Status Judgments Research Articles

Apremilast generic for the treatment of active psoriatic arthritis: A single-center real-life experience from India

Introduction: Apremilast has been recently introduced in the treatment of adult psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients in India. Its efficacy and safety have been established in the landmark clinical trials; however, there is still a dearth of its real-world experience in the management of PsA in India. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cohort analysis of electronic medical records was conducted at our clinic, to study the effectiveness and tolerability of apremilast 30 mg twice a day in the management of PsA. A total of 86 patients were included in this report. Patients were classified as responders and nonresponders based on the overall physician judgment of clinical status, especially improvement of symptoms as per the disease activity in PsA (DAPSA) criteria. Results: Of the 86 patients started on apremilast, 44 patients had at least 16 weeks of follow-up assessment. Of these 44 patients, 39 were of peripheral arthritis and five were of axial spondyloarthritis. Twenty-five of 39 (64%) patients were classified as responders and 14 (36%) as nonresponders based on the DAPSA criteria. On analyzing the DAPSA scores at baseline and subsequent follow-up, there was statistically significant improvement in mean DAPSA score. Remission was seen in three patients (7.7%) and low disease activity in 16 (41%) patients at 16 weeks. Only six patients developed one or more side effects. The most common side effects were gastrointestinal symptoms. Conclusion: These results, from a real-world setting in India, confirm the effectiveness and tolerability of apremilast in PsA as seen in clinical trials.

Reality Status Judgments of Real and Fantastical Events in Children's Prefrontal Cortex: An fNIRS Study.

The present study aimed to examine neural mechanisms underlying the ability to differentiate reality from fantasy. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we measured prefrontal activations in children and adults while they performed a reality judgment task. Participants’ task was to judge the reality status of events in fantastical and realistic videos. Behavioral data revealed that, although there was no accuracy difference, children showed significantly longer reaction times in making the judgments than did adults. The fNIRS data consistently revealed higher prefrontal activations in children than in adults when watching the videos and judging the reality of the events. These results suggest that when making judgments of event reality, children may require more cognitive resources and also mainly rely on their own personal experiences.

Adequacy Analysis of the Basic Old-Age Pension System Based on Local Administrative Data in China

There is no consensus on the judgment of the adequacy status of the old-age pension benefit in China at present. Therefore, clarification of various types of indicators and benchmarks of pension adequacy is urgently needed. According to the theoretical development of pension adequacy, this paper offers a comprehensive analysis of the benefit level of basic pension from the perspectives of poverty alleviation, income substitution, and financial sustainability. The calculation results based on local administrative data show that the current pension benefit in urban China is unbalanced: on the one hand, the average pension level of self and flexible employees cannot keep track of the local average consumption level or even the relative poverty standard in particular years and the individual replacement rates for a few nonstandard employees are less than the minimum standard of 40% set by the International Labor Organization, which means the pension benefit performs poorly in terms of consumption smoothing. On the other hand, the lifelong pension rights are much higher than the lifelong contribution obligations for new retirees. Under the trend of population ageing, the extremely high benefit–cost ratio means that the current retired generation is eroding the welfare of the current working generations, and the long-term financial sustainability of the pension system is facing challenges. In the future, in order to improve the benefit level of the basic old-age pension system in a sustainable way, we need to increase the average and individual replacement rates and reduce the benefit–cost ratio by consolidating contribution bases and delaying the number of contribution years.

DETECTING PRE-FRAILTY STATUS: COMPARISON OF CLINICAL JUDGMENTS AND THE PAULSON LICHTENBERG FRAILTY INDEX.

Nearly 50% of U.S. elders are prefrail and at risk for frailty. Identifying prefrail elders and escalating care could attenuate frailty progression. Screening tools are seldom used in practice. Thus, clinical judgment may be a realistic way to ensure widespread frailty screening. No studies, however, have assessed the validity of clinicians’ judgment in identifying prefrail elders. This study explored the level of agreement between clinical judgments of frailty status and status categorizations made using the validated Paulson Lichtenberg Frailty Index (PLFI). Older Blacks (n = 202) recruited from a primary care clinic were first categorized as healthy, pre-frail, or frail using the PLFI. Next, geriatric physicians and nurses categorized participants into one of the same categories based on clinical judgment. Clinicians could use medical records to make determinations. We used Cohen’s Kappa to determine the level of agreement of both approaches. We used descriptive statistics to explore if any of the 5 PLFI indicators explained discordant categorizations. Of the 202 participants (mean age: 76.7 8.6), 52 (26%) were prefrail and 57 (28%) were frail based on the PLFI. Physicians’ judgments aligned with the PLFI in 43% of prefrail and 65.7% of frail cases. Nurse judgments aligned with the PLFI in 43.9% of prefrail and 17% of frail cases. There was slight to fair agreement between clinical judgments and PLFI (physicians Cohen’s κ = .23; Nurses Cohen’s κ = .59). No specific PLFI indicators independently explained discordant categorizations. Findings suggest that clinical judgments did not align well with PLFI categorizations.

Leveraging implicit expert knowledge for non-circular machine learning in sepsis prediction.

Sepsis is the leading cause of death in non-coronary intensive care units. Moreover, a delay of antibiotic treatment of patients with severe sepsis by only few hours is associated with increased mortality. This insight makes accurate models for early prediction of sepsis a key task in machine learning for healthcare. Previous approaches have achieved high AUROC by learning from electronic health records where sepsis labels were defined automatically following established clinical criteria. We argue that the practice of incorporating the clinical criteria that are used to automatically define ground truth sepsis labels as features of severity scoring models is inherently circular and compromises the validity of the proposed approaches. We propose to create an independent ground truth for sepsis research by exploiting implicit knowledge of clinical practitioners via an electronic questionnaire which records attending physicians' daily judgements of patients' sepsis status. We show that despite its small size, our dataset allows to achieve state-of-the-art AUROC scores. An inspection of learned weights for standardized features of the linear model lets us infer potentially surprising feature contributions and allows to interpret seemingly counterintuitive findings.

Perceptual contributions to racial bias in pain recognition.

The pain of Black Americans is systematically underdiagnosed and undertreated, compared to the pain of their White counterparts. Extensive research has examined the psychological factors that might account for such biases, including status judgments, racial prejudice, and stereotypes about biological differences between Blacks and Whites. Across seven experiments, we accumulated evidence that lower-level perceptual processes also uniquely contribute to downstream racial biases in pain recognition. We repeatedly observed that White participants showed more stringent thresholds for perceiving pain on Black faces, compared to White faces. A tendency to see painful expressions on Black faces less readily arose, in part, from a disruption in configural processing associated with other-race faces. Subsequent analyses revealed that this racial bias in pain perception could not be easily attributed to stimulus features (e.g., color, luminance, or contrast), subjective evaluations related to pain tolerance and experience (e.g., masculinity, dominance, etc.), or objective differences in face structure and expression intensity between Black and White faces. Finally, we observed that racial biases in perception facilitated biases in pain treatment decisions, and that this relationship existed over and above biased judgments of status and strength, explicit racial bias, and endorsement of false beliefs regarding biological differences. A meta-analysis across 9 total experiments (N = 1,289) confirmed the robustness and size of these effects. This research establishes a subtle, albeit influential, perceptual pathway to intergroup bias in pain care and treatment. Implications for racial bias, face perception, and medical treatment are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Interplay Between Economic Status and Attractiveness, and the Importance of Attire in Mate Choice Judgments.

Desirable characteristics of “opposite sex others,” such as physical attractiveness and economic status, can influence how individuals are judged, and this is different for men and women. However, under various social contexts where cues of higher or lower economic status is suggested, sex differences in judgments related to mate choice have not been fully explored. In two studies, ratings of economic status and attractiveness were quantified for male and female targets that were presented under various social contexts. Study 1 assessed judgments (n = 1,359) of images of nine male and nine female targets in different sized groups containing only opposite-sex others (i.e., group size). While we found no significant effects of group size on male and female attractiveness, target female economic status increased when surrounded by two or more men. An ad hoc analysis controlling for the attire of the targets (business or casual) found that the association between target female economic status and group size occurred when females were in business attire. Study 2 investigates this effect further by presenting images of 12 males and 12 females, in higher and lower status attire (i.e., business and casual clothing) and measured judgments of attractiveness and economic status among women and men (n = 1,038). Consistent with the results of Study 1, female economic status was only affected when women were in business attire. However, female economic status decreased when in the presence of other men in business attire. There were no sex differences in judgments of economic status when judging stimuli in casual attire. Additionally, negative associations between attractiveness and economic status were found for males presented in casual attire. We discuss these results in the light of evolutionary sexual conflict theory by demonstrating how the asymmetrical importance of status between men and women can influence mate choice judgments.

A real‐time traffic index model for expressways

SummaryIn this paper, a real‐time traffic index model of expressways is proposed by using a traffic index to evaluate the actual conditions of expressways. The model considers the actual situation of floating and nonfloating vehicles on expressways, in the context of massive floating car data. Included is the realization of the complete calculation model of real‐time traffic index estimation, including highway section division, spatial topology map matching, driving route calculation, and road congestion status judgment. For roads without floating car coverage, the weighted‐moving‐average time‐series prediction method is used to predict the traffic index, so that the running condition of all roads in the network can be analyzed completely. The simulation results show that the proposed highway traffic index can reflect not only the overall high‐speed operation but also real‐time congestion at specific high‐speed or specific highway intervals, providing an effective reference for travel.

Genetic Optimization Method of Pantograph and Catenary Comprehensive Monitor Status Prediction Model Based on Adadelta Deep Neural Network

The status of the Pantograph and Catenary is the guarantee for the safe operation of the railway. However, the traditional Pantograph and Catenary status judgment efficiency is not satisfactory, and it is impossible to timely repair the catenary, which may lead to the greater economic loss. In this paper, a new GA-ADNN-based (genetic algorithm-Adadelta deep neural network-based) optimization method for the prediction model for catenary comprehensive pantograph and catenary monitor (CPCM) status is proposed. According to the status values of the CPCM parameters such as height, stagger, hard point, contact force, and height difference within span, the status value of the pillars in the catenary has been calculated by the analytic hierarchy process, and then the prediction model for predicting catenary CPCM status has been established and then optimized by genetic algorithm to avoid prediction model falling into local optimum. Finally, the CPCM test parameters of each pillar of the catenary in the actual example are input and the CPCM status value of the corresponding pillar is predicted. With the smallest prediction error found, the genetic algorithm is used for optimization, the optimal learning rate of the prediction model is 0.0559, and the optimal number of the hidden layer of the CPCM status prediction model is determined to be 14. The experimental results show the feasibility of GA-ADNN-based prediction model for predicting the catenary CPCM status, and that compared with the support vector machine and traditional artificial neural network prediction methods, the GA-ADNN-based prediction model has higher prediction precision and better generalization ability.

“I Believe in Cusk”: The Effect of Explicit Belief Statements on Children’s Reality Status Judgments and Beliefs about Consensus

ABSTRACTChildren learn about the world through others’ testimony, and much of this knowledge likely comes from parents. Furthermore, parents may sometimes want children to share their beliefs about topics on which there is no universal consensus. In discussing such topics, parents may use explicit belief statements (e.g., “Evolution is real”) or implicit belief statements (e.g., “Evolution happened over millions of years”). But little research has investigated how such statements affect children’s beliefs. In the current study, 4- to 7-year-olds (N = 102) were shown videos of their parent providing either Explicit (“Cusk is real”) or Implicit (“I know about cusk”) belief testimony about novel entities. Then, children heard another speaker provide either Denial (“Cusk isn’t real”) or Neutral (“I’ve heard of cusk”) testimony. Children made reality status judgments and consensus judgments (i.e., whether people agree about the entity’s existence). Results showed that explicit and implicit belief statements differentially influenced children’s beliefs about societal consensus when followed by a denial: explicit belief statements prevented children from drawing the conclusion that there is societal consensus that the entity does not exist. This effect was not related to age, indicating that children as young as 4 use these cues to inform consensus judgments. On the reality status task, there was an interaction with age, showing that only 4-year-olds were more likely to believe in an entity after hearing explicit belief statements. These findings suggest that explicit belief statements may serve as important sources of both children’s beliefs about novel entities and societal consensus.

The world may not be just for you but you'd better not say it: On the social value of expressing personal belief in a just world

AbstractThe expression of personal belief in a just world (PBJW) has been discussed as a criterion of excellence in social judgments. In four experimental studies we hypothesized and found that targets who express high versus low PBJW are judged as more: (i) deserving of success and (ii) suited to socio‐organizational expectations. The four studies show that suitability to socio‐organizational expectations mediates the relation between PBJW expressed and success deservingness, even after controlling for judgments of likability, status, rationality, optimism, and targets as victims. Studies 2 and 3 show this pattern occurs regardless of target performance appraisal. Study 4 indicates that expressing low PBJW decreases the social value of individuals, but expressing high PBJW does not increase it. We discuss the impact of PBJW expression on people's lives, namely on upward social mobility of members of low‐status groups, and the influence of the negativity bias on judgments caused by PBJW expression.

Still life? Children’s understanding of the reality status of museum taxidermy

Taxidermied animals provide an important source of information about the natural world, but failure to understand their reality status may result in missed learning opportunities for museum visitors. This study explored 4–10-year-old children’s and adults’ (N = 207) reality status judgments and biological and authenticity property attributions for a taxidermied rabbit during a museum visit. The aim was to examine their understanding of its former status as a living animal and its current status as an authentic piece of natural history, under different presentation conditions: (a) as a touchable exhibit; (b) inside an exhibition case—untouchable; and (c) in an experimental context paired with a toy rabbit—both touchable. Analysis revealed that there was an increase with age both in judgments that taxidermy was real and authentic and in accuracy of biological property attributions. The toy condition resulted in more accurate reality judgments, whereas the touchable condition resulted in more accurate biological property attributions. There was no effect of age or condition on authenticity property attributions. Accuracy of biological property attributions was also associated with reality status judgments, whereby understanding the real and authentic nature of taxidermy was associated with understanding its biological status. Implications for the development of biological cognition and museum learning are discussed.

The perception of status: How we infer the status of others from their social relationships

AbstractThis paper investigates how we infer the status of others from their social relationships. In a series of experimental studies, we test the effects of a social relationship's type and direction on the status judgments of others. We demonstrate empirically, possibly for the first time, a widely-assumed connection between network structure and perceptions of status; that is, that observers do infer the status positions of group members from their relationships. Moreover, we find that observers' status judgments vary with the direction and type of social relationship. We theorize that underlying this variance in status judgments are two relational schemas which differentially influence the processing of the observed social ties. Our finding that only the linear-ordering schema leads to status inferences provides an important scope condition to prior research on network cognition, and specifically on the perceptions of social status.

Explanation classification depends on understanding: extending the epistemic side-effect effect

Our goal in this paper is to experimentally investigate whether folk conceptions of explanation are psychologistic. In particular, are people more likely to classify speech acts as explanations when they cause understanding in their recipient? The empirical evidence that we present suggests this is so. Using the side-effect effect as a marker of mental state ascriptions, we argue that lay judgments of explanatory status are mediated by judgments of a speaker’s and/or audience’s mental states. First, we show that attributions of both understanding and explanation exhibit a side-effect effect. Next, we show that when the speaker’s and audience’s level of understanding is stipulated, the explanation side-effect effect goes away entirely. These results not only extend the side-effect effect to attributions of understanding, they also suggest that attributions of explanation exhibit a side-effect effect because they depend upon attributions of understanding, supporting the idea that folk conceptions of explanation are psychologistic.

Application of CCD drift-scan photoelectric technique on monitoring GEO satellites

Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites are widely used because of their unique characteristics of high-orbit and remaining permanently in the same area of the sky. Precise monitoring of GEO satellites can provide a key reference for the judgment of satellite operation status, the capture and identification of targets, and the analysis of collision warning. The observation using ground-based optical telescopes plays an important role in the field of monitoring GEO targets. Different from distant celestial bodies, there is a relative movement between the GEO target and the background reference stars, which makes the conventional observation method limited for long focal length telescopes. CCD drift-scan photoelectric technique is applied on monitoring GEO targets. In the case of parking the telescope, the good round images of the background reference stars and the GEO target at the same sky region can be obtained through the alternating observation of CCD drift-scan mode and CCD stare mode, so as to improve the precision of celestial positioning for the GEO target. Observation experiments of GEO targets were carried out with 1.56-meter telescope of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. The results show that the application of CCD drift-scan photoelectric technique makes the precision of observing the GEO target reach the level of 0.2″, which gives full play to the advantage of the long focal length of the telescope. The effect of orbit improvement based on multi-pass of observations is obvious and the prediction precision of extrapolating to 72-h is in the order of several arc seconds in azimuth and elevation.

Eye Gaze and Head Posture Jointly Influence Judgments of Dominance, Physical Strength, and Anger

Social status hierarchies are a universal principle of organization in human societies. Status judgments are often influenced by perceptions of the face and posture. Two important nonverbal cues of social status are head postures and eye gaze. Prior research has shown contradictory results and little is known about the interaction of these two cues. Study 1 investigated how eye gaze (direct vs. averted) and head postures (bowed vs. neutral vs. raised) impact judgments of dominance and physical strength. Judgments of dominance were influenced more than judgments of physical strength. Furthermore, raised heads implied dominance and strength, but in contrast to common assumptions, a bowed head conveyed dominance if the eyes gazed at the observer. Study 2 showed that bowed heads with direct gaze conveyed anger, potentially explaining the increased judgments of dominance. Taken together, the results show that head posture and gaze interactively modulated status-related traits and emotions, namely, dominance, strength, and anger, and help clarify prior incompatible findings on head postures and eye gaze.

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover: Examiner Expectancy Effects Predict Neuropsychological Performance for Individuals Judged as Chronic Cannabis Users.

The experimenter expectancy effect confound remains largely unexplored in neuropsychological research and has never been investigated among cannabis users. This study investigated whether examiner expectancies of cannabis user status affected examinees' neuropsychological performance. Participants included 41 cannabis users and 20 non-users. Before testing, examiners who were blind to participant user status privately rated whether they believed the examinee was a cannabis user or non-user. Examiners then administered a battery of neuropsychological and performance validity measures. Multiple regression analyses compared performance between examinees judged as cannabis users (n = 37) and those judged as non-users (n = 24). Examiners' judgments of cannabis users were 75% accurate; judgments of non-users were at chance. After controlling for age, gender, and actual user status, examiner judgments of cannabis user status predicted performance on two measures (California Verbal Learning Test-II, and Trail Making Test B; p < .05), as individuals judged as cannabis users obtained lower scores than those judged as non-users. Examiners' judgments of cannabis user status predicted performance even after controlling for actual user status, indicating vulnerability to examiner expectancy effects. These findings have important implications for both research and clinical settings, as scores may partially reflect examiners' expectations regarding cannabis effects rather than participants' cognitive abilities. These results demonstrate the need for expectancy effect research in the neuropsychological assessment of all populations, not just cannabis users.

PMU Measurement-Based Intelligent Strategy for Power System Controlled Islanding

Controlled islanding is an effective remedy to prevent large-area blackouts in a power system under a critically unstable condition. When and where to separate the power system are the essential issues facing controlled islanding. In this paper, both tasks are studied to ensure higher time efficiency and a better post-splitting restoration effect. A transient stability assessment model based on extreme learning machine (ELM) and trajectory fitting (TF) is constructed to determine the start-up criterion for controlled islanding. This model works through prompt stability status judgment with ELM and selective result amendment with TF to ensure that the assessment is both efficient and accurate. Moreover, a splitting surface searching algorithm, subject to minimal power disruption, is proposed for determination of the controlled islanding implementing locations. A highlight of this algorithm is a proposed modified electrical distance concept defined by active power magnitude and reactance on transmission lines that realize a computational burden reduction without feasible solution loss. Finally, the simulation results and comparison analysis based on the New England 39-bus test system validates the implementation effects of the proposed controlled islanding strategy.

Hepatic Function during Repeated TACE Procedures and Prognosis after Introducing Sorafenib in Patients with Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Multicenter Analysis

Background/Aim: We evaluated the relationship of hepatic function with repeated transarterial catheter chemoembolization (TACE) and prognosis after sorafenib treatment in various patient cohorts. Methods: Study 1 comprised of 212 Barcelona clinic liver cancer stage-B (BCLC-B) HCC patients classified as Child-Pugh A (CP-A) and who had received repeated TACE treatments (r-TACE) (naïve:recurrence = 66:146). Study 2 comprised of 435 patients with unresectable HCC classified as CP-A in who sorafenib was introduced (naïve:recurrence = 37:398; CP score 5:6 = 282:153; macro-vessel invasion [MVI]+: extrahepatic metastasis [EHM]+ both negative = 124:226:143). Changes in hepatic function along with CP and albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) score/grade during r-TACE in Study 1, and prognosis after introducing sorafenib in Study 2 were evaluated. Results: Hepatic function worsened to CP-B in 9-14% with each TACE procedure, while 18-21% had a change of classification from ALBI-1 to ALBI-2. When the prognosis of patients with the best CP score of 5 was analyzed, those with ALBI-1 (n = 154) had a better outcome than those with ALBI-2 (n = 128) (MST 17.5 vs. 9.9 months; p = 0.01), while ALBI-1 (n = 43) patients also showed a better outcome than ALBI-2 (n = 34) patients with a CP score of 5 without MVI/EHM (MST: 17.5 vs. 10.0 months; p = 0.029). The Akaike's Information criterion for ALBI-grade (MST: grade 1 vs. 2 = 16.9 vs. 10.4 months; p = 0.001) was also better than that for CP (MST: score 5 vs. 6 = 14.4 vs. 10.5 months; p = 0.003) (3195.6 vs. 3197.5) in all 435 patients. Conclusion: The rate of patients with downgraded hepatic function during r-TACE, especially with regard to ALBI-grade, was not low. ALBI-grade was shown to be a better hepatic function assessment tool than CP in patients receiving sorafenib treatment. Strict judgment of TACE-refractory status in patients with unresectable HCC is needed to improve prognosis before downgrading the hepatic function.

The development and experimental study of the Ballast in situ Sediment Acoustic Measurement System

A ballast in situ sediment acoustic measurement system (BISAMS) was newly developed. The mechanical structure, the function modules, the working principles, and a sea trial will be reported in this study. The system relies on its own weight to insert transducers into seafloor sediments and can accurately measure the penetration depth using a specially designed mechanism. The system comprises an underwater position monitoring and working status judgment module and has two operation modes: self-contained measurement and real-time visualization. The designed maximum working water depth of the system is 3000 m, and the maximum measured depth of seafloor sediment is 0.8 m. The system has 1 transmitting transducers and 3 receiving transducers. The transmitting frequency band is 20–120 kHz. The in situ acoustic measurement system was tested at 15 stations in the northern South China Sea, and the repeated measurements in seawater demonstrated good working performance. Comparison with predictions from empirical equations indicated that the measured speed of sound and attenuation matched with the predicted values and that the in situ measured data were reliable.A ballast in situ sediment acoustic measurement system (BISAMS) was newly developed. The mechanical structure, the function modules, the working principles, and a sea trial will be reported in this study. The system relies on its own weight to insert transducers into seafloor sediments and can accurately measure the penetration depth using a specially designed mechanism. The system comprises an underwater position monitoring and working status judgment module and has two operation modes: self-contained measurement and real-time visualization. The designed maximum working water depth of the system is 3000 m, and the maximum measured depth of seafloor sediment is 0.8 m. The system has 1 transmitting transducers and 3 receiving transducers. The transmitting frequency band is 20–120 kHz. The in situ acoustic measurement system was tested at 15 stations in the northern South China Sea, and the repeated measurements in seawater demonstrated good working performance. Comparison with predictions from empirical eq...