Letramento em saúde e sua relação com a qualidade de vida, o relato de doenças crônicas e de dificuldade de acesso a serviços de saúde entre idosos

Objetivo: Investigar possíveis diferenças na qualidade de vida, percepção de dificuldade de acesso a serviços de saúde e presença de doenças crônicas em idosos com letramento em saúde (LS) adequado e inadequado. Métodos: Foram avaliados 30 idosos e coletados dados de escolaridade, percepção de dificuldade de acesso a serviços de saúde, ter plano de saúde suplementar, relato de quedas e de doenças crônicas. O LS foi avaliado por meio do Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults e a qualidade de vida por meio do 12-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12). Os dados foram comparados entre grupos de idosos com LS adequado (n=15) e inadequado (n=15) utilizando testes t para amostras independentes, teste de Mann-Whitney e teste exato de Fisher, considerando significância de 5%. Resultados: Não houve diferença entre grupos quanto à escolaridade, escores físico e mental do SF-12. O grupo com LS inadequado apresentou percepção de menor limitação no trabalho ou outras atividades devido à saúde física; percepção de menor dificuldade de acesso a serviços de saúde; e maior proporção não sabia informar se apresentava doenças crônicas. Considerações finais: Não houve diferença na qualidade de vida, avaliada a partir das percepções de limitações e dificuldades devido à saúde física e mental, entre idosos com LS adequado e inadequado. No entanto, idosos com LS inadequado parecem apresentar percepção de menor dificuldade relacionada ao trabalho e acesso a serviços de saúde e menor conhecimento sobre a presença de doenças crônicas.

Adaptation and Validation of Short Test of Music Preference Scale for Students With Music and Non-Music Majors

Music is a universal phenomenon however, despite its unified properties, the taste and preference of music may still vary as a function of ethnicity and culture. So, the present study aimed to adapt and validate the short test of music preference scale for music and non-music Pakistani students. In Phase I, the cultural adaption of the scale was carried out while the content validity index (Lawshe, 1975) was also established. However, in phase II, the Short test of Music Scale (STOMP) was validated, yielding confirmatory factor analysis. For the empirical evaluation, a sample of 561 students, including both 286 music and 275 non-music students of undergraduate level with the age range of 18-26 years were recruited. The psychometric evolution of STOMP turned into excellent validity and reliability estimates for first-order constructs. Moreover, strict measurement invariance was established for STOMP across music and non-music students. The validation of this scale would be a little effort to pave the way for music psychology to make research available to measure the construct indigenously.

Wind and turbulence profiles in a simulated wind tunnel boundary layer

A system of Honeycomb Flat Plate (HFP) grid and cylindrical rods has been developed to accelerate the growth of a thick (32 cm) turbulent boundary layer, artificially, over rough floor of a low speed short test-section (0.61 m x 0.61 m) wind tunnel. Simulated profiles of wind velocity, longitudinal turbulence intensity and Reynolds stress are shown to have similarity to those of a neutral atmospheric boundary layer over a typical rural terrain. Longitudinal spectrum of turbulence measured at 10,30 and 100 mm above tunnel floor is shown to compare well with atmospheric spectrum and agree closely with the Kolmogoroff's -2/3 law in the inertial sub-range of the spectrum. Based on the length scale of longitudinal turbulence estimated from the spectrum, a scale of 1 :900 has been proposed for laboratory modeling of environmental problems wherein the transport of mass in a neutral atmospheric surface layer IS solely due to eddies of mechanical origin.

Alternatives to Democracy

This chapter argues that enlightened preference voting is likely to be superior to our current system. In enlightened preference voting, all citizens may vote. When they vote, they (1) register their preferences, (2) indicate their demographic categories, and (3) take a short test of basic, easily verifiable political knowledge. Afterward, all three sets of “data” are anonymized and made public. The government—and any decent political scientist or newspaper—can then calculate what a demographically identical public would have supported if only everyone got a perfect score on the test.

Music Preference Dimensions and Personality Traits Among University Students

The present study explored the relationship between music reference dimensions and personality trait. This study comprised of three stages. In Stage-I, adaptation of Short Test of Music Preference Scale (STOMP; Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003) was done. In Stage-II the psychometric properties of adapted STOMP Scale and NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrea, 1992) were determined on a sample of 60 students (20-25 years). Stage-III involved measuring the relationship between music preference dimensions and personality traits on sample of 250 students age range of 20-25 years. Results revealed that extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness showed positive association with intense and rebellious music, upbeat and conventional music, and reflective and complex music. Whereas extraversion and openness to experience was negatively associated with energetic and rhythmic music. Additionally, neuroticism was negatively related with reflective and complex music, and agreeableness has negative relation with intense and rebellious music. Conscientiousness has negative relationship with reflective and complex, intense and rebellious, and upbeat and conventional; while exhibited positive relationship with energetic and rhythmic music. Future implications of the study were also discussed.

Feature Selection and Validation of a Machine Learning-Based Lower Limb Risk Assessment Tool: A Feasibility Study

Early and self-identification of locomotive degradation facilitates us with awareness and motivation to prevent further deterioration. We propose the usage of nine squat and four one-leg standing exercise features as input parameters to Machine Learning (ML) classifiers in order to perform lower limb skill assessment. The significance of this approach is that it does not demand manpower and infrastructure, unlike traditional methods. We base the output layer of the classifiers on the Short Test Battery Locomotive Syndrome (STBLS) test used to detect Locomotive Syndrome (LS) approved by the Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA). We obtained three assessment scores by using this test, namely sit-stand, 2-stride, and Geriatric Locomotive Function Scale (GLFS-25). We tested two ML methods, namely an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) comprised of two hidden layers with six nodes per layer configured with Rectified-Linear-Unit (ReLU) activation function and a Random Forest (RF) regressor with number of estimators varied from 5 to 100. We could predict the stand-up and 2-stride scores of the STBLS test with correlation of 0.59 and 0.76 between the real and predicted data, respectively, by using the ANN. The best accuracies (R-squared values) obtained through the RF regressor were 0.86, 0.79, and 0.73 for stand-up, 2-stride, and GLFS-25 scores, respectively.

Comparing Perceptual Speed Between Educational Contexts

Perceptual speed is a basic component of cognitive functioning that allows people to efficiently process novel visual stimuli and quickly react to them. In educational studies, tests measuring perceptual speed are frequently developed using students from regular schools without considering students with special educational needs. Therefore, it is unclear whether these instruments allow valid comparisons between different school tracks. The present study on N = 3,312 students from the National Educational Panel Study evaluated differential item functioning (DIF) of a short test of perceptual speed between four school tracks in Germany (special, basic, intermediate, and upper secondary schools). Bayesian Rasch Poisson counts modeling identified negligible DIF that did not systematically disadvantage specific students. Moreover, the test reliabilities were comparable between school tracks. These results highlight that perceptual speed can be comparably measured in special schools, thus enabling educational researchers to study schooling effects in the German educational system.

Relationship Between Personality and Music Preferences Among University Students

This study analysed the relationship between Big Five personality traits and music preferences among university students. Big Five Inventory (BFI) and Short Test of Music Preferences (STOMP) was used to assess personality traits and music preferences. Questionnaires were distributed through social media platforms to college and university students aged 19 to 26. A total number of 145 respondents participated in this study. The results showed Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness were the most prevalent personality traits among respondents and Energetic-Rhythmic (ER) was the most preferred music. The correlation analysis showed that there is a significant correlation between Openness and energetic-rhythmic (ER) music. On the other hand, there was no significant correlation between other traits (Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) with music preference dimensions such as Intense-Rebellious (IR) and Energetic-Rhythmic (ER). The inconsistencies in the literature and our findings suggested more studies are needed to understand the influence of personality on music preferences.

Exploring Associations Between Health Literacy and Visual Impairment in Older Adults With Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

Date Presented 04/13/21 This study explored associations between health literacy and severity of visual impairment in older adults with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults was used to assess health literacy for timed and untimed testing conditions. A one-way analysis of variance was used for analysis. Timed, 73% of participants had inadequate health literacy. Untimed, 100% of participants had adequate health literacy. All scores improved with the time limit removed. Time may be underrecognized factor of reading performance in older adults with AMD. Primary Author and Speaker: Jennifer Fortuna Contributing Authors: Tina Fletcher, Catherine Candler, and Karen Dunlap