This pilot study investigates the effect on parent-child attachment relationships of same-age versus mixed-age grouping in daycare centers in the Netherlands. For 45 children in the age range of 2 to 6 years, parent-child attachment relationships were assessed by means of the Attachment Q-Sort. It was found that attachment security did not differ significantly for children who had been in mixed-age or in same-age grouping, or who had experienced a change of daycare center.
Mixing along the salt-freshwater interface is critical for geochemical reactions, transport, and transformation of nutrients and contaminants in coastal ecosystems. However, the mechanisms and controls of mixing are not well understood. We develop an analytical model, based on the coupling between flow deformation and dispersion, which predicts the mixing dynamics along the interface for steady-state flow in coastal aquifers. The analytical predictions are compared with the results of detailed numerical simulations, which show that nonuniform flow fields, inherent to seawater intrusion in coastal aquifer, result in a non-monotonic evolution of mixing width and mixing rates along the interface. The analytical model accurately captures these dynamics over a range of freshwater flow rates and dispersivities. It predicts the evolution of the mixing width and mixing rates along the interface, offering a new framework for understanding and modeling mixing and reaction processes in coastal aquifers. ; This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 722028 (ENIGMA ITN). Maria Pool acknowledges the support of MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 through the Torres-Quevedo program (PTQ2018-010081). MD acknowledges the support of MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 through the project HydroPore (PID2019-106887GB-C31) and the Grant CEX2018-000794-S. ; Peer reviewed
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the commonest causes of sight loss in the elderly population and to date there is no intervention that slows or prevents early AMD disease progressing to blinding neovascularization or geographic atrophy. AMD is a complex disease and factors proposed to contribute to the development and progression of disease include aging, genetics, epigenetics, oxidative stress, pro-inflammatory state, and life-style factors such as smoking, alcohol, and high fat diet. Here, we generate a knowledge repository of pathways and protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks likely to be implicated in AMD pathogenesis, such as complement activation, lipid trafficking and metabolism, vitamin A cycle, oxidative stress, proteostasis, bioenergetics, autophagy/mitophagy, extracellular matrix (ECM) turnover, and choroidal vascular dropout. Two disctinct clusters ermerged from the networks for parainflamation and ECM homeostasis, which may represent two different disease modules underlying AMD pathology. Our analyses also suggest that the disease manifests primarily in RPE/choroid and less in neural retina. The use of standardized syntax when generating maps of these biological processes (SBGN standard) and networks (PSI standard) enables visualization of complex information in graphical programs such as CellDesigner and Cytoscape and enhances reusability and extension of data. The ability to focus onto subnetworks, multiple visualizations and simulation options will enable the AMD research community to computationally model subnetworks or to test experimentally new hypotheses arising from connectivities in the AMD pathway map. ; This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 634479 (EYE-RISK—to P.J.L., L.S., and C.K.). This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Plan Nacional BIO2012-39754 and the European Fund for Regional Development (to L.S.). L.S. acknowledges the support ...
Objective Use Fitts' law to compare accuracy and throughput of three flight deck interfaces for navigation. Background Industry is proposing touch-based solutions to modernize the flight management system. However, research evaluating touchscreen effectiveness for navigation tasks in terms of accuracy and throughput on the flight deck is lacking. Method An experiment was conducted with 14 participants in a flight simulator, aimed at creating Fitts' law accuracy and throughput models of three different flight deck interfaces used for navigation: the mode control panel, control display unit, and a touch-based navigation display. The former two constitute the conventional interface between the pilot and the flight management system, and the latter represents the industry-proposed solution for the future. Results Results indicate less accurate performance with the touchscreen navigation display compared to the other two interfaces and the throughput was lowest with the mode control panel. The control display unit was better in both accuracy and throughput, which is found to be largely attributed to the tactile and physical nature of the interface. Conclusion Although performance in terms of accuracy and throughput was better with the control display unit, a question remains whether, when used during a more realistic navigation task, performance is still better compared to a touch-based interface. Application This paper complements previous studies in the usage of aircraft touchscreens with new empirical insights into their accuracy and throughput, compared to conventional flight deck interfaces, using Fitts' law.
Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of two types of background television programs on students' performance on easy and difficult homework assignments. In both experiments, students in Grade 8 (Experiment 1: N = 90; Experiment 2: N = 144) were matched on reading proficiency. Subsequently, the participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions in which they did homework with (a) a Dutch-language soap opera, (b) English-language music videos, or (c) no television in the background. The execution of homework was hindered only when it was combined with watching a soap opera. The distraction effect of the soap opera was expressed either in a performance decrement (Experiment 1) or in an extension of performance time (Experiment 2).
Background: Internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT) is found effective in treating common mental disorders. However, the use of these interventions in routine care is limited. The international ImpleMentAll study is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme. It is concerned with studying and improving methods for implementing evidence-based iCBT services for common mental disorders in routine mental health care. A digitally accessible implementation toolkit (ItFits-toolkit) will be introduced to mental health care organizations with the aim to facilitate the ongoing implementation of iCBT services within local contexts. This study investigates the effectiveness of the ItFits-toolkit by comparing it to implementation-as-usual activities. Methods: A stepped wedge cluster randomized controlled trial (SWT) design will be applied. Over a trial period of 30 months, the ItFits-toolkit will be introduced sequentially in twelve routine mental health care organizations in primary and specialist care across nine countries in Europe and Australia. Repeated measures are applied to assess change over time in the outcome variables. The effectiveness of the ItFits-toolkit will be assessed in terms of the degree of normalization of the use of the iCBT services. Several exploratory outcomes including uptake of the iCBT services will be measured to feed the interpretation of the primary outcome. Data will be collected via a centralized data collection system and analysed using generalized linear mixed modelling. A qualitative process evaluation of routine implementation activities and the use of the ItFits-toolkit will be conducted within this study. Discussion: The ImpleMentAll study is a large-scale international research project designed to study the effectiveness of tailored implementation. Using a SWT design that allows to examine change over time, this study will investigate the effect of tailored implementation on the normalization of the use of iCBT services and their uptake. It will provide a better understanding of the process and methods of tailoring implementation strategies. If found effective, the ItFits-toolkit will be made accessible for mental health care service providers, to help them overcome their context-specific implementation challenges. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03652883. Retrospectively registered on 29 August 2018
For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types.