Positive Items Research Articles

Redefining Parental Dynamics: Exploring Mental Health, Happiness, and Positive Parenting Practices.

This study investigated how mental health, subjective happiness, and positive parenting interrelate among 489 Greek parents (76% mothers, 20% fathers) of children aged 7-13 years. We aimed to clarify whether these constructs converge strongly or remain relatively compartmentalized. Using a network analytic framework, we first estimated a graphical LASSO partial correlation network (38 nodes) and found 257 nonzero edges out of 703 possible (37% connectivity). The mean edge weight was 0.024, and centrality metrics were robust (Correlation Stability > 0.59 at r = 0.70). We then constructed a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) via Bayesian network modeling (1000 bootstrap samples, edge retention ≥ 85%) to infer directional paths. Mental health items (MHC-SF) correlated strongly within their domain (partial correlations up to r = 0.50), as did subjective happiness items (SHS) and positive parenting items (NPP). However, cross-domain links were notably weaker, with partial correlations between NPP items and mental health or happiness rarely exceeding r = 0.20. One bridging link emerged from MH_11 ("warm and trusting relationships") to N_16 ("good relationship with extended family"), r = 0.23, highlighting only a modest cross-construct relationship. The DAG similarly showed that mental health variables exerted moderate directional influence on happiness but minimal influence on parenting nodes. Contrary to assumptions of broad reciprocity, these constructs operated in largely discrete clusters. Interventions should thus treat parental well-being and parenting skills as partially distinct targets, emphasizing more tailored, context-sensitive strategies for Greek families.

Positive polarity items: an illusion of ungrammaticality

ABSTRACT Negative Polarity Item (NPIs) produce an illusion of grammaticality in some contexts with negation. Many approaches to modelling the NPI illusion propose that it is driven by the processor's attempt to link an NPI to a negative element. We investigate an illusion effect observed with Positive Polarity Item (PPIs), another class of polarity sensitive element. While NPIs must be licensed by a negative element, PPIs are anti-licensed by negative elements. We find an illusion of ungrammaticality for PPIs in environments where an illusion of grammaticality is observed for NPIs. Thus, we argue there is a general polarity illusion. We find that several accounts of the NPI illusion either predict this PPI illusion or can capture this effect with a straightforward extension. The approaches which are able to predict this effect share a reliance on structural representation, highlighting the importance of both the licensing features of polarity items and the structural detail in sentence processing representations.

Quick Self-Compassion: Italian Validation, Network Analysis, Item Response Theory Analysis, and Correlates of the Self-Compassion Scale Short Form

Abstract Objectives This study aimed to test the factorial structure and gender invariance of the Self-Compassion Scale Short Form (SCS-SF) in the Italian context (Aim 1), underlying relationships among SCS-SF items (Aim 2), questionnaire performance of SCS-SF (Aim 3), and correlations of SCS-SF (and its subscales) with cognitive, affective, and well-being variables (Aim 4). Method Six questionnaires including the SCS-SF and different correlates were respectively administered to six Italian convenience samples (total n = 2068). We performed confirmatory (ULS estimator) factor analysis (Aim 1), exploratory graph analysis and network analysis (Aim 2), multidimensional item response theory (IRT) analyses (Aim 3), and correlational analyses (Aim 4). We tested Aims 1–3 on the global sample and Aim 4 on the six samples separately. Results We found a two-factor (hierarchical) solution — which also had strict gender invariance — identifying Compassionate and Uncompassionate Self-Responding (CSR and USR), respectively composed of positive and negative items, while three- and six-factor structures did not hold (Aim 1). The SCS-SF network was structured into the CSR and USR clusters (Aim 2). CSR and — especially — USR had a satisfactory performance in terms of IRT discrimination and information (Aim 3). Correlational analyses supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the scales, showing the cognitive and emotion-regulation strategies associated with self-compassion and confirming that CSR and USR have slightly different correlates (Aim 4). Conclusions The Italian SCS-SF and its CSR and USR subscales are valid instruments. Future research and interventions can employ CSR and USR to assess different nuances of self-kindness and self-criticism.

On the true nature of ÇOKTAN in Turkish

Turkish has the temporal adverb çoktan ‘long time ago’ that has been treated as a positive polarity item (PPI) in recent studies. It has been argued that it cannot co-occur with clause-mate negation, whereas native speakers seem to have split it into two in terms of its grammaticality with long-distance negation. Interestingly, there seems to be almost no formal study that has ever analyzed the properties of Turkish PPIs. In this paper, the objective was to carry out a corpus analysis of çoktan and find out whether it is truly an item of positive polarity. Based on new corpus data, it is shown that çoktan is indeed an element of positive polarity that predominantly occurs in positive sentences. It is also argued that its overall behavior can be captured by way of the semantic notion of (non)-veridicality since its syntactic distribution includes veridical and certain non-veridical contexts but excludes antiveridical ones.

Latent Structure and Item Functioning of Self-Referent Encoding Task Word Stimuli in Preadolescent Youth.

The Self-Referent Encoding Task (SRET) can be used to measure self-concept via endorsement of trait words, a robust metric associated with depression severity. Our study is the first to investigate the structural validity and item functioning of SRET endorsement scores using confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory. Community-dwelling preadolescent youth (N = 508; Mage = 12.39 years, SDage = .72) were shown a list of positive and negative trait adjectives and made binary ratings of whether words were self-descriptive. The SRET exhibited a two-factor structure, comprising positive and negative factors. Positive items were endorsed by most children and best estimated information about positive self-concepts below average levels of positivity. Conversely, negative items were unendorsed by most children and best estimated information about negative self-concepts above average levels of negativity. We identify standardized, psychometrically sound, and developmentally sensitive SRET items for assessing youth self-concept and its associations with depression risk.

Efficacy of a melatonin receptor agonist and orexin receptor antagonists in preventing delirium symptoms in the olderly patients with stroke: a retrospective study

BackgroundPost-stroke delirium affects between 24% and 43% of patients, and negatively impacts patient outcomes. Recently, research attention has been on preventive interventions for delirium, with melatonin receptor agonists and orexin receptor antagonists reported to be effective in preventing delirium in intensive care unit patients. However, the efficacy of these agents in preventing post-stroke delirium remain unclear. This study examined the efficacy of ramelteon, suvorexant, and lemborexant in preventing post-stroke delirium symptoms in patients with stroke.MethodsA retrospective survey of medical records was conducted for patients with stroke aged > 75 years at Kyoto University Hospital from October 2021 to March 2023. Patients who received ramelteon, suvorexant, or lemborexant on admission and the following day were classified into the consecutive administration group, whereas those who did not were classified into the non-consecutive administration group. The primary outcome was an increase in the number of positive items in the delirium screening tool over 7 days.ResultsOf the 104 patients, 33 and 71 were in the consecutive and non-consecutive administration groups, respectively. Fewer patients in the consecutive administration group had an increase in the number of positive items than in the other group (6% vs. 21%). Patients in the consecutive administration group significantly less often had an increase in the number of positive items in the delirium screening tool (P = 0.05; hazard ratio, 0.27; 95% confidence interval, 0.10–0.75).ConclusionsThis study revealed that early administration of a melatonin receptor agonist or orexin receptor antagonists may effectively prevent post-stroke delirium in older patients.

Assessing the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF) for Latinx Parents of Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Within Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling and Structural Equation Modeling-Based Generalizability Theory Frameworks

Although the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF) is widely applicable, there has been a dearth of research on the psychometric properties and item wording effects associated with the cultural sensitivity of the instrument. This study investigated the psychometric properties, the factor structure, and the negative and positive item wording effects of PSI-SF for 96 Latinx parents of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the United States within exploratory structural equation modeling, and structural equation modeling-based generalizability theory frameworks. This study produces the following noteworthy findings. First, the ESEM bifactor model with negatively and positively phrased items best captured the theoretical frameworks underlying the structure of the PSI-SF. Second, adding method factors enhanced the model fits of all the factor models. Third, this study discovered several items with great proportions of method factors. This study recommended that the items with high proportions of method factors, which may likely be culturally insensitive to Latinx parents, be examined further and refined. With the use of accurately assessed PSI-SF scores, practitioners will be better able to support and empower Latinx parents of children with IDD and better meet their needs through the FIRME program, a parent advocacy initiative.

Ketoanalogue use is associated with a lower risk of worsening frailty among patients with diabetic kidney disease of advanced stage: A retrospective cohort study

BackgroundPatients with diabetes kidney disease (DKD) are at risk of developing frailty, leading to functional impairment and poor outcomes. Medications are potential modifiers of such risk. Ketoanalogues have been shown to delay dialysis initiation in DKD patients. We investigated whether ketoanalogues use influenced the risk of worsening frailty in this population. MethodsFrom 840,000 patients with diabetes, we identified those with DKD but without full-fledged frailty, and divided them into those with and without receiving ketoanalogue, followed by propensity score matching in 1:4 ratio. Worsening frailty was defined as ≥1 positive FRAIL item increase compared to baseline status (0, 1, or 2 items) during follow-up. We used Cox proportional hazard regression to estimate the probability of worsening frailty, adjusting for demographics, comorbidities, glycemic control, renal function, treatments and medications. ResultsTotally 183 and 732 ketoanalogue users and matched non-users were identified, respectively. The mean age of included patients was 57.4 years, with 91.3 % having non-dialysis stage 5 chronic kidney disease. Approximately two-thirds had pre-frailty (1 o2 items). After 3.72 years, 16.6 % patients had worsening frailty. Multivariate analyses, adjusting for confounders disclosed that ketoanalogue users (≥14 days) had a significantly lower risk of worsening frailty than non-users (hazard ratio (HR) 0.52, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.32–0.87). Sensitivity analysis including those received ketoanalogue ≥28 days showed even greater benefits (HR 0.45, 95 % CI 0.26–0.78). ConclusionsPatients with DKD receiving ketoanalogues were less likely to have worsening frailty over time than non-users. Our findings uncover a new potential strategy of ameliorating frailty progression in this population carrying a high risk of accelerated aging.

Efficient Session-based Recommendation with Contrastive Graph-based Shortest Path Search

Session-based recommendation aims to predict the next item based on a set of anonymous sessions. Capturing user intent from a short interaction sequence imposes a variety of challenges since no user profiles are available and interaction data is naturally sparse. Recent approaches relying on graph neural networks (GNNs) for session-based recommendation use global item relations to explore collaborative information from different sessions. These methods capture the topological structure of the graph and rely on multi-hop information aggregation in GNNs to exchange information along edges. Consequently, graph-based models suffer from noisy item relations in the training data and introduce high complexity for large item catalogs. We propose to explicitly model the multi-hop information aggregation mechanism over multiple layers via shortest-path edges based on knowledge from the sequential recommendation domain. Our approach does not require multiple layers to exchange information and ignores unreliable item-item relations. Furthermore, to address inherent data sparsity, we are the first to apply supervised contrastive learning by mining data-driven positive and hard negative item samples from the training data. Extensive experiments on four different datasets show that the proposed approach outperforms almost all of the state-of-the-art methods.

Immunophenotyping schizophrenia subtypes stratified by antipsychotic response

Immune dysfunction has been proposed to play a role in the pathophysiology behind the development and persistence of psychosis. Current immunophenotyping studies are limited by small sample sizes and the number of immune markers investigated. Pharmacological subtypes in schizophrenia based on antipsychotic response have been proposed, but few studies have investigated immunophenotypes in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. In this study, we perform comprehensive immunophenotyping on 196 subjects comprising 147 schizophrenia patients stratified by antipsychotic response (49 antipsychotic-responsive, 70 clozapine-responsive, 28 clozapine-resistant) and 49 healthy controls. We aim to identify significant immune cell populations associated with schizophrenia and increasing treatment resistance, as potential modulators of underlying psychosis and/or treatment response. Patients with schizophrenia were recruited and assessed on the Clinical Global Impression – Schizophrenia (CGI-SCH). Treatment response was defined as a rating of three (mild severity) or less on the CGI-SCH positive symptom item after at least 8 weeks of adequate antipsychotic or clozapine treatment. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were collected and flow cytometry was performed to identify 66 immune cell populations. Differences in cell population proportions were compared between schizophrenia cases and controls, and across all 4 groups, with post-hoc pairwise comparisons. Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells (specifically CD8 + and DN double-negative subsets), total, exhausted and memory CD8 + T cells, VD1 + ϒδ T cells, plasmablasts, IgG + B cells and conventional dendritic cells 2 (cDC2) were among the top cell populations downregulated in schizophrenia. We observed increased downregulation with increasing treatment resistance. Conversely, naïve and exhausted CD4 + T cells, CD4/CD8 ratio and CCR5 + CCR2 + HLA DR + Myeloid cells were found to be upregulated in schizophrenia — we observed increased upregulation with increasing treatment resistance. We show significant immunophenotypic differences between schizophrenia cases and healthy controls, and consistent trend differences across varying degrees of antipsychotic resistance. We also examined immune cell populations not previously reported in schizophrenia. Future studies may explore immune markers identified as potential biomarkers of treatment resistance, and clarify on the relationship between immunological changes and pharmacological subtypes in schizophrenia.

Determinants of late recovery following elective colorectal surgery.

Despite the implementation of enhanced recovery protocols, a significant proportion of patients experience delayed recovery. Identifying potential determinants of delayed recovery is crucial for optimizing perioperative protocols and tailoring patient pathways. This study aims to identify possible determinants of delayed recovery. Retrospective observational study based on a prospectively collected dedicated register spanning from 2015 to 2022. Twenty-two Italian hospitals specializing in high-volume colorectal surgery and trained in enhanced recovery protocols. Patients undergoing elective colorectal resection for cancer or benign disease. Recovery status on postoperative day 2. Late recovery was defined as the failure to meet at least two indicators of postoperative recovery (oral feeding, removal of the urinary catheter, cessation of intravenous fluids, and mobilization) on postoperative day 2. A total of 1535 patients were analyzed. The median overall adherence to pre- and intraoperative enhanced recovery protocol items was 75.0% (range: 66.6%-83.3%). Delayed recovery was observed in 487 (31.7%) patients. Multiple regression analysis revealed six enhanced recovery protocol items that independently positively influenced postoperative recovery: pre-admission counseling (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.596), a preoperative carbohydrate drink (aOR 1.948), intraoperative fluid infusions < 7ml/kg/h (aOR 1.662), avoidance of thoracic epidural analgesia (aOR 2.137), removal of nasogastric tube at the end of surgery (aOR 4.939), and successful laparoscopy (aOR 2.341). The rate of delayed recovery progressively decreased with increasing adherence to these six positive items, reaching 13.0% when all items were applied (correlation coefficient [r] = - 0.99, p < 0.001). This study is limited by its retrospective analysis of a register containing data from multiple centers and a diverse patient population. Adherence to specific pre- and intraoperative enhanced recovery protocol items, including counseling, preoperative carbohydrate intake, restrictive intraoperative fluid management, avoidance of thoracic epidural analgesia, early removal of nasogastric tube, and successful laparoscopy, appears crucial for promoting early recovery following elective colorectal resection.

Effect of swimming exercise program on quality of life in patients with diabetic foot ulcer

This research aimed to examine the effect of a swimming exercise program on the quality of life in patients with diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs). DFUs are a common complication of diabetes that significantly impact patients' physical and psychological well-being and impose a substantial burden on healthcare systems. Physical activity, including swimming, has been shown to improve various aspects of health and well-being. However, its specific effects on the quality of life in patients with DFUs have not been extensively studied. The study included twenty patients diagnosed with DFUs who volunteered to participate in a 12-week swimming exercise program. The program consisted of three one-hour sessions per week, with exercises performed in an indoor swimming pool. Participants' quality of life was assessed using the Diabetic Foot Ulcer Scale Short Form (DFS-SF) before the program and at 4, 8, and 12 weeks into the program. The results demonstrated significant improvements in various domains of quality of life among participants. The leisure, physical health, dependence/daily life, negative emotions, worry about ulcers/feet, and bothered by ulcer care domains all showed positive changes, with reduced scores on negative items and increased scores on positive items over time. These findings highlight the potential benefits of swimming as a therapeutic intervention for improving the quality of life in patients with DFUs. Swimming, as a low-impact aerobic exercise, offers physiological and psychological advantages, including fat burning, mood improvement, stress reduction, and enhanced cognitive function. The study suggests that incorporating swimming exercise programs into the management and treatment of DFUs may lead to improved overall well-being and quality of life for these patients. Further research and larger-scale studies are necessary to validate these findings and explore the long-term effects of swimming exercise programs on the quality of life in patients with DFUs. Nevertheless, this research provides valuable insights for healthcare professionals in developing comprehensive treatment approaches for individuals with DFUs.

Assessing the dimensionality of the sense of coherence scale (SOC-L9) using Ghanaian university students: Guarding against the method effect

BackgroundThe dimensionality of the sense of coherence (SOC-L9) scale has been in contention due to the varied factor structure revealed in the literature. In this study, we assessed the dimensionality of the SOC-L9 scale using Ghanaian university students while guarding against the method effect. The study also examined the gender measurement invariance of the scale. MethodsThis research conveniently sampled 1062 students who responded to the SOC-L9 scale with negative items reversed to positive items. A larger proportion of the participants were male students (n = 769, 72.4 %), with 293(27.6 %) being female students. The youngest participant was 18 years old, whereas the oldest was 42 years old. Following all validation studies protocols, four distinct confirmatory factor analysis models were fitted and compared (i.e., unidimensional, three-factor first-order, three-factor second-order and bifactor models). ResultsThe initial model comparison revealed that the bifactor CFA model [CFI = 0.958, SRMR = 0.036, AIC = 21231.35, BIC = 21370.45] was superior to the unidimensional [CFI = 0.914, SRMR = 0.046, AIC = 26280.67, BIC = 26414.8] and 3-factor models [CFI = 0.932, SRMR = 0.040, AIC = 26221.67, BIC = 26370.71]. Upon further probing, it was discovered that SOC-L9 functions best as a unidimensional scale for the university student population. Gender measurement invariance was established for configural invariance [CFI = 0.986, SRMR = 0.044], metric invariance [CFI = 0.894, SRMR = 0.051] and scalar invariance [CFI = 0.983, SRMR = 0.047]. ConclusionThe SOC-L9 scale has a nested structure with the various sub-scales interacting to produce a summary total observed score. The structure of the SOC-L9 requires scholars to treat the scale as a unidimensional scale rather than a multidimensional one. This latent structure was found to be consistent with male and female university students.

Factor Structure and Reliability of the Lithuanian Version of the Public Speaking Anxiety Scale

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is especially prevalent among young individuals aged 18–25 and significantly affects daily social activities and interpersonal relationships. Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA), a subtype of SAD, is a widespread concern that affects one in five individuals. The study focuses on the Public Speaking Anxiety Scale (PSAS), with the aim of assessing the factor structure and reliability of the Lithuanian version (PSAS-LT). The PSAS-LT, administered to 227 participants aged 18–25, comprises 17 Likert-scaled items, evaluating cognitive, behavioral, and physiological aspects of PSA. Three models were tested: a single-factor model, a three-factor model and a single factor model with positive and negative item wording factors model. Results indicate less than desirable fit for the single, and three-factor models, suggesting the need for alternative structures. The model that included a single factor as well as positive and negative item wording factors demonstrated a reasonably good fit. The diagnostic validity confirmed that the PSAS-LT effectively differentiated between participants with and without history of anxiety disorders. The total score of the PSAS-LT had excellent internal consistency. Despite limitations, including convenience sampling and nonrepresentative sample, the study contributes valuable insights into refining the understanding of PSA assessment features, emphasizing the importance of considering response patterns. Future research should validate these findings with larger and more diverse samples of the Lithuanian population.

The "good is up" metaphoric effects on recognition: True for source guessing but false for item memory.

The "good is up" metaphor, which links valence and verticality was found to influence affective judgement and to direct attention, but its effects on memory remain unclear with contradictory research findings. To provide a more accurate assessment of memory components involved in recognition, such as item memory and source-guessing biases, a standard source monitoring paradigm was applied in this research. A series of three experiments provided a conceptual replication and extension of Experiment 2 by Crawford et al., (2014) and yielded a consistent result pattern suggesting that the "good is up" metaphor biases participants' guessing of source location. That is, when source memory failed, participants were more inclined to guess the "up" location versus "down" location for positive items (and vice versa for negative items). It did, however, not affect source memory or item memory for valenced stimuli learned from metaphor-congruent versus incongruent locations (i.e., no metaphor-(in)congruent effects in memory). We suggest that the "good is up" metaphor may affect cognitive processes in a more subtle way than originally suggested.

Reliability and Validity of Ecological Momentary Assessment Response Time-Based Measures of Emotional Clarity: Secondary Data Analysis.

Emotional clarity has often been assessed with self-report measures, but efforts have also been made to measure it passively, which has advantages such as avoiding potential inaccuracy in responses stemming from social desirability bias or poor insight into emotional clarity. Response times (RTs) to emotion items administered in ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) may be an indirect indicator of emotional clarity. Another proposed indicator is the drift rate parameter, which assumes that, aside from how fast a person responds to emotion items, the measurement of emotional clarity also requires the consideration of how careful participants were in providing responses. This paper aims to examine the reliability and validity of RTs and drift rate parameters from EMA emotion items as indicators of individual differences in emotional clarity. Secondary data analysis was conducted on data from 196 adults with type 1 diabetes who completed a 2-week EMA study involving the completion of 5 to 6 surveys daily. If lower RTs and higher drift rates (from EMA emotion items) were indicators of emotional clarity, we hypothesized that greater levels (ie, higher clarity) should be associated with greater life satisfaction; lower levels of neuroticism, depression, anxiety, and diabetes distress; and fewer difficulties with emotion regulation. Because prior literature suggested emotional clarity could be valence specific, EMA items for negative affect (NA) and positive affect were examined separately. Reliability of the proposed indicators of emotional clarity was acceptable with a small number of EMA prompts (ie, 4 to 7 prompts in total or 1 to 2 days of EMA surveys). Consistent with expectations, the average drift rate of NA items across multiple EMAs had expected associations with other measures, such as correlations of r=-0.27 (P<.001) with depression symptoms, r=-0.27 (P=.001) with anxiety symptoms, r=-0.15 (P=.03) with emotion regulation difficulties, and r=0.63 (P<.001) with RTs to NA items. People with a higher NA drift rate responded faster to NA emotion items, had greater subjective well-being (eg, fewer depression symptoms), and had fewer difficulties with overall emotion regulation, which are all aligned with the expectation for an emotional clarity measure. Contrary to expectations, the validities of average RTs to NA items, the drift rate of positive affect items, and RTs to positive affect items were not strongly supported by our results. Study findings provided initial support for the validity of NA drift rate as an indicator of emotional clarity but not for that of other RT-based clarity measures. Evidence was preliminary because the sample size was not sufficient to detect small but potentially meaningful correlations, as the sample size of the diabetes EMA study was chosen for other more primary research questions. Further research on passive emotional clarity measures is needed.

Two Varieties of Korean: Rightward Head Movement or Polarity Sensitivity?

A strong argument in favor of the existence of rightward, string-adjacent head movement comes from Han, Lidz, and Musolino (2007). They argue that Korean language-internal variation with respect to the scopal order between negation and universal quantifier objects shows that in the variety where negation takes wide scope, the negative marker must have moved along with the verb/auxiliary to the head of IP. This would then constitute evidence for rightward, string-adjacent head movement. In this article, I argue that this analysis actually makes different predictions than have been attested in Korean. Moreover, I argue that, following a well-known stand with respect to the nature of polarity sensitivity (Chierchia 2013), these facts follow naturally once it is assumed that in one variety, but not the other, universal quantifiers are positive polarity items. This makes the attested language-internal variation in Korean less exceptional since language-internal variation with respect to polarity sensitivity is widely attested.

Confronting Alzheimer's Disease Risk in Women: A Feasibility Study of Memory Screening as Part of the Annual Gynecological Well-Woman Visit.

Objective: Routine health care visits offer the opportunity to screen older adults for symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Many women see their gynecologist as their primary health care provider. Given this unique relationship, the Women's Preventive Services Initiative and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology advocate for integrated care of women at all ages. It is well-established that women are at increased risk for AD, and memory screening of older women should be paramount in this effort. Research is needed to determine the feasibility and value of memory screening among older women at the well-woman visit. Materials and Methods: Women aged 60 and above completed a 5-item subjective memory screener at their well-woman visit at the Columbia University Integrated Women's Health Program. Women who endorsed any item were considered to have a positive screen and were given the option to pursue clinical evaluation. Rates of positive screens, item endorsement, and referral preferences were examined. Results: Of the 530 women approached, 521 agreed to complete the screener. Of those, 17.5% (n = 91) were classified as positive. The most frequently endorsed item was difficulty with memory or thinking compared with others the same age. Among women with positive screens, 57.5% were interested in pursuing clinical referrals to a memory specialist. Conclusion: Results support the feasibility and potential value of including subjective memory screening as part of a comprehensive well-woman program. Early identification of memory loss will enable investigation into the cause of memory symptoms and longitudinal monitoring of cognitive change.

Testing the consistency of performance scores reported for binary classification problems

Binary classification is a fundamental task in machine learning, with applications across various scientific domains. Whether conducting fundamental research or refining practical applications, scientists typically assess and rank classification techniques based on performance metrics such as accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. However, reported performance scores may not always provide a reliable basis for research ranking. The unreliability can be attributed to undisclosed or unconventional practices related to cross-validation, typographical errors, and other factors.In a given experimental setup with a specific number of positive and negative test items, performance scores can only assume specific, interrelated values. Based on this observation, in this paper, we introduce numerical techniques to assess the consistency of reported performance scores with the assumed experimental setup. Importantly, the proposed approaches do not rely on statistical inference. Instead, they use numerical methods (interval computing and integer linear programming) to identify inconsistencies with certainty.Through three applications in different fields of medicine, we demonstrate how the proposed tests can detect inconsistencies, thereby safeguarding the integrity of research fields. The power analyses of the tests in these applications show at least 71% of power when the performance scores are reported to four decimal places. In the investigated areas, the tests have so far identified inconsistencies in more than 100 scientific papers. To benefit the scientific community, we have made the consistency tests available in the open-source Python package mlscorecheck.

“See You Sunday?” Effects of Attending a Specific Weekend Religious Service on Emotional Well‐Being: A State/Trait Analysis of the SoulPulse Study

AbstractMost studies of religious service attendance and emotional well‐being are only capable of evaluating “trait” aspects of religious attendance, or long‐term patterns and habits that form an attendance routine. Methodological limitations make it difficult to capture the immediate (i.e., “state”) effects of attending a specific religious worship service. Using the SoulPulse Study, a 2‐week microlongitudinal study consisting of two daily cell phone surveys, we move beyond this limitation by examining trait attendance, state attendance, and the interaction of the two on 10 emotional/affective outcome variables. We find that both state attendance and trait attendance are associated with well‐being, though state attendance performs more consistently across the 10 positive and negative emotion items. Leveraging Iannaccone's concept of “religious capital,” we present evidence in state × trait interaction models that only those who have high trait levels of attendance are able to capture the emotional benefit of state attendance. This study informs the broader literature on religious attendance and well‐being by providing evidence that religious attendance can be considered a “practice” that must first be internalized as a set of familiar routines prior to being activated for personal well‐being.