Control Items Research Articles

Addiction-like behavior associated with social media usage in undergraduate students of a government medical college in Delhi, India.

Background:Excessive use of social media is increasingly being recognized as a source of technological addiction in young people globally.Objective:The aim of this study is to assess social media addiction in medical students using a self-designed questionnaire.Materials and Methods:We collected data from undergraduate medical students (MBBS) in Delhi, India using a self-administered 20-item social media addiction questionnaire (SMAQ) to measure addiction-like behavior, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to assess sleep quality.Results:We enrolled 264 (62.3%) male and 160 (37.7%) female participants of mean (standard deviation) age 19.83 (1.6) years. The Cronbach's alpha of the SMAQ was 0.879. A principal component analysis revealed a 4-component SMAQ structure based on eigenvalue cutoff (>1), loading score >0.3, and inspection of the Scree-plot that explained 54.7% of the total variance. We observed strong loadings of impaired control items on Component 1, decreased alternate pleasure items on Component 2, intense desire items on Component 3, and harmful use items on Component 4. The mean SMAQ score was significantly higher in the students reporting poor sleep quality and older students.Conclusion:The SMAQ has acceptable psychometric properties, with higher scores associated with sleep deprivation. A majority of students were unable to reduce their time spent on social media despite wanting to do so, signifying the presence of tolerance and impaired control.

Sculptorades, Cloodles, and Cameos, Oh My! A Cranium Game for General Psychology

Background: Many instructors use trivia-style review games to encourage self-testing, increase student engagement, and promote collaboration. However, most published examples of review games include trivia questions only, rather than activities that incorporate kinesthetic learning. Objective: We evaluate a review activity modeled after the game Cranium, which includes charades, pictionary, sculpting, and trivia questions. Method: In Pilot Study 1, general psychology students ( n = 25) completed a self-report evaluation of Cranium, and we compared performance on exam items practiced during Cranium versus control items. In Pilot Study 2, students ( n = 23) were assigned to review for a mock exam via Cranium, a trivia-only version of Cranium, or a practice question review. Results: Students rated Cranium as enjoyable and useful, though not more so than comparison activities, and Cranium elicited similar exam performance to comparison activities. Conclusion: Cranium is similar, not superior, to trivia-only and practice question review activities in terms of student perceptions and exam performance. Teaching Implications: Cranium provides an additional tool for instructors to engage students in team-based review activities in general psychology. Games that incorporate self-testing are likely useful for student engagement and learning, and the specific choice of activity may depend on instructor and student preference.

Does Enhanced Conversational Recast promote the learning of grammatical morphemes in Cantonese-speaking preschool children? Answers from a single-case experimental study

Enhanced Conversational Recast (ECR) is an input-based grammatical intervention approach developed from research on statistical learning. Recent research reported evidence demonstrating the efficacy of ECR on the learning of grammatically obligatory morphemes in English-speaking preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD). This single-case experimental design study, which adopted a within-participant design with single baseline and control item, investigated the efficacy of ECR in promoting the learning of aspect markers in four Cantonese-speaking typically-developing preschool children. Two children demonstrated positive outcomes with the progressive aspect marker ‘ gan2’ given 12 ECR training sessions within a mean dosage of 288. One of these children demonstrated statistically significant gains in the percentage of correct use in the probes. The lack of positive outcomes in the other two children on the earlier developing aspect marker ‘ zo2’ and limitations of the study were discussed. With early evidence established in the typically developing children in this study, future research on Cantonese speaking children with DLD can be considered.

Quality of life and its associated factors among older persons in Malaysia.

Quality of life (QoL) among the older persons provides valuable insights into the potential modifiable risk factors that affect well-being in later life. This study aimed to describe the QoL and psychosocial factors of QoL of older persons in Malaysia. We used the 19-item Control, Autonomy, Self-realization and Pleasure scale, a validated instrument that measures psychological well-being related to QoL in older persons. Scores range from 0 to 57, and higher scores indicate better QoL. We included several factors as covariates. Analysis of complex samples was carried out using Stata 15. Descriptive analysis was carried out to determine QoL by sociodemographic characteristics and other factors. Linear regression analysis was used to identify psychosocial factors that influence QoL. A total of 3444 individuals aged ≥60 years completed all 19-item Control, Autonomy, Self-realization and Pleasure items. The estimated mean QoL score was 47.01 (95% CI 46.30-47.72). Adjusted for confounders, QoL was lower among individuals with no formal education (-2.554, 95% CI -3.684, -1.424), probable depression (-1.042, 95% CI -1.212, -0.871) and food insecurity (-0.815, 95% CI -1.083, -0.548). QoL continued to improve with improved ADL score (0.302, 95% CI 0.052, 0.552), IADL score (0.646, 95% CI 0.382, 0.909) and better social support (0.308, 95% CI 0.187, 0.429). Lower education, depression, food insecurity, presence of limited functional status and poor social support negatively influenced QoL in older Malaysians. This study identified potentially modifiable factors that could be targeted for interventions to enhance QoL of older persons in Malaysia. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2020; 20: 92-97.

Impact of Survey Design Features on Score Reliability

The a priori impact of survey design and implementation tactics on score reliability is not well-understood. Using a two-by-two-by-two cluster randomized post-test only experimental design, the Cronbach’s coefficient alpha of internal consistency reliability of scores on three personality scales is calculated. The experimental conditions are presence versus absence of quality control items, anonymous versus confidential administration conditions, and randomly scrambled items versus grouped survey items. Alpha was calculated for each of the eight treatment groups. Hakstian and Whalen’s (1976) formulae were used to calculate the standard deviation of alpha. These summary data were then used in analysis of variance tests. The ANOVA results were mixed for the three personality scales. The use of quality control items had no impact on alpha on any scale, confidentiality improved alpha on one scale and decreased it on two others, and grouping items together improved alpha on two scales and decreased it on another. Although most of the exploratory interaction tests for each scale were statistically significant, none were in the direction implied by the confluence of main effect hypotheses. These mixed results suggest that a priori machinations by survey designers and administrators may often result in unwanted differences in score reliability.

Understanding differing outcomes from semantic and phonological interventions with children with word-finding difficulties: A group and case series study

Developmental Language Disorder occurs in up to 10% of children and many of these children have difficulty retrieving words in their receptive vocabulary. Such word-finding difficulties (WFD) can impact social development and educational outcomes. This research aims to develop the evidence-base for supporting children with WFD and inform the design and analysis of intervention studies.We included 20 children (age 6 to 8) with WFD each of whom participated in two interventions one targeting semantic attributes and the other phonological attributes of target words. The interventions, employing word-webs, were carefully constructed to facilitate direct comparison of outcome which was analysed at both group and case-series level.The study used a robust crossover design with pre-intervention baseline, between–intervention wash-out and post-intervention follow-up testing. We incorporated: matching of item sets on individual performance at baseline, independent randomisation of order of intervention and items to condition, blinding of assessor, evaluation of fidelity and control items. The interventions were clinically feasible, with weekly sessions over six weeks.Intervention improved children's word-finding abilities with statistically significant change only during treatment phases of the study and not over baseline, wash-out or follow-up phases. For the group the semantic intervention resulted in a gain of almost twice as many items as the phonological intervention, a significant difference.However, children differed in their response to intervention. Importantly, case-series analysis revealed outcomes predictable on the basis of children's theoretically driven language profiles. Taking account of individual profiles in determining choice of intervention would enable more children to benefit.The study provides new evidence to inform and refine clinical practice with this population. Future studies should be designed such that results can be analysed at both group and case series levels to extend theoretical understanding and optimise use of appropriate interventions.

A Study on the Importance and order of priority of the Major control item for DMSMS by using AHP analysis

A Study on the Importance and order of priority of the Major control item for DMSMS by using AHP analysis

Strongly perturbed sliding mode adaptive control of vehicle active suspension system considering actuator nonlinearity

Aiming at the problem of improving driving comfort under the condition of ensuring driving safety and limited suspension travel, this paper proposes a sliding mode adaptive controller suitable for strong disturbance action. Considering the nonlinear characteristics of the hydraulic actuator, a one-half vehicle suspension model with uncertain parameters and external disturbances is established. In the sliding mode design part of the controller, the sliding mode equivalent control items of the vertical and pitch subsystems are derived, and the optimised constant velocity approach law is adopted. The sliding mode switching control item is given to ensure that the controller can effectively adjust the vehicle body posture when the system is subjected to strong external disturbance. Finally, by selecting the adaptive law, the controller can adapt to the uncertainty of the vehicle body parameters. The simulation results for the specific example considered in this work show that the control strategy can greatly improve the ride comfort under the premise of ensuring the safety of the vehicle and the stability of the steering. Compared with the backstepping adaptive control, the control strategy of this paper shows superiority when the system is subjected to strong disturbance.

Practical beam steering of X-ray beams on Elekta accelerators: The effect of focal spot alignment on beam (symmetry and position) and radiation isocentre (size and position).

Acceptance and commissioning of a linear accelerator is the process of preparing it for clinical use. One of the initial important dosimetric tasks for X-ray beam set-up and use is to optimise the trajectory of the electron beam before it hits the target (focal spot). The main purpose of this study is to characterise the effect of the focal spot position (offset) on the photon beam symmetry and centre position, as well as on linac radiation isocentre size and position for an Elekta Synergy® linac. For this machine, the initial electron beam steering control items 2T and Bending F were altered to steer the beam in both transverse and radial directions respectively. The IC Profiler™ was utilised to measure the photon beam symmetry and centre position; the electronic portal imaging device (EPID) and the authors' published ready-to-go procedure were used to measure the focal spot offset; and the radiation isocentre size and position were measured using the EPID, the Elekta ball-bearing phantom and in-house software. It was observed that for the 6MV beam investigated, beam symmetry shows a high dependency on the focal spot position, with correlation coefficients of 8.6%/mm and 5.6%/mm in transverse and radial directions respectively. The radiation isocentre size shows dependency of 1.7mm/mm on focal spot position in the transverse direction only. The radiation isocentre longitudinal position shows dependency of -1.8mm/mm on the focal spot position in the radial direction only. The beam centre position is directly correlated with the focal spot position in both directions, but the correlation coefficient depends on the collimation used in a given direction i.e. MLC (-1.5mm/mm) or diaphragms (-0.8mm/mm). Based on the results, a fast beam steering method was proposed and used successfully on an Elekta Versa HD™ linac, utilizing the IC Profiler™ and its associated Gantry Mounting Fixture™ (GMF) to efficiently and effectively optimise beam steering parameters for clinical use. Independent validation of the method showed that focal spot offsets and beam symmetries in terms of absolute deviations were on average 0.08 ± 0.05mm (1SD) and 0.70 ± 0.27% (1SD) respectively.

Exploring Safety Aspects in Dental School Clinics Including Droplet Infection Prevention

BACKGROUND: Health-care safety focuses on improving patient’s and worker’s safety in a safe working clinics’ environment and prevent infection transmission including droplet infections as seasonal influenza and novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Dental health-care personnel (DHCP) are the target of safety measures and are themselves responsible for elimination of preventable harm. Dental schools are expected to demonstrate the model for quality safe care.
 AIM: This study aims to achieve high-quality safe dental care at dental clinics, Faculty of Dentistry, Cairo University.
 METHODS: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted at two Dental Outpatient Clinics, Cairo University. Disk review of policies, observation checklists for practices and awareness questionnaires of DHCP were used.
 RESULTS: DHCP showed good awareness for most of infection control (IC) and X-ray safety items. However, there are no policies or procedures to control droplet infections in the clinics. The clinics were closed in the current COVID-19 pandemic. There were poor patient safety practices, hand hygiene compliance, and personal protective equipment (PPE) use except for protecting clothes and disposable gloves. Students showed better compliance for patient safety guidelines. Other safety policies were poorly communicated.
 CONCLUSION: There should be preparedness plan to deal with any droplet infection outbreak, epidemic or pandemic as COVID-19 in all dental settings. There is a need to initiate dental safety unit in dental schools to implement, communicate, train, and supervise all dental safety practices including infection control.

Incomplete Descriptor Mining With Elastic Loss for Person Re-Identification

In this paper, we propose a novel person Re-ID model, Consecutive Batch DropBlock Network (CBDB-Net), to capture the attentive and robust person descriptor for the person Re-ID task. The CBDB-Net contains two novel designs: the Consecutive Batch DropBlock Module (CBDBM) and the Elastic Loss (EL). In the Consecutive Batch DropBlock Module (CBDBM), we firstly conduct uniform partition on the feature maps. And then, we independently and continuously drop each patch from top to bottom on the feature maps, which can output multiple incomplete feature maps. In the training stage, these multiple incomplete features can better encourage the Re-ID model to capture the robust person descriptor for the Re-ID task. In the Elastic Loss (EL), we design a novel weight control item to help the Re-ID model adaptively balance hard sample pairs and easy sample pairs in the whole training process. Through an extensive set of ablation studies, we verify that the Consecutive Batch DropBlock Module (CBDBM) and the Elastic Loss (EL) each contribute to the performance boosts of CBDB-Net. We demonstrate that our CBDB-Net can achieve the competitive performance on the three standard person Re-ID datasets (the Market-1501, the DukeMTMC-Re-ID, and the CUHK03 dataset), three occluded Person Re-ID datasets (the Occluded DukeMTMC, the Partial-REID, and the Partial iLIDS dataset), and a general image retrieval dataset (In-Shop Clothes Retrieval dataset).

The impact of using virtual patients in preclinical pharmacology teaching.

To reduce medication errors, medical educators must nurture the early development of rational and safe prescribing. Teaching pharmacology is challenging because it requires knowledge integration across disciplines, including physiology and pathology. Traditionally, pharmacology has been taught using lecture-based learning, which conveys consistent information but may promote passive learning. Virtual patients (VPs) have been used more recently to promote active learning, mainly in clinical years. Conversely, the use of VPs in preclinical disciplines, including pharmacology, is not well described. The objective was to investigate the potential benefits of combining traditional teaching with VPs in preclinical pharmacology teaching. All year 3 medical students (2 cohorts), enrolled in the Systematic Pharmacology I course (lectures: 3 h weekly; tutorial: 1 h weekly), were invited to participate in this naturalistic, prospective study. During tutorials, students were taught using case-based discussion and single-best-answer questions (control) in four tutorials and VPs (experimental) in the remaining six tutorials. The impact of VPs was assessed by 1) performance in written examinations, and 2) student satisfaction/perceptions, using a validated, modified questionnaire. Examination performance related to teaching in VP-based tutorials was significantly improved, compared with traditional tutorials. The level of difficulty of control and experimental assessment items was comparable, as determined by the Angoff method. Facilitation of learning was higher in VP tutorials, while a no-harm effect was noted on knowledge acquisition/maintenance, authenticity of learning, and disadvantages of learning. VPs may be effectively integrated in preclinical pharmacology teaching, with benefits on pharmacological knowledge and facilitation of learning.

Cultural conceptions of Women's labor pain and labor pain management: A mixed-method analysis.

We assess American cultural beliefs about labor pain and labor pain management, including stereotypical and disparate beliefs about labor pain of women from different racial groups. Understanding cultural beliefs about labor pain is critical as these beliefs influence experience, interpretation, and treatment of labor pain. We used an online survey with quantitative and qualitative questions about American labor pain beliefs. Participants were recruited and compensated using TurkPrime's Panels during the first week in August 2017 and the last week in May 2018. The completion rate was 76.86 percent (n=214). After screening using quality control items, the final sample included 200 respondents. Qualitative results indicate that 56.5 percent (n=113) of respondents have an accurate understanding of nociceptive/sensory drivers of labor pain, and 55.8 percent (n=63) of those respondents focused on the second stage of labor. However, only two respondents (1%) mentioned non-sensory (i.e., psychological) causes of labor pain - reflecting a lack of cultural knowledge of the biopsychosocial nature of pain. Categorical responses indicate almost all respondents (95%; n=190) believe women have a right to labor pain relief, and the majority believe labor pain has value (68%; n=136) and should be treated medically (87%; n=174). Quantitative results document stereotypical beliefs that women of color experience less labor pain than white women. Belief that there is value in experiencing labor pain and that pain should not be treated medically were both associated with greater racial disparities in beliefs about labor pain severity. Beliefs were not related to respondent sociodemographic identity, suggesting they are American cultural constructs. Future consideration of the influence of dominant American cultural beliefs about labor pain - including misunderstanding of the nature of labor pain and racial bias in expectations of labor pain - on individuals, norms, and structures is expected to improve quality of patient care.

Insight-related beliefs and controllability appraisals contribute little to hallucinated voices: a transdiagnostic network analysis study

Hallucinated voices cause high levels of distress and disability. Current theories suggest that insight-related beliefs, about internal or external origin, perceived source location, and appraisals of controllability are important in mediating the impact of these experiences but previous findings have been mixed. We report two open code and open data network analytic studies of items in the Psychotic Symptoms Ratings Scale for auditory verbal hallucinations (PSYRATS-AH) in a large sample of patients with hallucinated voices to examine the network structure of items at (1) first assessment, and (2) differences over two consecutive assessments during a wait-list period. Networks were generated using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and extended Bayesian information criterion (EBIC) with node predictability. In Study 1 (N = 386), we report that insight-related items made a negligible contribution to hallucinated voices and the controllability appraisal made at most a modest contribution. Items relating to distress and negative content were the most central and most predicted by the wider network. In Study 2 (N = 204), we tested the longitudinal stability of the structure of hallucinated voices over a period of several months, finding a small change in total hallucination score and global strength but no clear evidence for an alteration in the structural relationship. The insight-related and controllability items remained as least influential over time. Insight-related beliefs and controllability appraisals may contribute less than previously thought to distressing hallucinated voices although we do not discount that other appraisals may remain important.

Fractal Dynamics and Control of the Fractional Potts Model on Diamond-Like Hierarchical Lattices

The fractional Potts model on diamond-like hierarchical lattices is introduced in this manuscript, which is a fractional rational system in the complex plane. Then, the fractal dynamics of this model is discussed from the fractal viewpoint. Julia set of the fractional Potts model is given, and control items of this fractional model are designed to control the Julia set. To associate two different Julia sets of the fractional model with different parameters and fractional orders, nonlinear coupling items are taken to make one Julia set change to another. The simulations are provided to illustrate the efficacy of these methods.

Food cue-elicited brain potentials change throughout menstrual cycle: Modulation by eating styles, negative affect, and premenstrual complaints

BackgroundWhile there is evidence for increased food intake and craving during the luteal phase, underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. The present study investigated electrophysiological responses to food pictures as a function of menstrual cycle phase. In addition, the moderating effects of progesterone, eating behaviors (restraint, emotional, orthorexic), negative affect, and premenstrual complaints were explored. MethodsUsing a within-subject design, 35 free-cycling women watched and rated pictures of food (high and low caloric) and control items during the follicular, the ovulatory, and the luteal phase (counterbalanced), while EEG was recorded to examine the late positive potentials (LPP). Salivary gonadal hormones and affect were examined at each occasion. Eating behaviors and premenstrual complaints were assessed once. ResultsFor parietal regions, average LPPs were comparable between cycle phases but slightly larger LPP amplitudes were elicited by high caloric food pictures as compared to the neutral category. Descriptively, both food categories elicited larger parietal LPPs than neutral pictures during the luteal phase. Analyses of LPPs for central-parietal regions showed no effect of picture category or cycle phase, except higher amplitudes in the right area during the luteal phase. During the luteal phase, progesterone and functional interference from premenstrual symptoms (but not age, BMI, picture ratings, affect, estradiol, or eating behaviors) significantly predicted larger parietal LPPs towards high caloric (but not low caloric) pictures. ConclusionOur findings suggest a heightened food cue reactivity during the luteal phase, which may relate to higher ovarian hormone secretion and more functional impact of premenstrual symptoms. This research contributes to a better understanding of menstrual health and the identification of preventive strategies for premenopausal women.

Practice of nosocomial infection management in burn department based on the American hospital evaluation standard of the Joint Commission International

Objective: To explore the role of continuous quality improvement measures based on the American hospital evaluation standard of the Joint Commission International (JCI) in prevention and control of nosocomial infection in Burn Department of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine (hereinafter referred to as the author' s department). Methods: From 2013 to 2018, based on 11 JCI standards related to infection prevention and control and the current situation of the author' s department, more than 50 doctors, nurses, and nursing assistants from the author' s department participated in continuous improvement of the three-level management system of nosocomial infection in the author' s department, focusing on implementing of management of patient with multidrug resistant bacteria infection, optimizing the infection control management of instrument and cloth, and implementing target management on 5 indicators such as hand hygiene implementation rate, and carrying out inspection, quality management, and improvement on 11 items of prevention and control of nosocomial infection. The implementation rate of hand hygiene from 2013 to 2018 and the accuracy rate of hand hygiene from 2016 to 2018 of medical staff in the author' s department, and incidences of catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) of central venous, catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), and ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) of burn intensive care unit in the author's department from 2013 to 2018 were monitored.The following 7 indicators were monitored from 2013 to 2018, including false negative rate of nosocomial infection, incidence of hyperglycemia during intensive insulin treatment for severely burned patients, the implementation rate of CRBSI preventive measures, the specification rate of surface fixation of indwelling catheter, the implementation rate of VAP preventive measures, the accuracy rate of bed temperature during the use of suspended bed, and the implementation rate of hand hygiene of standardized training medical staff in the author' s department before and after improvement. Data were statistically analyzed with chi-square test. Results: The implementation rate of hand hygiene of medical staff in the author' s department was 88.0%-89.5% from 2013 to 2018, the correct rate of hand hygiene of medical staff in the author' s department was 95.10%-97.35%, and both reached the target values. The incidences of CRBSI in 2015, VAP in 2017, and CAUTI in 2013, 2014, and 2017 of burn intensive care unit failed to reach the respective target value and reached the respective target value after quality improvement, and the above-mentioned 3 indicators reached the respective target value in other years. From 2013 to 2018, the false negative rate of nosocomial infection and the incidence of hyperglycemia during intensive insulin treatment of severely burned patients in the author' s department after improvement were significantly lower than those before improvement (χ(2)=24.50, 4.74, P<0.05 or P<0.01), the implementation rate of CRBSI preventive measures, the specification rate of surface fixation of indwelling catheter, the implementation rate of VAP preventive measures, and the accuracy rate of bed temperature during the use of suspended bed after improvement in the author' s department were significantly higher than those before improvement (χ(2)=13.78, 6.50, 20.37, 13.92, P<0.05 or P<0.01), and the implementation rate of hand hygiene of standardized training medical staff in the author' s department after improvement was similar to that before improvement (χ(2)=1.71, P>0.05). Conclusions: The introduction of JCI standard can improve the implementation rate and accuracy rate of hand hygiene of medical staff in burn department, reduce the incidences of CRBSI, CAUTI, and VAP, and improve the effect of prevention and control of nosocomial infection in burn department.

A Novel Indoor Air Quality Standards and Design Methods in Environmental Assessment

In recent years, indoor air pollution has become one of the research hotspots. In the environmental assessment project, the indoor air quality standards have been explicitly included in the control items of China’s green building environmental evaluation standards, and controlling the indoor environment has become important to achieve green buildings. Analysis of the main factors affecting indoor air quality and discussion of design methods based on typical pollutants for indoor air quality are important links for achieving green environmental assessment.

O3.2. ROBOT-INDUCED MILD HALLUCINATIONS AND PASSIVITY EXPERIENCES IN INDIVIDUALS WITH THE 22Q11.2 DELETION SYNDROME

BackgroundThe 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) represents one of the highest genetic risk factors for developing schizophrenia. About 30% of individuals develop symptoms like hallucinations, thought disorders, passivity symptoms or loss of agency. These symptoms could be driven by abnormal sensorimotor predictions associated with the misattribution of self-related events to external sources (Frith, 2005). We developed a robotic device altering sensorimotor processing in healthy subjects and inducing mild to moderate hallucinations (presence hallucinations - PH) and passivity experiences (Blanke et al., 2014). Using this new device and procedure, we tested the sensitivity of individuals with 22q11DS to sensorimotor conflicts provided by the robot and their proneness in experiencing robot-induced PH and related passivity experiences as compared to healthy controls.MethodsThirty-eight individuals with 22q11DS and 21 controls moved, with the hand, a robotic device placed in front of them. A second robot placed behind them reproduced their movements, thus delivering tactile feedback on their back either synchronously (0ms between the movement and the touch, sync) or asynchronously (delay of 500ms, async) (Blanke et al., 2014). Participants rated the strength of robot-induced PH, passivity experiences that they felt during robot manipulation, and control items. Occurrence and severity of clinical symptoms were assessed.ResultsSubjective ratings following robot manipulation were analysed, and age was used as covariate. In the asynch condition, participants reported significantly stronger loss of agency over their hand movements and there was a trend towards a significant interaction between group and conditions for loss of agency with control subjects experiencing more loss of agency in the asynchronous condition than 22q11DS participants. A trend for significance was also observed whereby all subjects reported stronger PH in the asynchronous condition than in the synchronous condition. No significant group effect was observed for the subjective ratings associated with the robot manipulation. For the 22q11DS group, severity scores for items of unusual thought content/delusional ideas of the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes positively and significantly correlated with ratings of robot-induced PH and loss of agency in the async condition. Passivity experiences during the async condition (i.e., the subjective impression that someone else was touching their back) significantly correlated with severity scores for perceptual abnormalities/hallucinations items.DiscussionExperimental induction of sensorimotor conflicts caused mild altered mental states in individuals with 22q11DS as reported for controls. Both 22q11DS and control groups showed more sensitivity to the asynchronous condition during which they perceived loss of agency and passivity over their own actions, suggesting that the robotic stimulations disrupted self-other demarcation. In 22q11DS individuals, induced-PH, passivity experiences and loss of agency felt during the robot manipulation was associated to unusual thought content and abnormal perception. Taken together, our results suggest that 22q11DS is an interesting model to study the development of prodromal signs of psychosis at a very early stage before the onset of schizophrenia.

Recent experiences with bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) semi-field tunnel testing following ICPPR Non-Apis 2016 and 2017 workshop recommendations to investigate the insecticide chlorantraniliprole.

The study investigated the potential impact of the insecticide chlorantraniliprole (Coragen® brand) on the bumble bee (Bombus terrestris L.) under semi-field conditions in Phacelia tanacetifolia in Germany based on ringtest protocols from the ICPPR Non-Apis workshops (2016 and 2017). The P. tanacetifolia crop was grown in soil treated with the predicted 20-year plateau concentration of chlorantraniliprole in the top 20 cm of soil (equivalent to a predicted 20-year plateau concentration of 0.088 mg a.s./kg). Additionally, two chlorantraniliprole applications at 60 g a.s./ha were made in the chlorantraniliprole treatments (T1 and T2). In T1 both applications took place before P. tanacetifolia flowering at BBCH 51-55 and BBCH 55-59. In T2 one application was conducted before P. tanacetifolia flowering at BBCH 55-59 and one application during P. tanacetifolia flowering and during daily bee flight at BBCH 61-62. The application in the control (C) and reference item treatment (R) (400 g dimethoate a.s./ha) was carried out during full P. tanacetifolia flowering and bumble bee flight. The bumble bee colonies were exposed to the treated flowering P. tanacetifolia crop for 20 days in the tunnels and afterwards the colonies were kept on a monitoring site. The results of this study indicate no significant differences between the chlorantraniliprole treatment groups T1 and T2 and the control regarding all parameters assessed (i.e. mortality in the colonies and in the tunnels, flight activity at the hive entrance, hive weight development, condition of the colonies and production of young queens and males). Overall, no effects of chlorantraniliprole on bumble bee B. terrestris colonies including queen/male production, adult and larval survival and forager flight activity were found.