“Blue Sky Effect”: Contextual Influences on Pupil Size During Naturalistic Visual Search

Pupil size is influenced by cognitive and non-cognitive factors. One of the strongest modulators of pupil size is scene luminance, which complicates studies of cognitive pupillometry in environments with complex patterns of visual stimulation. To help understand how dynamic visual scene statistics influence pupil size during an active visual search task in a visually rich 3D virtual environment (VE), we analyzed the correlation between pupil size and intensity changes of image pixels in the red, green, and blue (RGB) channels within a large window (~14 degrees) surrounding the gaze position over time. Overall, blue and green channels had a stronger influence on pupil size than the red channel. The correlation maps were not consistent with the hypothesis of a foveal bias for luminance, instead revealing a significant contextual effect, whereby pixels above the gaze point in the green/blue channels had a disproportionate impact on pupil size. We hypothesized this differential sensitivity of pupil responsiveness to blue light from above as a “blue sky effect,” and confirmed this finding with a follow-on experiment with a controlled laboratory task. Pupillary constrictions were significantly stronger when blue was presented above fixation (paired with luminance-matched gray on bottom) compared to below fixation. This effect was specific for the blue color channel and this stimulus orientation. These results highlight the differential sensitivity of pupillary responses to scene statistics in studies or applications that involve complex visual environments and suggest blue light as a predominant factor influencing pupil size.

THE WORD MERCY AND ITS DERIVATIVES IN THE QURAN IS A ‎CONTEXTUAL SEMANTIC STUDY

This research deals with the word mercy and its derivatives in the Qur'an, a contextual semantic ‎study, where the search tries to answer a key question about the semantic and contextual effect ‎of the word mercy and its derivatives in the Holy Quran,‎ Qur'anic studies have taken an important place between linguistic and semantic studies, because ‎of their association with the Qur'an and its place in people; semantic studies are one of these ‎studies, because of their importance in revealing the meanings of the text and its semantics. This ‎research is intended to show the significance of this word and its derivatives in the Qur'an and its ‎relation to it in the Qur'anic context and the connotations that have emerged from it, and the ‎opinions of scholars and interpreters around it and to show differences in their semantic ‎semantics, both grammatically, purely, and contextualally‎.

The Emerging Contextual Effect of University Spin-offs and its Role in Spurring Innovation in Regional Area

The technology and knowledge transfer from university to industry has raised the attention of policy makers and practitioners as fundamental process in promoting the development of regional innovation and entrepreneurship. University Spin-Offs (USOs), firms established to commercialize the knowledge and technology outcomes of academic research, may constitutes an effective mechanism to improve the innovative dynamics in the regional area. The paper explores the assumption that USOs may partially determine the innovation of regions they are located. From a panel sample of 944 USOs placed in 20 Italian administrative regions, the findings remark that USOs (analysed as [1] number of USOs from each University and [2] patents activity of USOs) has a positive impact on the regional innovation in term of regional patent applications, while a weak role of USOs seems to emerge in term of regional expenditure in R&D. JEL classification numbers: O30, O32. Keywords: University Spin-Offs, Regional innovation, Entrepreneurial University, Italy.

The Emerging Contextual Effect of University Spin-offs and its Role in Spurring Innovation in Regional Area

The technology and knowledge transfer from university to industry has raised the attention of policy makers and practitioners as fundamental process in promoting the development of regional innovation and entrepreneurship. University Spin-Offs (USOs), firms established to commercialize the knowledge and tech-nology outcomes of academic research, may constitutes an effective mechanism to improve the innovative dynamics in the regional area. The paper explores the as-sumption that USOs may partially determine the innovation of regions they are located. From a panel sample of 944 USOs placed in 20 Italian administrative re-gions, the findings remark that USOs (analysed as [1] number of USOs from each University and [2] patents activity of USOs) has a positive impact on the regional innovation in term of regional patent applications, while a weak role of USOs seems to emerge in term of regional expenditure in R&D. JEL classification numbers: O30, O32. Keywords: University Spin-Offs, Regional innovation, Entrepreneurial University, Italy.

128Study data within systematic reviews of intensive care interventions analysed as a cluster randomized trial

Focus of Presentation Cluster randomized trials (CRT) can address infectious disease research questions at the whole-of-population level, such as herd protection and herd peril effects, that cannot be answered within randomized controlled trials. For adequate power, ideally, a CRT will have at least 40 clusters. Findings Studies of decontamination (using either chlorhexidine or topical antibiotics) to prevent ICU-acquired infections among adult patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation (MV) have been summarized in > 15 systematic reviews. Of 83 studies of topical antibiotics, 69 had concurrent control (CC) versus non-concurrent control (NCC; n = 14) design (Figure below; solid symbols are intervention group patients). The mean ICU pneumonia incidence for topical antibiotic study CC control groups (34.5%; 95% CI, 29.1-40.4) is higher versus a literature benchmark (26.1%; 23.3%-29.1%), and versus NCC control groups (29.9%; 21.4-40.4) and versus chlorhexidine study CC control groups (25.5%; 19.6 – 32.5; n = 17). Conclusions/Implications Benchmarking the event rates among control groups versus the event rate among non-intervention studies for MV patients provide a measure of the contextual effect of the intervention. Differing intervention effects for studies with CC versus NCC design implicates herd effects. Key messages Systematic reviews of interventions that include studies with CC versus NCC design provide a natural experiment of contextual effects where their study otherwise would be difficult or, for adverse herd effects, unethical.

Community-Level Participation in Volunteer Groups and Individual Depressive Symptoms in Japanese Older People: A Three-Year Longitudinal Multilevel Analysis Using JAGES Data

Background: The current study aimed to investigate the contextual effect of volunteer group participation on subsequent depressive symptoms in older people. Methods: We analyzed the longitudinal data of 37,552 people aged 65 years and older in 24 municipalities surveyed in the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study. Volunteer group participation of older people was assessed in 2013 by one question and depressive symptoms were assessed by the Geriatric Depression Scale 15 in 2016. To investigate a contextual effect, we aggregated individual-level volunteer group participation by each residence area as a community-level independent variable. We conducted a two-level multilevel Poisson regression analysis using the Random Intercepts and Fixed Slopes Model. Results: The average proportion of community-level volunteer group participation was 10.6%. The results of the Poisson regression analysis showed that community-level volunteer group participation reduced the risk for the onset of depressive symptoms by 13% with a 10 percentage point increase in participation, after adjusting for sex, age, population density, total annual sunshine hours and annual rainfall (incident rate ratio, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.78–0.98). Conclusions: Older people living in areas with higher volunteer group participation had a lower risk of developing depressive symptoms regardless of whether or not they participated in a volunteer group.

Factors Associated With Protection of Last Live Birth Against Neonatal Tetanus Among Mother Age 15-49 in Ethiopia: A Multilevel Analysis Using EDHS 2016

Background: Neonatal tetanus is still the major public health problem in about 25 countries, mainly in Africa. Ethiopia has the highest neonatal tetanus mortality and morbidity rates in the world due to low TT immunization coverage coupled with the high amount of deliveries taking place at home. In Ethiopia, only 49% of the pregnant mothers received TT2+ in 2016. Objective: The objective of this study is to identify individual and community level factors associated with protections of last live birth against neonatal tetanus among mothers 15-49 years age in Ethiopia, evidence from Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey 2016. Methods: The data for this study was obtained from Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey of 2016. Population based cross-sectional study was conducted. The data were analyzed using Stata version 14. Variables that were significant in the bivariate multilevel logistic regression analysis were entered to the final model. Variables with p-value of less than 0.05 in the final model were considered as statistically significant. Interclass correlation coefficient and proportional change in variance were used to quantify the magnitude of the general contextual effect. Receiver operating characteristics curve was used to assess general accuracy of the model. Relative goodness-of-fit test was conducted using akaike’s information criterion.Results: This study depicted that, a total of 7193 women nested in 643 clusters were included in the analysis. The odds of protection of last live birth against neonatal tetanus were 1.27 and 1.53 times higher in mothers with poorer and richer respectively than mothers with poorest wealth index. Mothers who had antenatal care visit one and above had 12.3 times higher odds of protections of neonatal tetanus than those who had no antenatal care visits. The other significantly associated factors were place of delivery, region and community media exposure.Conclusion and recommendation: It can be concluded from the current study that protection of last live birth against neonatal tetanus is affected both by the individual and community level factors. Therefore, efforts to increase protection of last live birth against neonatal tetanus need to target both at individual and community level factors.

The impact of the local conservative climate on generalised trust in Sweden

The rise of the radical right parties, with their anti-immigrant rhetoric, may amplify the generally observed negative impact of diversity on generalised trust. The impact of the conservative climate created by these parties is apparent at the national level, but the little research carried out in the field has yet to examine the role of their local political power. In Sweden, the literature suggests that the radical right Sweden Democrats party has a stronger anti-immigration and ethnonationalist rhetoric at the local level, which may reduce the generalised trust of residents by triggering conflict theory. Calculating the conservative climate based on the percentage of party representatives on local councils using multi-level modelling, we observe that the contextual effect of the conservative climate is present and reduces generalised trust. However, the underlying cause of this effect is not fully known. It can be traced back to the party’s local politics, the residents and the local media.

Community-level Educational Attainment and Dementia: A 6-year Longitudinal Multilevel Study in Japan

Background:Understanding of the association between community-level socioeconomic status and dementia is insufficient. We examined the contextual effect of community-level prevalence of lower educational attainment on the risk of dementia incidence. This work further explored the potential differences in associations for urban and non-urban areas. Methods:We analyzed a six-year prospective cohort data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study, a nationwide survey between 2010 and 2012 of 49,888 (23,339 men and 26,549 women) physically and cognitively independent individuals aged ≥65 years from 346 communities at 16 municipalities in seven prefectures. Dementia incidence was assessed through the public long-term care insurance system by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare in Japan. Educational years were dichotomized as ≤9 years and ≥10 years. We classified urban and non-urban areas using a Functional Urban Area defined by the European Union (EU) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). We performed a two-level (community- and individual-level) multilevel survival analysis to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results:The cumulative incidence of dementia during the follow-up period was 10.3%. The mean proportion of educational attainment with ≤9 years was 41.1% (range, 4.7%–88.4%). Higher prevalence of community-level lower educational attainment had a significant association with a higher risk of dementia incidence (HR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.00–1.06, estimated by 10 percentage points of lower educational attainment) post adjusting for individual-level educational years, age, sex, income, residential years, disease, alcohol, smoking, social isolation, and population density. The association was significant in non-urban areas (HR, 1.05; 95% CI, 1.00–1.10). Conclusions:Older people living in communities with a higher prevalence of less educational attainment among their age demographic tended to develop dementia more often than those living in areas with a lower prevalence of less educational attainment after adjusting for individual-level educational attainment and covariates. In particular, the association was more pronounced in non-urban areas than in urban areas. Securing education for adolescence as a life course and population approach could thus be crucial to prevent dementia later in life among all older people living in non-urban areas.