Divided attention during adaptation to visual-motor rotation in an endoscopic surgery simulator

We investigated how cognitive demand affects the acquisition of adaptive hand–eye coordination in a low-fidelity endoscopic simulator. Participants performed a peg transfer task. In the pre-exposure and post-exposure phases participants moved objects between pegs with forceps while directly viewing the pegboard. In the exposure phase participants completed that task while indirectly viewing the pegboard through a camera and monitor with a 90° clockwise visual rotation. A control group completed the experiment as described whereas an experimental group concurrently performed a short-term memory task (digit rehearsal) during the exposure phase. Performance was significantly disrupted during early exposure-phase performance for both groups. The cognitive task caused an additional initial performance decrement for the experimental group, but their performance quickly converged on control-group performance. Both groups performance improved over trials. Competition for attentional resources imposed by memory demands can impair simulator performance, but performers can quickly learn to compensate for the increased attentional demand.     

Responses of practicing psychologists to a web site developed to promote empirically supported treatments.

Increased adoption of empirically supported treatments (ESTs) has been hindered in part by inadequate and inconvenient access to EST information and training. To improve diffusion of ESTs, the authors developed a Web application to provide practitioners with concise information by disorder on ESTs. The resulting site, therapyadvisor.com, was evaluated by 239 practicing psychologists to assess the usefulness of the site and explore possible interactions of EST attitudes on ratings of usefulness and impact. Two thirds of participants indicated using ESTs in practice, and limited time and resources were cited as primary barriers to EST adoption. The Web application was rated positively by most participants and was reported to increase awareness of and commitment to try ESTs among approximately 60% of participants. The results of this project support the feasibility of a Web application to increase diffusion and promote further adoption of ESTs. Technological and e-learning advances are promising directions for encouraging the adoption of ESTs specifically and evidence-based practice generally, particularly among busy practitioners who have inadequate time and resources for more traditional forms of dissemination and training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resources for health: A primary-care-based diet and physical activity intervention targeting urban Latinos with multiple chronic conditions.

Objective: The Resources for Health trial evaluates a social-ecologically based lifestyle (physical activity and diet) intervention targeting low-income, largely Spanish-speaking patients with multiple chronic conditions. Design: A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 200 patients recruited from an urban community health center and assigned to intervention and usual care conditions. Intervention involved 2 face-to-face, self-management support and community linkage sessions with a health educator, 3 follow-up phone calls, and 3 tailored newsletters. Main Outcome Measures: Primary outcomes measured at 6-months were changes in dietary behavior and physical activity. Changes in multilevel support for healthy living were evaluated as a secondary outcome. Results: After adjustment for age, sex, language, and number of chronic conditions, significant intervention effects were observed for dietary behavior and multilevel support for healthy lifestyles but not for physical activity. Conclusion: The Resources for Health intervention provides an effective and practical model for improving health behavior among low-income, Spanish-speaking patients with multiple chronic conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culture & biometrics: regional differences in the perception of biometric authentication technologies

Previous research has identified user concerns about biometric authentication technology, but most of this research has been conducted in European contexts. There is a lack of research that has investigated attitudes towards biometric technology in other cultures. To address this issue, data from India, South Africa and the United Kingdom were collected and compared. Cross-cultural attitudinal differences were seen, with Indian respondents viewing biometrics most positively while respondents from the United Kingdom were the least likely to have a positive opinion about biometrics. Multiple barriers to the acceptance of biometric technology were identified with data security and health and safety fears having the greatest overall impact on respondents’ attitudes towards biometrics. The results of this investigation are discussed with reference to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and theories of technology acceptance. It is argued that contextual issues specific to each country provide a better explanation of the results than existing theories based on Hofstede’s model. We conclude that cultural differences have an impact on the way biometric systems will be used and argue that these factors should be taken into account during the design and implementation of biometric systems.     

Combining teacher-Led and technology-assisted instruction to improve phoneme blending to read words for elementary students with disabilities

Technology-assisted instruction has potential for helping students improve their reading skills. In the current studies, PowerPoint software was used to supplement teacher-led reading instruction for elementary-aged students with disabilities who struggled with phoneme blending to read words. The effectiveness of the intervention was assessed using two multiple probe design studies across sets of words based on an onset-rime (word family) strategy. In Study 1, teacher-led instruction was paired with technology-assisted instruction for all intervention sessions for three students in first and second grade. In Study 2, teacher-led instruction occurred between baseline and technology-assisted intervention sessions for three students in third and fourth grade. During the initial instruction sessions, participants recorded their own voices onto PowerPoint slides so that their technology-assisted instruction included self-modelling. Results of both studies indicated that technology-assisted instruction can be effective for helping students learn how to blend phonemes to read words; however, performance varied and there were limitations in each study that should be addressed in future research. Relevant implications for classroom instruction are emphasized.     

Anticipatory hyperexcitability and tolerance to the narcotizing effect of morphine in the rat.

Examined the role of Pavlovian conditioning in tolerance to the narcotizing effect of a high dose of morphine in 32 male albino Sprague-Dawley rats. Initially, 2 groups received 9 injections of morphine (40 mg/kg), and 2 groups received 9 injections of saline. One group administered each substance was injected in 1 of 2 distinctive environments: the animal colony or a distinctive room. Subsequently, Ss in all groups received 5 morphine injections in the distinctive room. Analyses of videotape records of postinjection behavior indicated that Ss tested in the presence of the usual predrug cues were more tolerant to the narcotizing effect of morphine than Ss tested with cues different from those previously associated with morphine. In addition, Ss tested with the usual predrug cues exhibited more anticipatory "hyperexcitable" behavior than Ss tested in the absence of the usual predrug cues. Results provide further evidence that compensatory pharmacological conditional responses partially mediate tolerance and suggest that these drug-anticipatory responses contribute to so-called "withdrawal symptoms." (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The CuI-ZnI2 system,Part I: Synthesis and ionic conductivity

Compositions from 90 m/o CuI-10 m/o ZnI₂ to 10 m/o CuI-90 m/o ZnI₂ have been synthesized and studied with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction at room temperature and electronic and ionic conductivity measurements (25 to ～350°C). The compositions with $\text{≧40}\text{m}\text{/}\text{o}$ CuI are solid solutions at room temperature, while disproportionation occurs in the 10 to 30 m/o CuI materials. The electrical conductivities of compositions with $\text{≧60}\text{m}\text{/}\text{o}$ CuI change from mixed to ionic at ～150°C, corresponding to DSC transitions in the same temperature region. These conductivities are higher than that of pure CuI. The highest conductivity, for 80 m/o CuI-20 m/o ZnI₂ (1.8×10^?3 (θ cm)^?1 at 250°C), is about eight times higher than that of CuI.     

Initial feasibility of a researcher configurable computerized self-monitoring system

This study sought to evaluate the feasibility of a researcher configurable self-monitoring program. An initial prototype of the program was developed as a Windows-based drag and drop flow chart interface for the researcher to construct the self-monitoring or diary protocol to be scheduled and displayed to the subject on a Pocket PC. The usability of the desktop researcher interface was evaluated in a small sample of medication trial researchers whose ratings of the prototype were generally positive and provided directions for improvement. The subject interface was then evaluated in an “analog” drug trial of 49 smokers using nicotine gum. These subjects were randomly assigned to either paper-based log or Pocket PC self-monitoring for 3 weeks. Pocket PC subjects were significantly more compliant than the log subjects on recording in the second (65% vs. 39%) and third (69% vs. 39%) weeks of the trial but did not differ from the log condition on total recording entries, likely due to the restrictions on retrospective recording in the Pocket PC program. This study provides support for the feasibility of a researcher configurable electronic diary system which should substantially reduce the programming barriers to electronic self-monitoring and increase the use of real-time monitoring in clinical and research venues.     

Parallelisation of the Lagrangian atmospheric dispersion model NAME

The NAME  Atmospheric Dispersion Model is a Lagrangian particle model used by the Met Office to predict the propagation and spread of pollutants in the atmosphere. The model is routinely used in emergency response applications, where it is important to obtain results as quickly as possible. This requirement for a short runtime and the increase in core number of commonly available CPUs, such as the Intel Xeon series, has motivated the parallelisation of NAME  in the OpenMP  shared memory framework. In this work we describe the implementation of this parallelisation strategy in NAME  and discuss the performance of the model for different setups. Due to the independence of the model particles, the parallelisation of the main compute intensive loops is relatively straightforward. The random number generator for modelling sub-grid scale turbulent motion needs to be adapted to ensure that different particles use independent sets of random numbers. We find that on Intel Xeon X5680 CPUs the model shows very good strong scaling up to 12 cores in a realistic emergency response application for predicting the dispersion of volcanic ash in the North Atlantic airspace. We implemented a mechanism for asynchronous reading of meteorological data from disk and demonstrate how this can reduce the runtime if disk access plays a significant role in a model run. To explore the performance on different chip architectures we also ported the part of the code which is used for calculating the gamma dose from a cloud of radioactive particles to a graphics processing unit (GPU) using CUDA-C. We were able to demonstrate a significant speedup of around one order of magnitude relative to the serial CPU version.