating relationships between stress, coping and health outcomes
Modeling and Rescue of RP2 Retinitis Pigmentosa Using iPSC-Derived Retinal Organoids
No full textCheetham and colleagues show that 3D retinal organoids lacking the RP2 protein develop rod photoreceptor degeneration that can be prevented with AAV gene augmentation for RP2
Panel manipulation in social stress testing: The Bath Experimental Stress Test for Children (BEST-C).
No full textBACKGROUND: Whilst acute stress paradigms in adults make use of adult panel members, similar paradigms modified for child participants have not manipulated the panel. Most work has utilised an audience of adult confederates, regardless of the age of the population being tested. The aim of this study was to trial a social stress test for children that provided a meaningful environment using age-matched child peers as panel actors. METHODS: Thirty-three participants (7-11 years) underwent the Bath Experimental Stress Test for Children (BEST-C). Based on the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), it comprises a shortened six-minute public speaking task and four-minute maths challenge. It differs from previous stress tests by using age-matched children on the panel, pre-recorded and presented as a live feed, and includes an expanded manipulation check of subjective experience. Salivary cortisol was assessed at four time points, pre-post stress testing; life events, daily hassles and coping strategies were measured through questionnaires. A simple numerical coding scheme was applied to post-test interview data. RESULTS: The BEST-C generated a typical stress and adaptation response in salivary cortisol (p=.032). Age and gender differences were observed during recovery. Cortisol responses mapped directly onto three distinct subjective response patterns: (i) expected response and recovery; (ii) expected response, no recovery; (iii) no response. CONCLUSIONS: The BEST-C, utilising child confederates of participant target age is a meaningful social stress test for children. This is the first social stress test developed specifically for children that manipulates panel characteristics by using child confederates and a pre-recorded sham panel. Greater cortisol responses to the test were also found to match subjective verbal accounts of the experience. It offers a meaningful acute stress paradigm with potential applications to other child and adolescent age groups. Furthermore, it leads the way in the use of panel manipulation in social stress testing
Psychosocial factors that influence children with immune related health conditions
No full textThis chapter examines resilience in children from a health psychology perspective, with a focus on the biopsychosocial approach and the science of psychoneuroimmunology. A central notion is that of resilience being both psychosocial and physiological in nature and that developing psychosocial resilience has the capacity to build physiological resilience. Immune-related conditions are of particular relevance in this context and three types of health conditions are examined in relation to resilience: atopic conditions including asthma and eczema; infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS; and autoimmune conditions including diabetes, juvenile arthritis, and systemic lupus. In the first part of the chapter we discuss the definition and meaning of resilience and key theories in health psychology and psychoneuroimmunology which relate to resilience including that of stress and coping and the concept of allostasis and allostatic load. The second part of the chapter focuses on each of the three types of conditions, drawing from a range of studies, to examine psychosocial and biological characteristics of resilience and psychosocial interventions to develop resilience and facilitate resilient outcomes. Theory into practice is linked throughout the chapter and a summary model of resiliency characteristics and outcomes is presented
Mining e-mail content for author identification forensics
No full textWe describe an investigation into e-mail content mining for author identification, or authorship attribution, for the purpose of forensic investigation. We focus our discussion on the ability to discriminate between authors for the case of both aggregated e-mail topics as well as across different email topics. An extended set of e-mail document features including structural characteristics and linguistic patterns were derived and, together with a Support Vector Machine learning algorithm, were used for mining the e-mail content. Experiments using a number of e-mail documents generated by different authors on a set of topics gave promising results for both aggregated and multi-topic author categorisation
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
A density functional study of the high-pressure chemistry of MSiN2(M = Be,Mg, Ca)
No full textNormal pressure modifications and tentative high-pressure phases of the nitridosilicates MSiN2 with M = Be, Mg, or Ca have been thoroughly studied by density functional methods. At ambient pressure, BeSiN2 and MgSiN2 exhibit an ordered wurtzite variant derived from idealized filled β-cristobalite by a C1-type distortion. At ambient pressure, the structure of CaSiN2 can also be derived from idealized filled β-cristobalite by a different type of distortion (D1-type). Energy–volume calculations for all three compounds reveal transition into an NaCl superstructure under pressure, affording sixfold coordination for Si. At 76 GPa BeSiN2 forms an LiFeO2-type structure, corresponding to the stable ambient-pressure modification of LiFeO2, while MgSiN2 and CaSiN2 adopt an LiFeO2-type structure, corresponding to a metastable modification (24 and 60 GPa, respectively). For both BeSiN2 and CaSiN2 intermediate phases appear (for BeSiN2 a chalcopyrite-type structure and for CaSiN2 a CaGeN2-type structure). These two tetragonal intermediate structures are closely related, differing mainly in their c/a ratio. As a consequence, chalcopyrite-type structures exhibit tetrahedral coordination for both cations (M and Si), whereas in CaGeN2-type structures one cation is tetrahedrally (Si) and one bisdisphenoidally (M) coordinated. Both structure types, chalcopyrite and CaGeN2, can also be derived from idealized filled β-cristobalite through a B1-type distortion. The group–subgroup relation of the BeSiN2/MgSiN2, the CaSiN2, the chalcopyrite, the CaGeN2 and the idealized filled β-cristobalite structure is discussed and the displacive phase transformation pathways are illustrated. The zero-pressure bulk moduli were calculated for all phases and have been found to be comparable to compounds such as α- Si3N4, CaIrO3 and Al4C3. Furthermore, the thermodynamic stability of BeSiN2, MgSiN2 and CaSiN2 against phase agglomerates of the binary nitrides M3N2 and Si3N4 under pressure are examined
"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States" By M. Carey.
No full text"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States: containing bried sketches of the moral and political character of those states.
By M. Carey, member of the American philosophical, and of the American Antiquarian Society, and author of The Olive Branch, Cindiciae Hibernicae, essays on banking, on political economy, and on internal improvement.
To which are now added the English editor's comments on the subject; together with Important Advice to Emigrants, and Cautions Against Impositions Practiced in the Outports
- …
