Influence of different types of real-time feedback on hand washing quality assessed with neural networks/simulated neural networks

Background: Thousands of people die every day around the world from infections acquired in a hospital. Hands are the main pathways of germ transmission during healthcare. Hand hygiene monitoring can be performed using various methods. One of the latest techniques that can combine all is a neural network-based hand hygiene monitoring system. Methods/Design: Each participant performed 3 hand-washing trials, each time receiving different type of feedback. The order in which each participant of the study used the developed applications was strictly defined, thus each hand-washing study session started with performing hand washing using application A, B and C accordingly. All captured videos of hand-wash episodes were saved and later analysed with neural networks. In the end, both evaluation results were compared and evaluated. Results show that when the participants use Application Type A, they perform hand washing much faster, as well as in comparison of Application Type A versus application type C. However, the longest time spent for the hand washing was detected while using the application type B. Conclusion: Study shows that structured guidance provided during the real time hand washing could be associated with better overall performance. The Application C has confirmed its effectiveness. Proving its advantage among other applications, the Application C can be integrated into the clinical environment

The Trajectory of Targets and Critical Lures in the Deese/Roediger–McDermott Paradigm: A Systematic Review

The Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm has been used extensively to examine false memory. During the study session, participants learn lists of semantically related items (e.g., pillow, blanket, tired, bed), referred to as targets. Critical lures are items which are also associated with the lists but are intentionally omitted from study (e.g., sleep). At test, when asked to remember targets, participants often report false memories for critical lures. Findings from experiments using the DRM show the ease with which false memories develop in the absence of suggestion or misinformation. Given this, it is important to examine factors which influence the generalizability of the findings. One important factor is the persistence of false memory, or how long false memories last. Therefore, we conducted a systemic review to answer this research question: What is the persistence of false memory for specific items in the DRM paradigm? To help answer this question our review had two research objectives: (1) to examine the trajectory of target memory and false memory for critical lures and (2) to examine whether memory for targets exceeded false memory for critical lures. We included empirical articles which tested memory for the same DRM lists with at least two testing sessions. We discuss the results with respect to single-session delays, long-term memory recall and recognition, remember and know judgments for memory, and the effect of development, valence, warning, and connectivity on the trajectory of memory. Overall, the trajectory of targets showed a relatively consistent pattern of decrease across delay. The trajectory of critical lures was inconsistent. The proportion of targets versus critical lures across delay was also inconsistent. Despite the inconsistencies, we conclude that targets and critical lures have a dissimilar trajectory across delay and that critical lures are more persistent than targets. The findings with respect to long-term recall and recognition are consistent with both Fuzzy Trace Theory and Associative-Activation Theory of the DRM effect. The generation of false memory with brief delays (3–4 s) is better explained by Associative-Activation Theory. Examining the connectivity between target items, and critical lures, and the effect that has during study and retrieval, can provide insight into the persistence of false memory for critical lures.

Can We Be at Peace With Unsolvable Suffering? A Qualitative Study Exploring the Effectiveness of Supportive Communication and Resilience Building

BackgroundSuper-aging, along with high death rates and limited social resources in Japan, has created an urgent need to assume responsibility for the wellbeing of older adults and patients who have reached the end of life in the local community. MethodsFrom January 2019 to December 2020, we held six workshops with the same contents of interpersonal assistance using the teaching materials provided by End-of-Life Care (ELC) Association. The study session lasted for 180 minutes: the first 90 minutes entailed a presentation on supportive communication. The last 90 minutes were centered on role-playing. The objective of the supportive communication was not to understand the other person perfectly but to lead suffering people to think of supporters an understanding people.The participants were asked to perform reflective journal writing immediately following each session to record their experiences and describe what they learned. We applied thematic analysis to the journal entries to identify key themes based on Kolb’s ELT (experiential learning theory). For the three-month follow-up, semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant to assess their self-perceived changes.ResultsReflective journal writing was completed by 152 participants. Using thematic analysis of the journal content immediately following the workshop, we identified two domains and 10 key themes based on participants’ perceptions. Participants realized the importance of using listening techniques, such as repetition and silence and understanding another person. Some mentioned they could ease their sense of weakness when helping those who are suffering, and that this awareness could be applied to work, grief care, and daily life.Three months post-experience interviews were completed with 28 of the original 152 participants who had completed reflective journal writing. Two domains and six key themes were generated. Some of the participants continued to practice listening with repetition and silence. Some of them also asked questions that could help strengthen the support for the sufferers. Changes in relationships between the participants and patients were identified. ConclusionUsing role-playing to teach supportive communication, such as listening attentively and accepting others by practicing repetition, silence, and asking, may be effective in encouraging supporters to confidently engage with people experiencing incurable suffering.

Hierarchical Temporal Multi-Instance Learning for Video-based Student Learning Engagement Assessment

Video-based automatic assessment of a student's learning engagement on the fly can provide immense values for delivering personalized instructional services, a vehicle particularly important for massive online education. To train such an assessor, a major challenge lies in the collection of sufficient labels at the appropriate temporal granularity since a learner's engagement status may continuously change throughout a study session. Supplying labels at either frame or clip level incurs a high annotation cost. To overcome such a challenge, this paper proposes a novel hierarchical multiple instance learning (MIL) solution, which only requires labels anchored on full-length videos to learn to assess student engagement at an arbitrary temporal granularity and for an arbitrary duration in a study session. The hierarchical model mainly comprises a bottom module and a top module, respectively dedicated to learning the latent relationship between a clip and its constituent frames and that between a video and its constituent clips, with the constraints on the training stage that the average engagements of local clips is that of the video label. To verify the effectiveness of our method, we compare the performance of the proposed approach with that of several state-of-the-art peer solutions through extensive experiments.

When do people lie, for whom, and why? : altruistic lying in an alibi corroboration context.

Three studies were conducted in order to identity factors that impact the likelihood that a witness will lie for a suspect in an alibi corroboration context. Specifically, the level of affinity between a suspect and a witness, the level of social pressure, and gender were investigated as factors impacting the likelihood that a witness would knowingly support a false alibi. During a study session purportedly intended to investigate dyadic problem-solving ability, a mock theft was staged in an adjacent office. When questioned by the experimenter, undergraduate students were provided the opportunity to either corroborate or refute a confederate’s false alibi that the latter had been in the testing room during the time of the theft, which participants knew was false. In study 1, participants who were explicitly asked to conceal the confederate’s whereabouts during the time of the theft were more likely to lie for him or her by corroborating the false alibi (61% vs. 26% of those who were not asked to lie). In study 2, there was a higher percentage of male participants who corroborated a male confederate’s false alibi (41%) compared to female participants who corroborated a female confederate’s false alibi (23%). In study 3, participants were found to be more likely to lie for a confederate when the latter was their friend (41%) than when he or she was a stranger (18%). How much a participant liked the suspect (study 1) and whether or not the suspect had previously helped the participant (study 2) did not affect the rates of false alibi corroboration. The results confirm that alibi witnesses often lie, but suggest that investigators and jurors may underestimate the frequency with which strangers and acquaintances lie for one another, and that witnesses who lie do so more often because they trust that the suspect is innocent rather than guilty.

When do people lie, for whom, and why? : altruistic lying in an alibi corroboration context.

Three studies were conducted in order to identity factors that impact the likelihood that a witness will lie for a suspect in an alibi corroboration context. Specifically, the level of affinity between a suspect and a witness, the level of social pressure, and gender were investigated as factors impacting the likelihood that a witness would knowingly support a false alibi. During a study session purportedly intended to investigate dyadic problem-solving ability, a mock theft was staged in an adjacent office. When questioned by the experimenter, undergraduate students were provided the opportunity to either corroborate or refute a confederate’s false alibi that the latter had been in the testing room during the time of the theft, which participants knew was false. In study 1, participants who were explicitly asked to conceal the confederate’s whereabouts during the time of the theft were more likely to lie for him or her by corroborating the false alibi (61% vs. 26% of those who were not asked to lie). In study 2, there was a higher percentage of male participants who corroborated a male confederate’s false alibi (41%) compared to female participants who corroborated a female confederate’s false alibi (23%). In study 3, participants were found to be more likely to lie for a confederate when the latter was their friend (41%) than when he or she was a stranger (18%). How much a participant liked the suspect (study 1) and whether or not the suspect had previously helped the participant (study 2) did not affect the rates of false alibi corroboration. The results confirm that alibi witnesses often lie, but suggest that investigators and jurors may underestimate the frequency with which strangers and acquaintances lie for one another, and that witnesses who lie do so more often because they trust that the suspect is innocent rather than guilty.

Assessing acute inhalation health risk caused by exposure to products created by nicotine-containing stuff consumption in enclosed spaces

Contemporary research reveals that electronic devices for nicotine consumption produce not so negative effects on health due to adverse chemicals being emitted in substantially lower quantities. Nevertheless, such consumption still results in emission of various organic and non-organic substances with their effects on health being rather unpredictable. It is necessary to conduct additional studies, including those focusing on passive smoking of electronic cigarettes and assessing health risks caused by exposure to them. Our research goal was to assess acute health risks caused by passive consumption of tobacco and nicotine-containing products. We built a model for tobacco or nicotine consumption by actual consumers (volunteers) and the process was evened as per a number of consumption sessions. We examined three products: tobacco cigarettes (cigarettes), electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS), and a tobacco heating system (IQOS). Background air quality parameters were measured in a specifically organized enclosed space prior to each study session. We also conducted experiments in so called «reference groups» when research participants didn’t consume the examined products but were in the same conditions. Health risks were assessed as per the Guide R 2.1.10.1920-04 «The Guide on assessing health risks caused by exposure to chemicals that pollute the environment». Use of ENDS and IQOS does not result in significant changes in air composure and does not cause unacceptable acute health risk. Combined effects produced by contaminants on organs and systems resulted in health risks for respiratory organs, eyes, and body as a whole being insignificantly higher than permissible levels; these risks were practically the same as those detected for a reference group. Tobacco smoking resulted in unacceptable acute risks 1.5 hours after an experiment started; these risks were caused by elevated concentrations of such contaminants as acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, PM2.5, PM10, and carbon monoxide.

Assessing acute inhalation health risk caused by exposure to products created by nicotine-containing stuff consumption in enclosed spaces

Contemporary research reveals that electronic devices for nicotine consumption produce not so negative effects on health due to adverse chemicals being emitted in substantially lower quantities. Nevertheless, such consumption still results in emission of various organic and non-organic substances with their effects on health being rather unpredictable. It is necessary to conduct additional studies, including those focusing on passive smoking of electronic cigarettes and assessing health risks caused by exposure to them. Our research goal was to assess acute health risks caused by passive consumption of tobacco and nicotine-containing products. We built a model for tobacco or nicotine consumption by actual consumers (volunteers) and the process was evened as per a number of consumption sessions. We examined three products: tobacco cigarettes (cigarettes), electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS), and a tobacco heating system (IQOS). Background air quality parameters were measured in a specifically organized enclosed space prior to each study session. We also conducted experiments in so called «reference groups» when research participants didn’t consume the examined products but were in the same conditions. Health risks were assessed as per the Guide R 2.1.10.1920-04 «The Guide on assessing health risks caused by exposure to chemicals that pollute the environment». Use of ENDS and IQOS does not result in significant changes in air composure and does not cause unacceptable acute health risk. Combined effects produced by contaminants on organs and systems resulted in health risks for respiratory organs, eyes, and body as a whole being insignificantly higher than permissible levels; these risks were practically the same as those detected for a reference group. Tobacco smoking resulted in unacceptable acute risks 1.5 hours after an experiment started; these risks were caused by elevated concentrations of such contaminants as acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, PM2.5, PM10, and carbon monoxide.

The effect of dairy products and non-dairy snacks on food intake, subjective appetite and cortisol levels in children: A randomized control study.

Dairy snacks are available in various physical forms and their consumption is linked to improved metabolic health. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of dairy snacks of different physical forms on short-term food intake (FI), subjective appetite, and the stress hormone, cortisol, in children. Following a repeated-measures crossover design, 40 children aged 9-14 y randomly consumed one of five isoenergetic (180 kcal) snacks per study session. These snacks included solid: potato chips, cookies, and cheese, semi-solid: Greek yogurt, and fluid: 2% fat milk snacks. FI was measured 120 min after snack consumption. Subjective appetite was measured at 0 (immediately before the snack), 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, and 120 min. Salivary cortisol (n=18) was measured after the Greek yogurt and cookie snacks at 0 , 30, 60, 90, and 120 min. FI did not differ between snacks (P=0.15). The Greek yogurt (P<0.0001) and cheese (P=0.0009) snacks reduced average appetite compared to the 2% fat milk snack. Salivary cortisol levels were not affected by snack (P=0.84). This study demonstrates that dairy snacks are as effective as other popular snacks at influencing subsequent FI however, solid and semi-solid dairy snacks are more effective at repressing subjective appetite than a fluid dairy snack. Registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02484625). Novelty bullets: • Milk, Greek yogurt and cheese has a similar effect on short-term food intake in children as popular potato chips and cookies. • Solid, semi-solid and liquid snacks have a similar effect on short-term food intake in children.