Respiratory chronic health conditions and racial disparities associated with e-cigarette use: a cross-sectional analysis using behavioral risk factor surveillance data.

Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), mainly caused by cigarette smoking, is one of the leading causes of death in the United States (US) and frequent asthma attacks are often exacerbated by cigarette use. Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are often used to quit cigarette smoking. Prevalence of COPD, asthma, cigarette use, and e-cigarette use differs between racial/ethnic groups.

Surging Liver Transplantation for Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis from 2000-2022: A National Database Study.

Objectives: Our aim was to provide an up-to-date, large-scale overview of the trends and clinicodemographics for NASH LTs performed in the United States compared with all other LT indications between 2000 and 2022. We also examined the demographic factors that will predict future demand for NASH LT.

Methods: Our analysis of NASH LT from the Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network database spanning 2000-2022 consisted primarily of descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing with corrections for multiple testing when necessary.

Associations of pedometer-measured ambulatory activity with incidence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases: Strong heart family study.

Objective: Coronary heart disease has several risk factors that require a multifactorial community intervention approach in prevention efforts. Prevalence of coronary heart disease and its risk factors have been disproportionately high among American Indians. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of ambulatory activity levels on the development of coronary heart disease in this population.

Empirical Comparison of Imputation Methods for Multivariate Missing Data in Public Health.

Sample estimates derived from data with missing values may be unreliable and may negatively impact the inferences that researchers make about the underlying population due to nonresponse bias. As a result, imputation is often preferred to listwise deletion in handling multivariate missing data. In this study, we compared three popular imputation methods: sequential multiple imputation, fractional hot-deck imputation, and generalized efficient regression-based imputation with latent processes for handling multivariate missingness under different missing patterns by conducting descriptive and regression analyses on the imputed data and seeing how the estimates differ from those generated from the full sample.

Metacognitive awareness of the pretesting effect improves with self-regulation support.

The pretesting or prequestion effect refers to the counterintuitive finding that taking tests on information that one has yet to learn, during which many erroneous responses typically occur, can benefit learning relative to nontesting methods (e.g., reading) if the correct answers are studied afterwards.

How do college students use digital flashcards during self-regulated learning?

Over the past two decades, digital flashcards - that is, computer programmes, smartphone apps, and online services that mimic, and potentially improve upon, the capabilities of traditional paper flashcards - have grown in variety and popularity. Many digital flashcard platforms allow learners to make or use flashcards from a variety of sources and customise the way in which flashcards are used. Yet relatively little is known about why and how students actually use digital flashcards during self-regulated learning, and whether such uses are supported by research from the science of learning.

Severe publication bias contributes to illusory sleep consolidation in the motor sequence learning literature.

We explored the possibility of publication bias in the sleep and explicit motor sequence learning literature by applying precision effect test (PET) and precision effect test with standard errors (PEESE) weighted regression analyses to the 88 effect sizes from a recent comprehensive literature review (Pan & Rickard, 2015). Basic PET analysis indicated pronounced publication bias; that is, the effect sizes were strongly predicted by their standard error. When variables that have previously been shown to both moderate the sleep gain effect and substantially reduce unaccounted for effect size heterogeneity were included in that analysis, evidence for publication bias remained strong.

Interleaved practice enhances memory and problem-solving ability in undergraduate physics.

We investigated whether continuously alternating between topics during practice, or interleaved practice, improves memory and the ability to solve problems in undergraduate physics. Over 8 weeks, students in two lecture sections of a university-level introductory physics course completed thrice-weekly homework assignments, each containing problems that were interleaved (i.e.

Prior episodic learning and the efficacy of retrieval practice.

In three experiments we investigated how the level of study-based, episodic knowledge influences the efficacy of subsequent retrieval practice (testing) as a learning event. Possibilities are that the efficacy of a test, relative to a restudy control, decreases, increases, or is independent of the degree of prior study-based learning. The degree of study-based learning was manipulated by varying the number of item repetitions in the initial study phase between one and eight.

Adjuvant Cannabinoid Receptor Type 2 Agonist Modulates the Polarization of Microglia Towards a Non-Inflammatory Phenotype in Experimental Pneumococcal Meningitis.

Background: Microglia initiates and sustains the inflammatory reaction that drives the pathogenesis of pneumococcal meningitis. The expression of the G-protein cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2) in the brain is low, but is upregulated in glial cells during infection. Its activation down-regulates pro-inflammatory processes, driving microglia towards an anti-inflammatory phenotype.

Where and how to learn: The interactive benefits of contextual variation, restudying, and retrieval practice for learning.

Students are often advised to do all of their studying in one good place, but restudying to-be-learned material in a new context can enhance subsequent recall. We examined whether there are similar benefits for testing. In Experiment 1 ( = 106), participants studied a 36-word list and 48 hr later-when back in the same or a new context-either restudied or recalled the list without feedback.

Learning from errors: students' and instructors' practices, attitudes, and beliefs.

In some educational contexts, such as during assessments, it is essential to avoid errors. In other contexts, however, generating an error can foster valuable learning opportunities. For instance, generating errors can improve memory for correct answers.

Test-enhanced learning for pairs and triplets: When and why does transfer occur?

In four experiments, we explored conditions under which learning due to retrieval practice (i.e., testing) transfers to the case in which the cue and response words are rearranged (e.

Online and Clicker Quizzing on Jargon Terms Enhances Definition-Focused but Not Conceptually Focused Biology Exam Performance.

Mastery of jargon terms is an important part of student learning in biology and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains. In two experiments, we investigated whether prelecture quizzes enhance memory for jargon terms, and whether that enhanced familiarity can facilitate learning of related concepts that are encountered during subsequent lectures and readings. Undergraduate students enrolled in neuroanatomy and physiology courses completed 10-minute low-stakes quizzes with feedback on jargon terms either online (experiment 1) or using in-class clickers (experiment 2).

A descriptive study of antithrombotic medication patterns in adult patients with recent venous thromboembolism.

Objectives: The objective of this study is to describe the most common self-reported antithrombotic therapy utilization patterns in a national cohort of patients with recent venous thromboembolism (VTE).

Methods: Extant data from a national online survey administered to 907 patients 18 years of age or older with VTE in the last two years were analyzed. Patients' self-reported antithrombotic usage patterns used during three phases of treatment for the most recent VTE episode were summarized using descriptive statistics.

Associations between anticoagulant treatment pathways and self-reported harms in patients recently diagnosed with venous thromboembolism.

Introduction: Understanding potential harms associated with common anticoagulation treatment patterns in patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) is important for multiple stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to report associations between different anticoagulation patterns and bleeding and emotional harms based on patients' self-reported care experiences.

Methods: Patients at least 18 years of age who had experienced a VTE event in the past two years and completed a national online survey between May and July 2016 were analyzed.

Conditions of highly specific learning through cued recall.

After studying a stimulus (e.g., a word triplet such as gift, rose, wine), taking a cued recall test on that stimulus (e.

Performance of PROMIS Global-10 compared with legacy instruments in patients with shoulder arthritis.

Background: The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Global-10 measures physical and mental health and provides an estimated EuroQol-5 Dimension (EQ-5D) score. The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between the PROMIS Global-10 and several gold-standard legacy measures to validate its overall performance and usefulness in patients with shoulder arthritis.

Methods: The study prospectively enrolled 161 patients with shoulder arthritis before treatment.

Transfer of test-enhanced learning: Meta-analytic review and synthesis.

Attempting recall of information from memory, as occurs when taking a practice test, is one of the most potent training techniques known to learning science. However, does testing yield learning that transfers to different contexts? In the present article, we report the findings of the first comprehensive meta-analytic review into that question. Our review encompassed 192 transfer effect sizes extracted from 122 experiments and 67 published and unpublished articles (N = 10,382) that together comprise more than 40 years of research.

A dual memory theory of the testing effect.

A new theoretical framework for the testing effect-the finding that retrieval practice is usually more effective for learning than are other strategies-is proposed, the empirically supported tenet of which is that separate memories form as a consequence of study and test events. A simplest case quantitative model is derived from that framework for the case of cued recall. With no free parameters, that model predicts both proportion correct in the test condition and the magnitude of the testing effect across 10 experiments conducted in our laboratory, experiments that varied with respect to material type, retention interval, and performance in the restudy condition.

Does retrieval practice enhance learning and transfer relative to restudy for term-definition facts?

In many pedagogical contexts, term-definition facts that link a concept term (e.g., "vision") with its corresponding definition (e.

Time for considering the possibility that sleep plays no unique role in motor memory consolidation: Reply to Adi-Japha and Karni (2016).

The hypothesis that sleep makes a unique contribution to motor memory consolidation has been debated in recent years. In the target article (Pan & Rickard, 2015), we reported results of a comprehensive meta-analysis of the explicit motor sequence learning literature in which evidence was evaluated for both enhanced performance after sleep and stabilization after sleep. After accounting for confounding variables, we found no compelling evidence for either empirical phenomenon, and hence no compelling evidence for sleep-specific consolidation.