Learning to Trust Yourself: Decision-Making Skills Among Parents of Children With Medical Complexity.

Context: Children with medical complexity have substantial medical needs and their caregivers must make many challenging decisions about their care. Caregivers often become more involved in decisions over time, but it is unclear what skills they develop that facilitate this engagement.

Objectives: To describe the skills that caregivers developed as they gained experience making medical decisions.

Characterizing group and individual engagement in intergroup encounters between small groups of ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) on St. Catherines Island, USA.

Primate species exhibit considerable variation in behavior and outcomes during intergroup encounters (IGEs). Social group characteristics, like group size, and individual traits, such as sex, rank, and reproductive status, within those groups can influence both IGE engagement and outcomes. To better understand the impact of group heterogeneity on IGEs, we must examine individual strategies to elucidate individual costs and benefits of engaging in these interactions.

Decision Support System Requirements Definition for Human Extravehicular Activity Based on Cognitive Work Analysis.

The design and adoption of decision support systems within complex work domains is a challenge for cognitive systems engineering (CSE) practitioners, particularly at the onset of project development. This article presents an example of applying CSE techniques to derive design requirements compatible with traditional systems engineering to guide decision support system development. Specifically, it demonstrates the requirements derivation process based on cognitive work analysis for a subset of human spaceflight operations known as .

Qualitative ergonomics/human factors research in health care: Current state and future directions.

The objective of this systematic review was to understand the current state of Ergonomics/Human Factors (E/HF) qualitative research in health care and to draw implications for future efforts. This systematic review identified 98 qualitative research papers published between January 2005 and August 2015 in the seven journals endorsed by the International Ergonomics Association with an impact factor over 1.0.

Measurement of the thickness and volume of adherent cells using transmission-through-dye microscopy.

Cell volume is one of the basic characteristics of a cell and is being extensively studied in relationship to a variety of processes, such as proliferation, apoptosis, fertility, or locomotion. At the same time, its measurement under a microscope has not been well developed. The method we propose uses negative transmission contrast rendered to cells by a strongly absorbing dye present in the extracellular medium.

Autonomic effects of expressive writing in individuals with elevated blood pressure.

We evaluated systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate variability and skin conductance at baseline, and 1 and 4 months in 38 participants with elevated blood pressure, randomly assigned to expressive writing or control groups. There was a significant interaction such that the very low frequency wave of heart rate variability increased over time only in controls, suggesting potentially protective buffering in expressive writing. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure also decreased significantly from baseline to 1 month in expressive writing.

The use of music on Barney & Friends: implications for music therapy practice and research.

This descriptive study examined the music content of 88 episodes from the PBS television show Barney & Friends, which aired from September 1992 to September 1998, in an attempt to quantify musical examples and presentations that may be considered introductory music experiences for preschoolers. Using many of the procedures identified by Wolfe and Stambaugh (1993) in their study on the music of Sesame Street, 25% of Barney & Friends' 88 episodes were analyzed by using the computer observation program SCRIBE in determining: (a) the temporal use of music; (b) performance medium; and (c) intention of music use. Furthermore, each structural prompt presentation (n = 749) from all 88 episodes was examined for: (a) tempo; (b) vocal range; (c) music style; (d) word clarity; (e) repetition; (f) vocal modeling; and (g) movement.