An Insight into developmental changes in reasoning skills among Indian Preschoolers: A cross-sectional study using a story-based approach.

Considering the importance of exploring the development of reasoning skills during preschool period and the suitability of using a culturally linguistically relevant story-based approach for the same, the present research intended to profile the reasoning skills in typically developing Indian preschool children between 36 and 72 months using a story-based approach. The specific objectives were to determine the test-retest and inter-rater reliability of reasoning tasks within an existing story-based cognitive-communicative assessment tool and to use this tool to assess the reasoning skills of typically developing Indian preschool children. Reasoning tasks across explanation, prediction and inference domains were evaluated for its psychometric properties and administered to 63 typically developing Indian preschool children attending English medium schools in Mangalore.

Phonological Awareness and Word Decoding Skills in the Early Readers of Kannada.

Background: Phonological awareness has been recognized as a significant predictor of word-decoding skills in alphabetical languages. These languages differ in phonology, orthography, and how they are mapped for word decoding. However, the literature has debated its role in orthographically consistent languages.

Communication-related aspects of prospective memory: an exploratory factor analysis of prospective memory questionnaires.

Purpose: Prospective memory (PM) questionnaires are frequently used to evaluate perceptions of PM skills in daily life. This study aimed to systematically investigate communication-specific attributes using pre-existing PM self-rating questionnaires to inform clinicians and researchers about the role of PM in cognitive communicative evaluations.

Methods: PM-related items from three questionnaires (i.

Development and validation of a novel Context-Based Prospective Memory Task among neurotypical adults.

Purpose: To address the paucity and potential of context-based prospective memory (PM) assessment tasks suitable to Indian ethnicity, the study aimed to develop a novel context-based PM task and determine its psychometric properties among neurotypical adults.

Methods: Rendered images in 2-D were extracted from a 3-D shopping mall, where PM and ongoing tasks were embedded within them to provide participants with a semi-immersive experience. The design and scoring of the novel task were constructed in alignment with the Memory for Intentions Screening Test.

Effect of inter-aural temporal envelope differences on inter-aural time difference thresholds for amplitude modulated noise.

Purpose: The inter-aural time difference (ITD) and inter-aural level difference (ILD) are important acoustic cues for horizontal localization and spatial release from masking. These cues are encoded based on inter-aural comparisons of tonotopically matched binaural inputs. Therefore, binaural coherence or the interaural spectro-temporal similarity is a pre-requisite for encoding ITD and ILD.

Importance of mega-environments in evaluation and identification of climate resilient maize hybrids (Zea mays L.).

Multi-location experiments on maize were conducted from 2016 to 2019 at ten locations distributed across two agro-climatic zones (ACZ) i.e., ACZ-3 and ACZ-8 of Karnataka, India.

A Delphi survey-based development and validation of cognitive-communication assessment tool for Indian preschoolers.

Purpose: To address the need for a standardized assessment tool for assessing cognitive-communication abilities among Indian preschoolers, the current study aimed at describing a Delphi based development and validation process for developing one such tool. The objectives of the research were to conceptualize and construct the tool, validate its content, and assess its feasibility through pilot testing.

Methods: The study followed a Delphi approach to develop and validate the tool across four phases i.

Development and validation of educational multimedia to promote public health literacy about healthy cognitive aging.

Objectives: Health literacy (HL) about healthy cognitive aging is essential in preventing cognitive decline and promoting cognitive well-being. It is important that one such HL module should be scientifically designed, delivered in a technically sound manner to the audience, and specific to the context. The present study thus aimed at developing and validating educational multimedia about cognitive health.

Enhancement of nutritional quality in maize kernel through marker-assisted breeding for vte4, crtRB1, and opaque2 genes.

Traditional maize is poor in vitamin-E [α-tocopherol (α-T): 6-8 ppm], vitamin-A [provitamin-A (proA): 1-2ppm], lysine (0.150-0.2-50%), and tryptophan (0.

Normative data for certain vocal fold biomarkers among young normophonic adults using ultrasonography.

Purpose: The current study aimed to profile vocal fold morphology, vocal fold symmetry, gender and task-specific data for vocal fold length (VFL) and vocal fold displacement velocity (VFDV) in young normophonic adults in the age range of 18-30 years using ultrasonography (USG).

Methods: Participants underwent USG across quiet breathing, /a/ phonation and /i/ phonation tasks, and acoustic analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between USG and acoustic measures.

Results: The study found that males have longer vocal folds than females, and overall greater velocities were observed in /a/ phonation, followed by /i/ phonation, with the lowest velocity observed in the quiet breathing task.

Designed and validated novel allele-specific primer to differentiate Kernel Row Number (KRN) in tropical field corn.

Background: Kernel row number (KRN) is an important yield component trait with a direct impact on the productivity of maize. The variability in KRN is influenced by the inflorescence meristem size, which is determined by the CLAVATA-WUSCHEL pathway. A CLAVATA receptor-like protein, encoded by the FASCIATED EAR2 (fea2gene), enhances the growth of inflorescence meristem and is thus involved in the determination of KRN.

Effect of interaural electrode insertion depth difference and independent band selection on sentence recognition in noise and spatial release from masking in simulated bilateral cochlear implant listening.

Purpose: Inter-aural insertion depth difference (IEDD) in bilateral cochlear implant (BiCI) with continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) processing is known to reduce the recognition of speech in noise and spatial release from masking (SRM). However, the independent channel selection in the 'n-of-m' sound coding strategy might have a different effect on speech recognition and SRM when compared to the effects of IEDD in CIS-based findings. This study aimed to investigate the effect of bilateral 'n-of-m' processing strategy and interaural electrode insertion depth difference on speech recognition in noise and SRM under conditions that simulated bilateral cochlear implant listening.

Application of convex hull analysis for the evaluation of data heterogeneity between patient populations of different origin and implications of hospital bias in downstream machine-learning-based data processing: A comparison of 4 critical-care patient datasets.

Machine learning (ML) models are developed on a learning dataset covering only a small part of the data of interest. If model predictions are accurate for the learning dataset but fail for unseen data then generalization error is considered high. This problem manifests itself within all major sub-fields of ML but is especially relevant in medical applications.

A system for spatial hearing research.

The spatial hearing experiments can be simulated using high-fidelity headphones. But these simulated experiments do not account for individual variations and are difficult to investigate when the listener is wearing hearing devices. Hence, the free-field systems are ideal for spatial hearing experiments.

Genetic variability, combining ability and molecular diversity-based parental line selection for heterosis breeding in field corn (Zea mays L.).

Background: The demand of maize crop is increasing day by day, hence to reduce the production and demand gap, there is a need to extract the high yielding parental lines to improve per se yield of the hybrids, which could help to enhance the productivity in maize crops.

Methods And Results: The present investigation was carried out to select the best medium maturing inbred lines, among a set of 118 inbred lines. Based on the Duncan multiple range test, out of 118 lines, 16 inbred lines were selected on the basis of its high yield per se and flowering time.

Immediate effects of 'Ujjayi Pranayama' on aerodynamic, acoustic and self perception parameters of voice in teachers.

Background: Voice plays a major role in communication, and it reveals the speaker's physical and emotional health, personality, and identity. Professional voice users are dependent on their voice for their livelihood. A minimal change or deviation in their voice can interfere with their career.

Relationship between parental report of language skills and children's performance among 3-year-olds: Implications for screening language among preschoolers.

Aim: The study compared parental ratings of children's language abilities at 3-years of age with observations of children's language performance by Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs).

Method: Children (n=85) around 3-years of age were recruited from a child development clinic. Detailed speech and language assessments were completed during a one-hour semi-structured clinician-child interactive session.

Child, Parent, and Play - An Insight into These Dimensions Among Children with and without Receptive Expressive Language Disorder Using Video-Based Analysis.

Purpose: Language development in children aged 3-6 years is shaped by their pre-linguistic abilities, communication patterns and play behaviors along with parental communicative roles. Little is known about how these aspects are distributed among children with receptive expressive language disorder (CWRELD) in comparison to typically developing children (CWTDL). The present research explores these differences between the two groups using a video-based analysis with a belief that an understanding of these aspects may facilitate age-appropriate speech and language acquisition in children with language delay.

Effect of Sudarsankriya yoga practices on P300 amplitude and latency.

The cognitive ability which was perceived as a constant trait, is now understood to be upgraded by adaptive and extended training. Yoga practices are known to sharpen the intellect and enhance concentration. In the initial period of practicing yoga as an alternative/supporting tool to medical line of treatment, it is essential to investigate effect of yoga on cognitive ability using objective method, in order to establish evidences.

Development of sub-tropically adapted diverse provitamin-A rich maize inbreds through marker-assisted pedigree selection, their characterization and utilization in hybrid breeding.

Malnutrition has emerged as one of the major health problems worldwide. Traditional yellow maize has low provitamin-A (proA) content and its genetic base in proA biofortification breeding program of subtropics is extremely narrow. To diversify the proA rich germplasm, 10 elite low proA inbreds were crossed with a proA rich donor (HP702-22) having mutant crtRB1 gene.

Pictures over words: a cross-sectional study reporting short term memory abilities in children.

 An impressive amount of research has been conducted studying the modality effect on multimedia information in children from higher elementary school to college. In the present study, we aimed to examine the modality effect in the recall of multimedia information among children between the age range of 6 years to 9 years 11 months.   The study followed a cross-sectional design and comprised of 80 participants between the ages of 6 years to 9 years 11 months.