Normative Performance Research Articles

The identification of essential normative performances indicators for adolescent: an implication for talent identification programme

The identification of essential normative performances indicators for adolescent: an implication for talent identification programme

How are the Guards Watched Out? Institutional Limits of the Judicial Independence in Brazil and Spain

This paper collects data on normative design, composition, organization and performance of the Councils of Justice of Brazil and Spain, and identifies the main obstacles to the functioning of both in order to bring closer their institutional experience. The attention is focused on seeking whether the institutionalization of the Councils of Justice in the postauthoritarian constitutional experiences of these countries provides common parameters for understanding judicial practices. By following a systemic-constructivist approach that confronts judicial discourses and practices, the paper calls into question the dogma according to which judges’ autonomy widens the ambit of rights. The hypothesis is that the preservation of the corporate structure and the lack of connection between independence and accountability have contributed to the dysfunctions of such bodies to the detriment of the entire Judicial Power.

The Influence of Planning and Response Inhibition on Cognitive Functioning of Non-Psychotic Unipolar Depressed Suicide Attempters.

Depression is one of the main risk factors for suicide. However, little is known about the intricate relationships among depressive symptomatology in unipolar depression, suicide risk, and the characteristics of executive dysfunction in depressed patients. We compared 20 non-psychotic unipolar depressed suicide attempters to 20 matching depressed non-attempters and to 20 healthy controls to further investigate the possible differences in neuropsychological performance. Depressed subjects were controlled for current suicidal ideation, and their neuropsychological profile was assessed using a range of measures of executive functioning, attention, verbal memory, processing speed, and psychomotor speed. Depressed groups were outperformed by healthy controls. Depressed attempters presented more cognitive impairment than depressed non-attempters on a simple Go/No-go response inhibition task and performed better than non-attempters on the Tower of London planning task. Depressed attempters were clearly distinguished by a deficit in response inhibition (Go/No-go commission errors). The normative planning performance (Tower of London extra moves) of the suicide attempters was unexpected, and this unanticipated finding calls for further research. Normative planning may indicate an increased risk of suicidal behavior.

Benchmarking the American Society of Breast Surgeon Member Performance for More Than a Million Quality Measure-Patient Encounters

BackgroundNine breast cancer quality measures (QM) were selected by the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS) for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Payment Programs (QPP) and other performance improvement programs. We report member performance.Study DesignSurgeons entered QM data into an electronic registry. For each QM, aggregate “performance met” (PM) was reported (median, range and percentiles) and benchmarks (target goals) were calculated by CMS methodology, specifically, the Achievable Benchmark of Care™ (ABC) method.ResultsA total of 1,286,011 QM encounters were captured from 2011–2015. For 7 QM, first and last PM rates were as follows: (1) needle biopsy (95.8, 98.5%), (2) specimen imaging (97.9, 98.8%), (3) specimen orientation (98.5, 98.3%), (4) sentinel node use (95.1, 93.4%), (5) antibiotic selection (98.0, 99.4%), (6) antibiotic duration (99.0, 99.8%), and (7) no surgical site infection (98.8, 98.9%); all p values < 0.001 for trends. Variability and reasons for noncompliance by surgeon for each QM were identified. The CMS-calculated target goals (ABC™ benchmarks) for PM for 6 QM were 100%, suggesting that not meeting performance is a “never should occur” event.ConclusionsSurgeons self-reported a large number of specialty-specific patient-measure encounters into a registry for self-assessment and participation in QPP. Despite high levels of performance demonstrated initially in 2011 with minimal subsequent change, the ASBrS concluded “perfect” performance was not a realistic goal for QPP. Thus, after review of our normative performance data, the ASBrS recommended different benchmarks than CMS for each QM.

One-Year Language Outcomes in Toddlers With Language Delays: An RCT Follow-up.

The current study is a 1-year follow-up analysis of data from a randomized controlled trial of Enhanced Milieu Teaching (EMT) for toddlers with language delays. Outcomes and predictors of child language and parent intervention implementation were examined 6 and 12 months after the end of the intervention. Toddlers with language delays were recruited from the community, and 97 toddlers and parents were randomly assigned to receive usual community treatments or a 3-month EMT intervention with parent training. Multiple regression analyses were used to estimate the differences between groups at the 6- and 12-month follow-up periods. A subgroup of participants with receptive and expressive language delays was used in a post hoc moderator analysis of treatment outcomes. Children in the treatment arm did not differ from children in the control arm at 6- and 12-month follow-ups. However, post hoc analyses revealed that children with receptive-expressive language delays were persistently delayed relative to normative performance throughout the follow-up period. The immediate effects of the brief delivery of EMT were not sustained over the 1-year follow-up period. However, the short-term intervention may not have been sufficient for children with receptive-expressive delays to develop typical language abilities, suggesting they may need more intensive early intervention. Although this intervention may not be necessary for all children with primary language delays, future research should determine the extent to which children with receptive-expressive delays may benefit from more intensive intervention.

Causal explanation improves judgment under uncertainty, but rarely in a Bayesian way.

Three studies reexamined the claim that clarifying the causal origin of key statistics can increase normative performance on Bayesian problems involving judgment under uncertainty. Experiments 1 and 2 found that causal explanation did not increase the rate of normative solutions. However, certain types of causal explanation did lead to a reduction in the magnitude of errors in probability estimation. This effect was most pronounced when problem statistics were expressed in percentage formats. Experiment 3 used process-tracing methods to examine the impact of causal explanation of false positives on solution strategies. Changes in probability estimation following causal explanation were the result of a mixture of individual reasoning strategies, including non-Bayesian mechanisms, such as increased attention to explained statistics and approximations of subcomponents of Bayes' rule. The results show that although causal explanation of statistics can affect the way that a problem is mentally represented, this does not necessarily lead to an increased rate of normative responding.

Preliminary Evidence for an Association Between the Composition of the Gut Microbiome and Cognitive Function in Neurologically Healthy Older Adults.

Dysbiosis of the gut microbiome is implicated in numerous human health conditions. Animal studies have linked microbiome disruption to changes in cognitive functioning, although no study has examined this possibility in neurologically healthy older adults. Participants were 43 community-dwelling older adults (50-85 years) that completed a brief cognitive test battery and provided stool samples for gut microbiome sequencing. Participants performing≥1 SD below normative performance on two or more tests were compared to persons with one or fewer impaired scores. Mann Whitney U tests revealed different distributions of Bacteroidetes (p=.01), Firmicutes (p=.02), Proteobacteria (p=.04), and Verrucomicrobia (p=.003) between Intact and Impaired groups. These phyla were significantly correlated with cognitive test performances, particularly Verrucomicrobia and attention/executive function measures. The current findings suggest that composition of the gut microbiome is associated with cognitive test performance in neurologically healthy older adults. Future studies are needed to confirm these findings and explore possible mechanisms. (JINS, 2017, 23, 700-705).

Exploratory analysis of normative performance on the UCSD Performance‐Based Skills Assessment‐Brief

The UCSD Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA) is a performance-based measure of functional capacity. The brief, two-domain (finance and communication ability) version of the assessment (UPSA-B) is now widely used in both clinical research and treatment trials. To date, research has not examined possible demographic-UPSA-B relationships within a non-psychiatric population. We aimed to produce and describe preliminary normative scores for the UPSA-B over a full range of ages and educational attainment. The finance and communication subscales of the UPSA were administered to 190 healthy participants in the context of three separate studies. These data were combined to examine the effects of age, sex, and educational attainment on the UPSA-B domain and total scores. Fractional polynomial regression was used to compute demographically-corrected T-scores for the UPSA-B total score, and percentile rank conversion was used for the two subscales. Age and education both had significant non-linear effects on the UPSA-B total score. The finance subscale was significantly related to both gender and years of education, whereas the communication subscale was not significantly related to any of the demographic characteristics. Demographically corrected T-scores and percentile ranks for UPSA-B scores are now available for use in clinical research.

The Inventory of Legal Knowledge (ILK) and adults with intellectual disabilities

PurposeAdults with intellectual disabilities (ID) entering the legal system in the USA are at heightened risk of being incorrectly labeled as malingering. The Inventory of Legal Knowledge (ILK) was recently developed to assess response style of individuals undergoing competency to stand trial (CST) evaluations. The purpose of this paper is to present preliminary data on the utility of the ILK with adults with ID.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 32 adults were recruited from an American day program for adults with ID. Using a simulation design, the first 24 participants were assigned to the honest responding group and the remaining eight were assigned to the fake bad group. The normative performance of the honest responding group was compared to established norms for adults without ID, the most efficient ILK cut-off score was examined, and convergent validity of the ILK and other malingering measures tested.FindingsCompared to the established mean score, the recommended cut-off score, and two independent published samples of non-ID adults, the normative performance of the honest responding ID group was significantly lower. Analyses of area under the curve revealed that the ILK lacked sufficient ability to discriminate adults with ID instructed to respond honestly from those instructed to feign incompetence, and correlational analyses failed to support the convergent validity of the ILK in this sample.Research limitations/implicationsThe present findings do not support the use of the ILK with adults with ID, even with adjusted cut scores. The development of novel malingering measures that can be used in the context of CST evaluations with adults with ID is needed.Originality/valueThe present study is the first to examine the psychometric properties of the ILK with adults diagnosed with ID and without concomitant psychiatric symptomatology.

Normative performance on cleveland clinic concussion application for youth, high school and college athletes

ObjectiveThe utilisation of a multi-factorial approach to evaluating relevant neuro-cognitive and motor function is a critical element in effective and comprehensive concussion management. In this project, normative data were gathered utilising the Cleveland Clinic Concussion (C3) iPad Application in youth, high school and college athletes.DesignProspective normative study.SettingField-based.ParticipantsPre-season C3 data were collected in more the 6,500 youth (N=607), high school (N=5415) and college (N=744) athletes; approximately 32% females. Data were collected between Fall 2014 and Spring 2015.InterventionsNA.Outcome measuresNeurocognitive assessment modules of C3 include information processing (simple and choice reaction time), attention and working memory (Trail Making Test) and postural stability. Balance is quantified through biomechanical processing of accelerometer and gyroscope data gathered from the iPad during performance of the BESS.Main resultsNo gender effects were present for performance on the neurocognitive modules; however, postural stability was significantly worse for youth males compared to female peers (P&lt;0.01). Youth were significantly slower in performance of neurocognitive modules (simple and choice reaction time and Trails; (P&lt;0.0001)). Neurocognitive and postural stability measures were similar across high school and college athletes.ConclusionsSlower neurocognitive performance in youth relative to older athletes underscores the need to utilise age appropriate normative data in the management of concussion, particularly if no baseline is acquired. The control of postural stability develops at different rates as a function of age and gender, therefore balance assessment across the injury spectrum must utilise specific age-gender normative values.Competing interestsJLA, SML and SBO have authored intellectual property associated with the mobile application presented in this study.

Our love on fire: Gay men’s stories of violence and hope in Haiti

Our Love on Fire: Gay Men’s Stories of Violence and Hope in Haiti is a performance script devised from an oral history project to offer insights into populations where machismo and homophobia are cultivated as regulatory and repressive mechanisms instead of sodomy laws. The script recounts events that took place on the evening of August 10, 2013, during which an engagement ceremony between a Haitian man and a gay British Red Cross officer attracted the wrath of their Port-au-Prince neighborhood residents. Those outside the compound where the engagement ceremony took place rioted, torched the upscale residence of ex-patriates, lit cars on fire, and terrorized guests. Despite or because of the fiery clash, queer islanders celebrated their love more creatively and fervently afterwards. Set against the background of mass anti-homosexuality marches nationwide, the ring exchange ceremony looms large in queer Haitians’ memory as an act of activism that retaliates against the general population’s incessant physical and psychological abuses, calls for legislation respectful of broad gender and sexual expressions, and redefines normative identity performances and queer sub-cultural codes. The performance of queer resistance in Haiti is the larger project’s core focus: the author documents the significance of festive gatherings for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) human rights activism in Haiti, in contrast to public responses to the community’s creation of liberatory spaces. Specifically, Our Love on Fire attests to queer Haitian subjects’ activist struggles and their denouncement of punitive measures by the general population who view non-normative expressions of gender and sexual identities as imported and/or elite behaviors to be uprooted.

The 100-meter timed test: Normative data in healthy males and comparative pilot outcome data for use in Duchenne muscular dystrophy clinical trials

Timed walking tests are often used to measure function in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Our objective was to evaluate the 100 meter timed test (100m), a fixed distance test of maximal performance, for use in DMD. To this end, we sought to establish normative 100m performance in healthy controls, compare DMD performance to controls, and evaluate the reliability of 100m. Seventy-two boys with DMD (18 steroid-naïve, 54 on steroids) and 599 controls (4–14 years) completed the 100m as speedily as possible on a 25-meter track. Repeat testing was completed between 1 and 42 days later and again at 1 year in a subgroup of 96 control boys. Additionally 35 DMD boys were followed longitudinally (5–19 months). Descriptive statistics are presented by age and cohort. There was a significant difference in performance between groups (p < 0.01). Age and body mass index (BMI) significantly influenced 100m (p < 0.0001) in the control cohort. Test–retest reliability was excellent for both cohorts (ICC > 0.90, p < 0.001). Normative data can be used to determine percent-predicted 100m times to quantify the severity of running impairment in children with a motor deficit. Performance of 100m follows the natural history established by other outcome measures in DMD.

Impaired verbal learning in forensic inpatients with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder

ABSTRACTThe present study aimed to: (a) examine verbal learning performances among forensic inpatients diagnosed with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder (SSD); and (b) compare verbal learning performances among forensic SSD inpatients, SSD outpatients, and a small control sample. Participants included forensic SSD inpatients (n = 71), SSD outpatients (n = 305; see Stone et al.), and a control sample from the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) manual (n = 78; see Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober). Five verbal learning outcomes were measured using the CVLT-II. The average forensic SSD inpatients performed 1 to 1.5 standard deviations below the mean across the five verbal learning outcomes, many of whom (26.8% to 36.6%) performed in the impaired range across the five outcomes. Forensic SSD inpatients performed significantly lower than the SSD outpatients on three verbal learning outcomes and significantly lower than healthy controls on all five verbal learning outcomes. Results indicated forensically committed SSD inpatients have diminished verbal learning performances. Study findings could help define normative verbal learning performances in different types of SSD patients, may guide the development of compensatory strategies for verbal learning deficits, and could subsequently lead to more successful clinical outcomes in this population.

‘Straight-looking, straight-acting’: countering effemiphobia in acting training

What is to become of the ‘effeminate’ actor? This essay focuses on the subject of gender-based discrimination with reference to male acting students, and proposes that, despite the huge social and legal gains made on behalf of various sexual minorities, the professional theatre in Canada and the US ‒ including the training institutions that support and feed it ‒ is engaged in the practice of reinforcing normative performances of gender. As David Eulus Wiles argues in his essay in The Politics of American Actor Training, we have imported the discriminatory patterns of the ‘entertainment industry’ into the theatre programmes of academic institutions that explicitly forbid such discrimination. The article proposes that part of addressing this problem in a meaningful way would entail transformations in the approach to the training of actors, in particular replacing classic text-based approaches with psychophysical methods, such as Laban Movement Analysis. Exploring the research into gender construction by performance artist and drag king Diane Torr, the paper speculates about how such transformations in training would necessitate concomitant changes in the practice of the art form itself, ushering in a new plurality of approaches and expressions, in particular in the realm of department productions. This argument is supported with reference to a consideration of how a renewed connection with the theory of Bertolt Brecht could serve the aims of gender critique, referring to positions taken by Jill Dolan, Sue-Ellen Case, Richard Schechner and Elin Diamond.

EU normative performance: a critical theory perspective on the EU’s response to the massacre in Andijon, Uzbekistan

ABSTRACTThis article introduces a new analytical framework - EU Normative Performance - to examine the European Union’s (EU) policy towards autocratic regimes in its wider Eastern neighbourhood. Drawing on critical theory and the writings of Jürgen Habermas, EU Normative Performance does not define measures of a (cost-) efficient conduct of foreign policy, but develops benchmarks of an ideal-type emancipatory policy constrained by normative principles (Normative Performance as output) and derived from undistorted argumentative reasoning (Normative Performance as a process). The case study assesses the EU’s response to the Andijon massacre in Uzbekistan in May 2005.

The factorial validation of the normative system perception scale: A proposal to analyze social transgression.

In Argentina, like in the rest of Latin America, the perception of transgression and lack of institutional legitimacy are shared beliefs. This tendency to illegal practices corrodes the political, economic and social development of the country. The goals of this study are to validate the structure of the Normative System Perception Scale (EPSN, for its Spanish acronym) and to analyze the perception of the normative system functioning. The sample consisted of 508 Argentinean participants. A self- administered questionnaire with the Normative System Perception Scale and socio-demographic data was designed. Results show a good goodness-of-fit of the model and the reliability coefficients indicated satisfactory levels of internal consistency (a = .89). The descriptive analysis showed that participants had a negative perception of the normative system performance. Also the findings exhibit that women have a more negative perspective of the normative system than men, and that participants ideologically positioned on the right are more critical than those who are positioned on the left.

Social Responsibility Of Islamic Banks In Kurdistan Region Of Iraq

First, those concerned with the study of institutional performance emphasize that attention to human capital is the main pillar in improving institutional performance. And this emphasizes the need to adopt accuracy and objectivity in the good operation and investment, through the compatibility between the individual and the job that suits him, in the sense that each job requires requirements imposed by the performance required, any specifications must be available to those who occupy knowledge and skills and Systems and instructions ...) to ensure the required level of performance. In the other direction, the performance of the individual reflected a salary (equivalent) and equivalent to the amount of performance and level. Based on the individual specifications required by the job enables the individual to perform its duties and carry out its tasks at the required level. And that the performance is equivalent to a suitable wage appropriate to the level of normative performance of the job.In other words, the job requires certain specifications that must be met by those who occupy it and that the salary requires a certain level of performance, that means that the individual and its specifications must match the employee's specifications with the job, and that the salary or salary must be commensurate with the level of performance required. The characteristics of the individual are linked to the job and the wage is linked to the performance in the sense that the individual's characteristics are linked to the job and that the wage is linked to the job or not.

The Phantom Jobs and their Performance Costs / Dialect Study for the Relationship between them

First, those concerned with the study of institutional performance emphasize that attention to human capital is the main pillar in improving institutional performance. And this emphasizes the need to adopt accuracy and objectivity in the good operation and investment, through the compatibility between the individual and the job that suits him, in the sense that each job requires requirements imposed by the performance required, any specifications must be available to those who occupy knowledge and skills and Systems and instructions ...) to ensure the required level of performance. In the other direction, the performance of the individual reflected a salary (equivalent) and equivalent to the amount of performance and level. Based on the individual specifications required by the job enables the individual to perform its duties and carry out its tasks at the required level. And that the performance is equivalent to a suitable wage appropriate to the level of normative performance of the job. In other words, the job requires certain specifications that must be met by those who occupy it and that the salary requires a certain level of performance, that means that the individual and its specifications must match the employee's specifications with the job, and that the salary or salary must be commensurate with the level of performance required. The characteristics of the individual are linked to the job and the wage is linked to the performance in the sense that the individual's characteristics are linked to the job and that the wage is linked to the job or not.

Montreal Cognitive Assessment Performance among Community-Dwelling African Americans.

To report descriptive and normative data for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in a population-based African American sample. The MoCA was administered to 1,419 African American participants (mean age 49.89 years, range 18-75, 64% female). After excluding those with subjective cognitive complaints (n=301), normative data were generated by education and overlapping age ranges (n=1,118). Pearson correlations and analysis of variance were used to examine the relationship to demographic variables, and frequency of missed items was reviewed. Total MoCA scores (mean 22.3, SD 3.9) were lower than previously published normative data derived from an elderly Caucasian Canadian population with 80% falling below the suggested cutoff (<26) for impairment. Several MoCA items were missed by a large portion of the sample, including cube drawing (72%), delayed free recall (66% <4/5 words), sentence repetition (63%), and abstraction items (45%). This is the first study to examine normative performance on the MoCA specific to community-dwelling African Americans. Findings suggest that certain aspects of this measure and previously established cutoff scores may not be well-suited for some populations.

Managing orientalism: biography, performance, and the films of Sabu and Merle Oberon

ABSTRACTConsidering biography in the case of actors of colour involves something other than resisting dominant narratives about film history and recuperating effaced performances. It requires reflection on the instability of the narratives and performances of self. This article considers Merle Oberon and Sabu, two actors of South Asian descent who gained international popularity in orientalist roles in 1930s Hollywood and British productions. These actors did not actively try to subvert the roles to which they were assigned, but this does not necessarily render them passive and complicit. Athleticism in the case of Sabu and restraint in the case of Oberon deviated from the normative performances of orientalism, often in ways that contradicted the biographies circulating about them.