Perceptual averaging on relevant and irrelevant featural dimensions.

Here we report four experiments that explore the nature of perceptual averaging. We examine the evidence that participants recover and store a representation of the mean value of a set of perceptual features that are distributed across the optic array. The extant evidence shows that participants are particularly accurate in estimating the relevant mean value, but we ask whether this might be due to processes that reflect assessing featural similarity rather than computing an average.

The Challenges and Lessons Learned Building a New UK Infrastructure for Finding and Accessing Population-Wide COVID-19 Data for Research and Public Health Analysis: The CO-CONNECT Project.

The COVID-19-Curated and Open Analysis and Research Platform (CO-CONNECT) project worked with 22 organizations across the United Kingdom to build a federated platform, enabling researchers to instantaneously and dynamically query federated datasets to find relevant data for their study. Finding relevant data takes time and effort, reducing the efficiency of research. Although data controllers could understand the value of such a system, there were significant challenges and delays in setting up the platform in response to COVID-19.

Psychological value theory: predicting health-seeking behavior from symptom perception.

We recruit Psychological Value Theory (PVT) to understand how symptom value influences health-seeking decisions. Estimates of the Psychological Value of relief from a particular symptom were previously collected and used to predict the speed of participants' decision and the choice they make in three discrete choice experiments. Experiment 1 presented participants with a scenario and asked them to identify which of two symptoms they would seek healthcare services to treat.

Impact of a Modified Protocol for Blood Collection on Hemolysis Rates and Nurses' Perceptions About Improving Their Practice Environment.

Purpose: In 2019, approximately 5% of blood draws in the postanesthesia care unit (PACU) were hemolyzed compared to 1.1% across other hospital units. A preliminary review showed almost 60% of patients sampled blood employing arterial lines in the unit.

A SARS-CoV-2 minimum data standard to support national serology reporting.

Background: Healthcare laboratory systems produce and capture a vast array of information, yet do not always report all of this to the national infrastructure within the United Kingdom. The global COVID-19 pandemic brought about a much greater need for detailed healthcare data, one such instance being laboratory testing data. The reporting of qualitative laboratory test results (e.

The Associations Between Serum Insulin-like Growth Factor-I, Brain White Matter Volumes, and Cognition in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) regulates myelin, but little is known whether IGF-I associates with white matter functions in subjective and objective mild cognitive impairment (SCI/MCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Objective: To explore whether serum IGF-I is associated with magnetic resonance imaging - estimated brain white matter volumes or cognitive functions.

Methods: In a prospective study of SCI/MCI (n = 106) and AD (n = 59), we evaluated the volumes of the total white matter, corpus callosum (CC), and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) as well as Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Trail Making Test A and B (TMT-A/B), and Stroop tests I-III at baseline, and after 2 years.

Update of the Minimum Information About BIobank Data Sharing (MIABIS) Core Terminology to the 3 Version.

The Minimum Information About BIobank Data Sharing (MIABIS) is a biobank-specific terminology enabling the sharing of biobank-related data for different purposes across a wide range of database implementations. After 4 years in use and with the first version of the individual-level MIABIS component , and , it was necessary to revise the terminology, especially to include biobanks that work more in the data domain than with samples. Nine use-cases representing different types of biobanks, studies, and networks participated in the development work.

Sustainable and economical alternatives to fragment capture materials in explosive and ballistic trials.

Strawboard has been utilised as a fragmentation capture material since the 1960s, mainly employed to capture fragments from explosives and explosive devices from arena trials of munitions. As this material has historically been calibrated to a known standard, it has a proven record of allowing research establishments to ascertain the velocity of a fragment based on the depth of penetration of the strawboard. During the time of calibration, strawboard was used as a common building material which was both widely available and relatively affordable; however, due to the recent economic crisis and geopolitical supply issues, this is no longer the case.

Psychological value theory: A computational cognitive model of charitable giving.

Charitable giving involves a complex economic and social decision because the giver expends resources for goods or services they will never receive. Although psychologists have identified numerous factors that influence charitable giving, there currently exists no unifying computational model of charitable choice. Here, we submit one such model, based within the strictures of Psychological Value Theory (PVT).

State-dependent, visually guided behaviors in the nudibranch Berghia stephanieae.

Nudibranch mollusks have structurally simple eyes whose behavioral roles have not been established. We tested the effects of visual stimuli on the behavior of the nudibranch Berghia stephanieae under different food and hunger conditions. In an arena that was half-shaded, animals spent most of their time in the dark, where they also decreased their speed and made more changes in heading.

Spine Surgery Patients' Perceptions of Postoperative Pulmonary Complications.

Postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) are associated with poor patient outcomes, increased costs and prolonged hospitalizations. Incentive spirometry (IS) reduces PPC incidence, but patient IS adherence is often suboptimal. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore patients' beliefs about, and knowledge of PPCs and IS.

The block order effect in reconstruction of order tasks and metacognitive processing.

In serial reconstruction of order tasks, high-frequency words are better remembered than otherwise equivalent low-frequency words. Neath and Quinlan (2021) found that although the usual high-frequency advantage was observed when subjects received a block of low-frequency lists first followed by a block of high-frequency lists, there was no frequency effect when subjects received a block of high-frequency lists followed by a block of low-frequency lists. In order to assess whether the block order effect simply reflects the inherent changeability of frequency effects, we manipulated concreteness, a much more stable effect.

A Hybrid Architecture (CO-CONNECT) to Facilitate Rapid Discovery and Access to Data Across the United Kingdom in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Development Study.

Background: COVID-19 data have been generated across the United Kingdom as a by-product of clinical care and public health provision, as well as numerous bespoke and repurposed research endeavors. Analysis of these data has underpinned the United Kingdom's response to the pandemic, and informed public health policies and clinical guidelines. However, these data are held by different organizations, and this fragmented landscape has presented challenges for public health agencies and researchers as they struggle to find relevant data to access and interrogate the data they need to inform the pandemic response at pace.

In Vision It Is Groups, Rather Than Maps, That Determine How We Perceive the World.

This paper presents the results of a study that used a speeded counting task to adjudicate between two competing theories of how perceptual representations of visual objects are derived. Boolean map (BM) theory assumes that there are strict limits on conscious awareness, such that we only have serial access to features on the same dimension (e.g.

Dynamic early warning scores for predicting clinical deterioration in patients with respiratory disease.

Background: The National Early Warning Score-2 (NEWS-2) is used to detect patient deterioration in UK hospitals but fails to take account of the detailed granularity or temporal trends in clinical observations. We used data-driven methods to develop dynamic early warning scores (DEWS) to address these deficiencies, and tested their accuracy in patients with respiratory disease for predicting (1) death or intensive care unit admission, occurring within 24 h (D/ICU), and (2) clinically significant deterioration requiring urgent intervention, occurring within 4 h (CSD).

Methods: Clinical observations data were extracted from electronic records for 31,590 respiratory in-patient episodes from April 2015 to December 2020 at a large acute NHS Trust.

COVID-19-A Qualitative Orthopaedic Nurse Perspective.

In response to a March 2020, New York State mandate, our elective surgery center began a physical and operational transformation to provide inpatient care to COVID-19 patients. Research study aims included (1) a description of the orthopaedic nurses' experience during the pandemic, and (2) tactics used to cope with related stress. Researchers used a descriptive, qualitative design to achieve study aims.

Low Serum Insulin-like Growth Factor-I Is Associated with Decline in Hippocampal Volume in Stable Mild Cognitive Impairment but not in Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Serum insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) has shown some association with hippocampal volume in healthy subjects, but this relation has not been investigated in stable mild cognitive impairment (sMCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Objective: At a single memory clinic, we investigated whether serum IGF-I was associated with baseline magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-estimated brain volumes and longitudinal alterations, defined as annualized changes, up to 6 years of follow-up.

Methods: A prospective study of patients with sMCI (n = 110) and AD (n = 60).

Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic about sample access for research in the UK.

Objective: Annotated clinical samples taken from patients are a foundation of translational medical research and give mechanistic insight into drug trials. Prior research by the Tissue Directory and Coordination Centre (TDCC) indicated that researchers, particularly those in industry, face many barriers in accessing patient samples. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic to the UK produced an immediate and extreme shockwave, which impacted on the ability to undertake all crucial translational research.

Higher thyroid function is associated with accelerated hippocampal volume loss in Alzheimer's disease.

Background: In epidemiological studies, higher thyroid hormone (TH) levels have been associated with lower brain volume and increased risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in elderly individuals. However, the relationships between serum THs and hippocampal atrophy rates have previously not been investigated.

Methods: A prospective study of patients with AD (n = 55), stable mild cognitive impairment (sMCI; n = 84) and healthy controls (n = 29) recruited at a single memory clinic.

Cluster analyses of the TCGA and a TMA dataset using the coexpression of HSP27 and CRYAB improves alignment with clinical-pathological parameters of breast cancer and suggests different epichaperome influences for each sHSP.

Our cluster analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas for co-expression of HSP27 and CRYAB in breast cancer patients identified three patient groups based on their expression level combination (high HSP27 + low CRYAB; low HSP27 + high CRYAB; similar HSP27 + CRYAB). Our analyses also suggest that there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between HSP27 and CRYAB and known clinicopathological markers in breast cancer. Screening an unbiased 248 breast cancer patient tissue microarray (TMA) for the protein expression of HSP27 and phosphorylated HSP27 (HSP27-82pS) with CRYAB also identified three patient groups based on HSP27 and CRYAB expression levels.

BBMRI-ERIC Negotiator: Implementing Efficient Access to Biobanks.

Various biological resources, such as biobanks and disease-specific registries, have become indispensable resources to better understand the epidemiology and biological mechanisms of disease and are fundamental for advancing medical research. Nevertheless, biobanks and similar resources still face significant challenges to become more findable and accessible by users on both national and global scales. One of the main challenges for users is to find relevant resources using cataloging and search services such as the BBMRI-ERIC Directory, operated by European Research Infrastructure on Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources (BBMRI-ERIC), as these often do not contain the information needed by the researchers to decide if the resource has relevant material/data; these resources are only weakly characterized.

The item/order account of word frequency effects: Evidence from serial order tests.

According to the item/order hypothesis, high-frequency words are processed more efficiently and therefore order information can be readily encoded. In contrast, low-frequency words are processed less efficiently and the focus on item-specific processing compromises order information. Most experiments testing this account use free recall, which has led to two problems: First, the role of order information is difficult to evaluate in free recall, and second, the data from free recall show all three possible patterns of results: memory for high-frequency words can be better than, the same as, or worse than that for low-frequency words.