Behavioral Profiles of Adolescent Alcohol-Preferring/Non-preferring (P/NP) and High/Low Alcohol-Drinking (HAD/LAD) Rats Are Dependent on Line but Not Sex

Initial contact with alcohol generally occurs during adolescence, and high consumption during this period is associated with increased risk for later alcohol (AUDs) and/or substance use disorders (SUDs). Rodents selectively bred for high or low alcohol consumption are used to identify behavioral characteristics associated with a propensity for high or low voluntary alcohol intake. The multivariate concentric square field™ (MCSF) is a behavioral test developed to study rodents in a semi-naturalistic setting. Testing in the MCSF creates a comprehensive behavioral profile in a single trial. The current aim was to examine the behavioral profiles of adolescent, bidirectionally selectively bred male and female high alcohol-consuming (P and HAD1/2) and low alcohol-consuming (NP and LAD1/2) rat lines, and outbred Wistar rats. Alcohol-naïve rats were tested once in the MCSF at an age between postnatal days 30 and 35. No common behavioral profile was found for either high or low alcohol-consuming rat lines, and the effect of sex was small. The P/NP and HAD2/LAD2 lines showed within pair-dependent differences, while the HAD1/LAD1 lines were highly similar. The P rats displayed high activity and risk-associated behaviors, whereas HAD2 rats displayed low activity, high shelter-seeking behavior, and open area avoidance. The results from P rats parallel clinical findings that denser family history and risk-taking behavior are strong predictors of future AUDs, often with early onset. Contrarily, the HAD2 behavioral profile was similar to individuals experiencing negative emotionality, which also is associated with a vulnerability to develop, often with a later onset, AUDs and/or SUDs.

A Study on Instructional Humor: How Much Humor Is Used in Presentations?

Humor is applied in pedagogy to create a positive learning environment. Recent research focuses on the theories, effects, individual differences, and qualitative aspects of humor for instruction. However, there is a lack of studies focusing on quantitative features. Therefore, this research explored the quantitative characteristics of instructional humor in a naturalistic setting and applied techniques from natural language processing (NLP). This paper describes the results of two studies. The first study focused on instructional humor frequency and the placement of humor, while the linguistic features of instructional humor and non-instructional humor were compared in the second study. Two corpora were used in this research: TED Talks and user-submitted jokes from “stupidstuff.org” The results found that educators used humor 12.92 times for popular talks, while less popular talks only had 3.92 times. Humor is also more commonly placed during the first parts of the talk and lessens toward the end. There were also significant differences between the linguistic features of instructional and non-instructional humor in terms of readability scores and sentiment. These results provide a substantial update on quantitative instructional humor research and help educators understand how to use humor in the classroom in terms of quantitative and linguistic features.

Facilitators Improve the Learning Experience of Visitors to a Science Centre

We studied how interactions with interpretative science centre staff impacts the learning behaviours and engagement levels of visitors who engage with exhibits at Science North (Sudbury, Canada). This study uses the Visitor-Based Learning Framework. The tool consists of seven discrete learning-associated behaviours that visitors show when engaging with exhibits, which are grouped into three categories of engagement: Initiation, Transition, and Breakthrough. These categories reflect increasing levels of engagement and depth of the learning experience. We studied forty-seven Science North exhibits, and 4,835 visitors to analyse the impact of unstructured facilitation in a naturalistic setting. We compared visitor Engagement Levels with and without a facilitator present. We determined that the presence of staff has a statistically significant impact on the percentage of visitors that engage in Breakthrough behaviours. When a facilitator is present, more visitors reach the Breakthrough Level of Engagement (p < 0.001). In the second phase of the study, we explored what facilitators do and say through thematic analysis to uncover common patterns of facilitator actions and comments. Our findings showed that facilitators employed strategies and methods that can be grouped in four categories or Facilitation Dimensions: Comfort, Information, Reflection, and Exhibit Use. These dimensions encompass different strategies and techniques of facilitation, that are used in a variety of situations and sequences. Our study goes beyond anecdotal evidence to show that staff-visitor interactions have a positive impact on visitor engagement with exhibits and therefore, potentially on visitor learning from exhibits. Our findings can be used to inform not only training programs but also managerial decisions and considerations around resource allocation. We suggest that facilitators are a fundamental asset for institutions that prioritize visitor engagement, one that should be given top priority when considering areas for investing.

Norms, affect and evaluation in the reception of literary translations in multilingual online reading communities

This article uses the Digital Opinions on Translated Literature (dioptra-l) corpus to study readers’ perceptions of and responses to translation in a naturalistic setting, focusing on the normative constructs or cognitive-evaluative templates they use to conceptualise, evaluate and respond to translations. We answer two main questions: (1) How visible, or salient, is the fact of translation to readers reading a translated literary text, and are there differences in the degree and nature of this visibility for different languages and translation directions? (2) What are the main concepts, and emotional and evaluative parameters that readers use to describe translated literary texts, and are there differences in these concepts and parameters when considered by different translation directionalities and genres? We make use of computational methods, including collocational network analysis, keyword analysis, and sentiment analysis to extract information about the salience of translation, and the networks of emotive and evaluative language that are used around the concept of translation. This forms the basis of our proposals for particular cognitive-evaluative templates.

Apixaban Discontinuation for Invasive Or major Surgical procedures (ADIOS): A prospective cohort study

Background: Apixaban pharmacokinetic properties and some clinical reports suggest cessation 48 hours prior to surgery is safe, but this has not been demonstrated in a naturalistic setting. We sought to measure the residual apixaban exposure in patients who had apixaban held as part of standard of care perioperative management. Methods: This was a prospective, observational study of patients in whom apixaban plasma concentration and anti-Xa activity were measured while at steady state apixaban dosing and again immediately prior to surgery. Clinical management of cessation and resumption of apixaban was at the discretion of the treating physician. Results: Paired blood samples were provided by 111 patients. Ninety-four percent (104/111) of patients had measured apixaban concentrations of ⩽ 30 ng/mL. Only one patient had a value > 50 ng/mL. The median time between the self-reported last dose and presurgery blood sampling was 76 hours (range 32–158) for those who achieved concentrations ⩽ 30 ng/mL and 59 hours (range 49–86) for those > 30 ng/mL. Measured anti-Xa activity correlated well with apixaban exposure. Clinically significant nonmajor bleeding was reported in one patient at 1 week postsurgery. There was one venous thromboembolic event and one stroke in the perioperative period. Conclusion: In a naturalistic setting with a heterogeneous patient population, apixaban discontinuation for at least 48 hours before a procedure resulted in a clinically insignificant degree of anticoagulation prior to a surgical procedure. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02935751

Naturalistic Topography Assessment in a Randomized Clinical Trial of Smoking Unfiltered Cigarettes: Challenges, Opportunities, and Recommendations

Smoking topography (ST) is a set of measures profiling the behavioral characteristics of smoking in various settings. The CReSS portable device can measure ST in the natural environment. No standard protocol exists for measuring ST longitudinally with the CReSS. This study examined the utilization of the CReSS to measure ST and highlights challenges and opportunities in a naturalistic setting. This study is part of a randomized cross-over clinical trial of smoking filtered or unfiltered cigarettes. Participants (n = 43) smoked in each study condition for two weeks using the CReSS device for five days in their naturalistic smoking setting. The devices were calibrated and cleaned during the washout period, and data were downloaded every visit. Five test puffs were administered to calibrate each device. Moderate compliance rates (74.1%) were found with device usage, and the issues encountered were overheating/clogging, incorrectly registered date/time-stamped data, and device repair/replacement. Routine inspection/cleaning and training in device usage were instrumental in mitigating device malfunctioning. The CReSS device proved to be a feasible tool to examine naturalistic smoking topography and the potential impact of changes in tobacco product design on smoking unfiltered cigarettes. This is the first study to examine ST variables longitudinally, measured at multiple time points, and using unfiltered cigarettes.

Language and Movement Synchronization in Dyadic Psychotherapeutic Interaction – A Qualitative Review and a Proposal for a Classification

In individual psychotherapy verbal communication and movement synchronization are closely interrelated. The microanalysis of timing, rhythm and gestalt of movement has established dynamic movement coordination as a systemic property of the dyadic interaction. Movement synchronization supports and enhances the unfolding of linguistic meaning. In order to substantiate the importance of the concept of synchrony for adult psychotherapy we review evidence from developmental psychology and discuss approaches to measure synchrony with particular reference to the naturalistic setting of dyadic psychotherapy. As the concept of synchrony is still ambiguous, and the respective interactional phenomena are ephemeral and fluid, in the current paper we suggest a set of five criteria for the description of synchronization in general terms and eight additional criteria which specifically enable the description of phenomena of movement synchronization. The five general dimensions are: (1) context, (2) modality, (3) resources, (4) entrainment, and (5) time-lag. The eight categories for the description of movement synchrony are: (1) spatial direction, (2) amplitude, (3) sinuosity, (4) duration, (5) event structure, (6) phase, (7) frequency, and (8) content. To understand the process of participatory sense-making and the emergence of meaning in psychotherapy, synchrony research has to cope with the multimodality of the embodied interaction. This requires an integrated perspective of movement and language. A system for the classification of synchrony phenomena may contribute to the linking of variations and patterns of movement with language and linguistic utterances.

The power of Dionysus—Effects of red wine on consciousness in a naturalistic setting

There is lack of research on effects of red wine on consciousness when drank in wine bars designed to enhance the pleasurableness of the wine drinking experience. Effects of a moderate dose of red wine (≈ 40.98 g of ethanol) on consciousness were examined in a naturalistic study taking place in a wine bar located in one of the most touristic areas of Lisbon, Portugal. One hundred two participants drank in one of three conditions: alone, in dyad, or in groups up to six people. Red wine increased pleasure and arousal, decreased the awareness of time, slowed the subjective passage of time, increased the attentional focus on the present moment, decreased body awareness, slowed thought speed, turned imagination more vivid, and made the environment become more fascinating. Red wine increased insightfulness and originality of thoughts, increased sensations of oneness with the environment, spiritual feelings, all-encompassing love, and profound peace. All changes in consciousness occurred regardless of volunteers drinking alone, in dyad or in group. Men and women did not report different changes in consciousness. Older age correlated with greater increases in pleasure. Younger age correlated with greater increases in fascination with the environment of the wine bar. Drinking wine in a contemporaneous Western environment designed to enhance the pleasurableness of the wine drinking experience may trigger changes in consciousness commonly associated with mystical-type states.

Naturalistic hyperscanning with wearable magnetoencephalography

The evolution of human cognitive function is reliant on complex social interactions which form the behavioural foundation of who we are. These social capacities are subject to dramatic change in disease and injury; yet their supporting neural substrates remain poorly understood. Hyperscanning employs functional neuroimaging to simultaneously assess brain activity in two individuals and offers the best means to understand the neural basis of social interaction. However, present technologies are limited, either by poor performance (low spatial/temporal precision) or unnatural scanning environment (claustrophobic scanners, with interactions via video). Here, we solve this problem by developing a new form of hyperscanning using wearable magnetoencephalography (MEG). This approach exploits quantum sensors for MEG signal detection, in combination with high-fidelity magnetic field control – afforded by a novel "matrix coil" system – to enable simultaneous scanning of two freely moving participants. We demonstrate our approach in a somatosensory task and an interactive ball game. Despite large and unpredictable subject motion, sensorimotor brain activity was delineated clearly in space and time, and correlation of the envelope of neuronal oscillations between people was demonstrated. In sum, unlike existing modalities, wearable-MEG combines high fidelity data acquisition and a naturalistic setting, which will facilitate a new generation of hyperscanning.