When does metacognition evolve in the opt-out paradigm?

Metacognition (awareness of one's own knowledge) is taken for granted in humans, but its evolution in non-human animals is not well understood. While there is experimental evidence of seemingly metacognitive judgements across species, studies rarely focus on why metacognition may have evolved. To address this, I present an evolutionary model of the opt-out paradigm, a common experiment used to assess animal's metacognition.

Investigating the effects of social information on spite in an online game.

While humans are highly cooperative, they can also behave spitefully. Yet spite remains understudied. Spite can be normatively driven and while previous experiments have found some evidence that cooperation and punishment may spread via social learning, no experiments have considered the social transmission of spiteful behaviour.

Can uptake of childhood influenza immunisation through schools and GP practices be increased through behaviourally-informed invitation letters and reminders: two pragmatic randomized controlled trials.

Background: The UK is rolling out a national childhood influenza immunisation programme for children, delivered through primary care and schools. Behaviourally-informed letters and reminders have been successful at increasing uptake of other public health interventions. Therefore, we investigated the effects of a behaviourally-informed letter on uptake of the vaccine at GP practices, and of a letter and a reminder (SMS/ email) on uptake at schools.

Using text and charts to provide social norm feedback to general practices with high overall and high broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribing: a series of national randomised controlled trials.

Background: Sending a social norms feedback letter to general practitioners who are high prescribers of antibiotics has been shown to reduce antibiotic prescribing. The 2017-9 Quality Premium for primary care in England sets a target for broad-spectrum prescribing, which should be at or below 10% of total antibiotic prescribing. We tested a social norm feedback letter that targeted broad-spectrum prescribing and the addition of a chart to a text-only letter that targeted overall prescribing.

Increasing uptake of NHS Health Checks: a randomised controlled trial using GP computer prompts.

Background: Public Health England wants to increase the uptake of the NHS Health Check (NHSHC), a cardiovascular disease prevention programme. Most invitations are sent by letter, but opportunistic invitations may be issued and verbal invitations have a higher rate of uptake. Prompting staff to issue opportunistic invitations might increase uptake.

A randomized controlled trial to test the effect of simplified guidance with visuals on comprehension of COVID-19 guidelines and intention to stay home if symptomatic.

Background: In the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that people understand and comply with self-isolation guidelines. We tested whether a simplified version of the guidelines and a simplified version with visual aids would affect comprehension and intention to self-isolate during the containment phase of the pandemic in the UK, in March 2020, compared to the standard guidelines.

Methods: We conducted an online, three-armed parallel randomized controlled trial.

Effect of alcohol label designs with different pictorial representations of alcohol content and health warnings on knowledge and understanding of low-risk drinking guidelines: a randomized controlled trial.

Background And Aims: The UK low-risk drinking guidelines (LRDG) recommend not regularly drinking more than 14 units of alcohol per week. We tested the effect of different pictorial representations of alcohol content, some with a health warning, on knowledge of the LRDG and understanding of how many drinks it equates to.

Design: Parallel randomized controlled trial.

3D angle-independent Doppler and speckle tracking for the myocardium and blood flow.

A technology based on velocity ratio indices is described for application in the myocardium. Angle-independent Doppler indices, such as the pulsatility index, which employ velocity ratios, can be measured even if the ultrasound beam vector at the moving target and the motion vector are not in a known plane. The unknown plane situation is often encountered when an ultrasound beam interrogates sites in the myocardium.

Airborne radiometric survey of a Chernobyl-contaminated mountain area in Norway - using ground-level measurements for validation.

An airborne radiometric survey can be an efficient way to investigate contamination of large areas after nuclear accidents. In the current study, a helicopter borne gamma ray spectrometry survey was carried out in a vast mountainous area in Norway, where the contamination from the 1986 Chernobyl accident still affects animal husbandry more than 30 years after the fallout occurred. The Cs activity densities provided by the aerial survey was validated using various independent ground-based measurements - including soil samples and in situ measurements (at 1 m above ground).

A Randomized Controlled Trial on the Effect of a Double Check on the Detection of Medication Errors.

Study Objective: The use of a double check by 2 nurses has been advocated as a key error-prevention strategy. This study aims to determine how often a double check is used for high-alert medications and whether it increases error detection.

Methods: Emergency department and ICU nurses worked in pairs to care for a simulated patient.

The use of mapped geology as a predictor of radon potential in Norway.

Radon exposure is considered to cause several hundred fatalities from lung-cancer each year in Norway. A national map identifying areas which are likely to be exposed to elevated radon concentrations would be a useful tool for decision-making authorities, and would be particularly important in areas where only few indoor radon measurements exist. An earlier Norwegian study (Smethurst et al.

Examining the evidence to guide practice: challenging practice habits.

Nurses are the largest segment of the nation's health care workforce, which makes nurses vital to the translation of evidence-based practice as a practice norm. Critical care nurses are in a position to critically appraise and apply best evidence in daily practice to improve patients' outcomes. It is important for critical care nurses to continually evaluate their current practice to ensure that they are applying the current best evidence rather than practicing on the basis of tradition.

Reducing unplanned extubations in a pediatric intensive care unit: a systematic approach.

Objective. To prospectively determine the rate of unplanned extubations and contributing factors and determine whether a targeted intervention program would be successful in decreasing the rate of unplanned extubations. Design.

Hyperbilirubinemia.

Hyperbilirubinemia is the most common condition requiring evaluation and treatment in newborns. The clinical manifestation of hyperbilirubinemia-jaundice-occurs in 60% of normal newborns and nearly all preterm infants. Compared with conditions that require advanced pharmacologic and technologic treatment strategies, hyperbilirubinemia seems to be overshadowed and may lose the attention it deserves as a condition that has potentially devastating effects.

The social ecology of changing pain management: do I have to cry?

Objective: To improve acute pain management for children with systematic assessment and appropriate analgesia.

Design: An action research design was used; pre-post data were collected during a four-phase intervention. The intervention was a social ecological approach to changing pain assessment and prescription practices.

Classification of arterial plaque by spectral analysis in remodelled human atherosclerotic coronary arteries.

We aimed to characterise and to identify the predominant plaque type in vivo using unprocessed radiofrequency (RF) intravascular ultrasound (US) backscatter, in remodelled segments of human atherosclerotic coronary arteries. A total of 16 remodelled segments were identified using a 30-MHz intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) scanner in vivo. Of these, 9 segments were classified as positively remodelled (>1.