Quantifying ADHD Symptoms in Open-Ended Everyday Life Contexts With a New Virtual Reality Task

Objective: To quantify goal-directed behavior and ADHD symptoms in naturalistic conditions, we developed a virtual reality task, EPELI (Executive Performance in Everyday LIving), and tested its predictive, discriminant and concurrent validity. Method: We collected EPELI data, conventional neuropsychological task data, and parent-ratings of executive problems and symptoms in 38 ADHD children and 38 typically developing controls. Results: EPELI showed predictive validity as the ADHD group exhibited higher percentage of irrelevant actions reflecting lower attentional-executive efficacy and more controller movements and total game actions, both indicative of hyperactivity-impulsivity. Further, the five combined EPELI measures showed excellent discriminant validity (area under curve 88 %), while the correlations of the EPELI efficacy measure with parent-rated executive problems (r = .57) and ADHD symptoms (r = .55) pointed to its concurrent validity. Conclusion: We provide a proof-of-concept validation for a new virtual reality tool for ecologically valid assessment of ADHD symptoms.

Fully Automated Quantitative Measurement of Serum Organic Acids via LC-MS/MS for the Diagnosis of Organic Acidemias: Establishment of an Automation System and a Proof-of-Concept Validation

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry has been widely used to analyze hundreds of organic acids in urine to provide a diagnostic basis for organic acidemia. However, it is difficult to operate in clinical laboratories on a daily basis due to sample pretreatment processing. Therefore, we aimed to develop a fully automated system for quantifying serum organic acids using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The pretreatment CLAM-2030 device was connected to an LC-MS/MS system for processing serum under optimized conditions, which included derivatizing serum organic acids using 3-Nitrophenylhydrazine. The derivatized organic acids were separated on a reverse-phase Sceptor HD-C column and detected using negative-ion electrospray ionization multiple reaction monitoring MS. The automated pretreatment-LC-MS/MS system processed serum in less than 1 h and analyzed 19 serum organic acids, which are used to detect organic acidemias. The system exhibited high quantitative sensitivity ranging from approximately 2 to 100 µM with a measurement reproducibility of 10.4% CV. Moreover, a proof-of-concept validation of the system was performed using sera from patients with propionic acidemia (n = 5), methylmalonic acidemia (n = 2), and 3-methylcrotonylglycinuria (n = 1). The levels of marker organic acids specific to each disease were significantly elevated in the sera of the patients compared to those in control samples. The automated pretreatment-LC-MS/MS system can be used as a rapid in-hospital system to measure organic acid levels in serum for the diagnosis of organic acidemias.

Development of Responsibility Character Instruments for Junior High School Students

The aims of this study is to produce an instrument for measuring the character of responsibility in students. The type of research is research and development. In this study there are 10 steps that must be taken, namely: (1) setting the test objectives; (2) analysis of books and other learning resources, (3) making grids; (4) writing questions; (5) examine the questions (concept validation); (6) revision or improvement of questions; (7) limited test reproduction; (8) test trials (for empirical validation); (9) analysis of test results (validity test); and (10) assemble the questions into tests. The validation test was carried out by 5 counseling guidance experts consisting of 3 counseling guidance lecturers and 2 counseling guidance teachers. The results of CVI and CVR data analysis were +1, which means 45 statements were stated as relevant. Based on the empirical validation test with product moment, it is known that rhit > rtab so that 45 statements can be declared valid. Furthermore, the results of the reliability test using the cronbach alpha technique obtained r11 = 1.0 with a very high category.

Emotion Recognition from Realistic Dynamic Emotional Expressions Cohere with Established Emotion Recognition Tests: A Proof-of-Concept Validation of the Emotional Accuracy Test

Individual differences in understanding other people’s emotions have typically been studied with recognition tests using prototypical emotional expressions. These tests have been criticized for the use of posed, prototypical displays, raising the question of whether such tests tell us anything about the ability to understand spontaneous, non-prototypical emotional expressions. Here, we employ the Emotional Accuracy Test (EAT), which uses natural emotional expressions and defines the recognition as the match between the emotion ratings of a target and a perceiver. In two preregistered studies (Ntotal = 231), we compared the performance on the EAT with two well-established tests of emotion recognition ability: the Geneva Emotion Recognition Test (GERT) and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). We found significant overlap (r > 0.20) between individuals’ performance in recognizing spontaneous emotions in naturalistic settings (EAT) and posed (or enacted) non-verbal measures of emotion recognition (GERT, RMET), even when controlling for individual differences in verbal IQ. On average, however, participants reported enjoying the EAT more than the other tasks. Thus, the current research provides a proof-of-concept validation of the EAT as a useful measure for testing the understanding of others’ emotions, a crucial feature of emotional intelligence. Further, our findings indicate that emotion recognition tests using prototypical expressions are valid proxies for measuring the understanding of others’ emotions in more realistic everyday contexts.

Muslim Wives’ Intention to Undertake an HIV test: A Conceptual Development

Background: The intention in the Theory of Planned Behavior is preceded by attitude, perceived control, and subjective norm. This theory had been applied to hundreds of studies from many disciplines. However, when a nurse applies this theory, it requires a detail description related to Muslim wives’ intention to undertake an HIV test. This detailed concept development will help nurses in employing the nursing process accurately to achieve the target of Prevention from Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) program. Purpose: The study aims to develop a model of Muslim wives’ intention to undertake an HIV test. Methods: Concept validation of Muslim wives’ intention to undertake an HIV test was traced by using keywords “intention”, “willingness”, “desire”, “HIV tests”, “readiness”, “commitment”, “woman and HIV/AIDS”, “awareness”, in EBSCO, CINAHL, and Proquest. Results: The concept of Muslim wives’ intention was developed from existing theories as deductive origin and literature reviews as an inductive origin. The concept consists of many antecedents that being categorized into two categories includes internal and external factors and six sub-categories as follows internal commitment, knowledge, ethical values, risk perception, demographic factor and subjective norms. Both attribute and consequence key words each have one category. Conclusion: The tentative model can be generalized for other settings or situations. There is no specification that this model just for a specific gender or specific situation.