Cognitive flexibility relies on hierarchically structured task representations that organize task contexts, relevant environmental features, and subordinate decisions. Despite ongoing interest in the human thalamus, its role in cognitive control has been understudied. This study explored thalamic representation and thalamocortical interactions that contribute to hierarchical cognitive control in humans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Implementation of recommended gestational weight gain (GWG) care by antenatal care providers is poor. It is unclear whether practice implementation and barriers differ between antenatal care provider profession or experience. This study aimed to assesses the provision of and barriers to guideline care for GWG and examine associations with professional discipline and years of experience.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParent education in family courts can significantly impact children's well-being after divorce if programs are (1) widely accessible, (2) acceptable to parents, (3) feasible to implement by courts, and (4) have evidence of effectiveness in improving key outcomes for children. In light of recently raised concerns about whether court-ordered/court-mandated parent education is justified; it is critical to identify effective parent education programs. Online parent education programs have the potential to be widely accessible, acceptable to parents and courts, and effectively promote children's well-being.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCognitive flexibility relies on hierarchically structured task representations that organize task contexts, relevant environmental features, and subordinate decisions. Despite ongoing interest in the human thalamus, its role in cognitive control has been understudied. This study explored thalamic representation and thalamocortical interactions that contribute to hierarchical cognitive control in humans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Globally, guideline-recommended antenatal care for smoking cessation is not routinely delivered by antenatal care providers. Implementation strategies have been shown to improve the delivery of clinical practices across a variety of clinical services but there is an absence of evidence in applying such strategies to support improvements to antenatal care for smoking cessation in pregnancy. This study aims to determine the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of implementation strategies in increasing the routine provision of recommended antenatal care for smoking cessation in public maternity services.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComputer simulations used to study food purchasing behavior can be separated into low immersion virtual environments (LIVE), which use personal computers and standard monitors to display a scene, and high immersion virtual environments (HIVE) which use virtual reality technology such as head-mounted displays to display a scene. These methods may differ in their ability to create feelings of presence or cybersickness that would influence the usefulness of these approaches. In this present study, thirty-one adults experienced a virtual supermarket or fast-food restaurant using a LIVE system or a HIVE system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeterodimeric integrin proteins transmit signals through conformational changes upon ligand binding between their alpha (α) and beta (β) subunits. Early in chordate evolution, some α subunits acquired an "inserted" (I) domain, which expanded their ligand binding capacity but simultaneously obstructed the ancestral ligand-binding pocket. While this would seemingly impede conventional ligand-mediated integrin activation, it was proposed that the I domain itself could serve both as a ligand replacement and an activation trigger.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Smoking, alcohol consumption and weight gain outside recommendations during pregnancy are preventable health risk factors associated with poorer health outcomes for mother and infant. Clustering of these risk factors further increases the risk and severity of outcomes. Limited research has explored the characteristics of pregnant women that are associated with clustering of these risks and women's preferences for receiving support.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPermafrost is important from an exobiology and climate change perspective. It serves as an analog for extraplanetary exploration, and it threatens to emit globally significant amounts of greenhouse gases as it thaws due to climate change. Viable microbes survive in Earth's permafrost, slowly metabolizing and transforming organic matter through geologic time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe presence and distribution of preserved organic matter on the surface of Mars can provide key information about the Martian carbon cycle and the potential of the planet to host life throughout its history. Several types of organic molecules have been previously detected in Martian meteorites and at Gale crater, Mars. Evaluating the diversity and detectability of organic matter elsewhere on Mars is important for understanding the extent and diversity of Martian surface processes and the potential availability of carbon sources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Antenatal clinical practice guidelines recommend routine assessment of weight and provision of advice on recommended weight gain during pregnancy and referral to additional services when appropriate. However, there are barriers to clinicians adopting such best-practice guidelines. Effective, cost-effective, and affordable implementation strategies are needed to ensure the intended benefits of guidelines are realised.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Exclusive breastfeeding to six months of age is a major global public health priority. Several characteristics are known to be associated with early cessation of breastfeeding, however, limited evidence exists regarding whether women's reported reasons for cessation are associated with maternal, pregnancy and infant characteristics. The aims of this study were to: i) describe women's reported intention to breastfeed and their subsequent breastfeeding practices; ii) describe women's reported reasons for breastfeeding cessation prior to the infant being five months of age; and iii) examine associations between these factors and maternal, pregnancy and infant characteristics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Clinical guideline recommendations for addressing modifiable risk factors are not routinely implemented into preconception and antenatal care. This review assessed the effectiveness of implementation strategies in improving health professional provision of preconception and antenatal care addressing tobacco smoking, weight management and alcohol consumption.
Methods: A systematic review of randomised and non-randomised studies with a parallel comparison group was conducted.
Psychol Psychother
March 2023
Objective: Research on 'moral injury'-the psychological wound experienced by military personnel and other 'functionaries' whose moral values are violated-has proliferated in recent years. Many psychological researchers, including those in the UK, have subscribed to an increasingly individualised operationalisation of moral injury, with medicalised criteria that closely mirrors PTSD. This trend carries assumptions that have not been comprehensively verified by empirical research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLaryngoscope Investig Otolaryngol
August 2022
Objectives: To understand the presence of transient autophony symptoms in patients being treated for severe anorexia nervosa (AN), and whether those symptoms were due to patulous eustachian tube (PET).
Methods: A prospective observational study was performed in patients requiring admission for treatment of severe AN. All enrolled patients completed The Eustachian Tube Dysfunction Questionnaire (ETDQ-7) and were screened for symptoms of autophony.
The NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is currently exploring Jezero crater, a Noachian-Hesperian locality that once hosted a delta-lake system with high habitability and biosignature preservation potential. Perseverance conducts detailed appraisals of rock targets using a synergistic payload capable of geological characterization from kilometer to micron scales. The highest-resolution textural and chemical information will be provided by correlated WATSON (imaging), SHERLOC (deep-UV Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy), and PIXL (X-ray lithochemistry) analyses, enabling the distributions of organic and mineral phases within rock targets to be comprehensively established.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Healthy Conversation Skills (HCS) training is an established method of upskilling health professionals in person-centred behaviour change communication. A Train-the-Trainer (TtT) model was adopted to scale-up delivery of HCS training. This study examined the impact of the TtT course on new Trainers' perceived barriers and enablers to delivering HCS training using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Compare computer-based virtual reality (CBVR) and voice-over PowerPoint (PP) grocery store tours (GST) on adult nutrition literacy (NL) and healthful food purchasing self-efficacy (HFPSE).
Design: Participants (n = 68) recruited from University worksite wellness program and randomly assigned to CBVR or PP (CBVR = 35; PP = 33).
Intervention: Four-week culinary/nutrition education program.
Purpose: Retinoscopy is a skill that requires the integration of procedural skill and declarative knowledge. Whilst the actual technique is simple, retinoscopy is a complex skill to acquire and is one that students often find challenging. This study compared the strategies that novices, third-year students and experts use when performing retinoscopy, with the aim of identifying the key stages of learning that may enlighten teaching practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring the meiotic divisions in oocytes, microtubules are sorted and organized by motor proteins to generate a bipolar spindle in the absence of centrosomes. In most organisms, kinesin-5 family members crosslink and slide microtubules to generate outward force that promotes acentrosomal spindle bipolarity. However, the mechanistic basis for how other kinesin families act on acentrosomal spindles has not been explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobally, there has been a renewed focus on addressing gestational weight gain (GWG). In Australia, the Department of Health pregnancy care guidelines recommend women be offered routine weighing and receive brief nutritional and physical activity support during antenatal care visits. Women gaining weight outside the Institute of Medicine (IOM)'s weight gain reference values are further recommended to be referred to a dietitian.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvidence is presented for intermediate, wholistic visual representations of objects and non-objects that are computed online and independent of visual attention. Short-term visual priming was examined between visually similar shapes, with targets either falling at the (valid) location cued by primes or at another (invalid) location. Object decision latencies were facilitated when the overall shapes of the stimuli were similar irrespective of whether the location of the prime was valid or invalid, with the effects being equally large for object and non-object targets.
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