Running races during the COVID-19 pandemic: a 2020 survey of the running community

ObjectivesTo survey runners and triathletes about their willingness to resume in-person racing during the COVID-19 pandemic, health concerns related to mass races and changes in running patterns since the start of the pandemic.DesignAn electronic survey was distributed from 15 July to 1 September 2020 to runners and triathletes by New York Road Runners, ASICS North America, and race medical directors, and through social media.ParticipantsRunners and triathletes 18 years of age or older who participated in at least one race in 2019.ResultsA total of 2278 surveys were received. Not all participants answered every question; the denominator represents the number of responses to each question. Most participants were from the USA (1620/1940, 83.5%), of which over half were from New York (812/1475, 55.1%). Regarding when respondents would feel comfortable returning to in-person racing, the most frequent response was ‘Whenever local laws allow, but only if there are sufficient precautions’ (954/2173, 43.9%), followed by ‘Not until there is a vaccine’ (540/2173, 24.9%). The most common concerns about in-person races were crowded starting corrals (1802/2084, 86.5%), the number of COVID-19 cases in the race location (1585/2084, 76.1%) and the number of participants (1517/2084, 72.8%). Comparing running patterns before the pandemic to Summer 2020, the mean weekly mileage decreased from 25.5 (SD 15.4) miles to 22.7 (16.2) miles (p<0.001).ConclusionMost runners are willing to return to racing when local laws allow, though as of Summer 2020, many desired certain precautions to feel comfortable.

Educational Problems and Improvement on Ulleungdo Islands in Korea

Islands have ecological value and play roles such as maritime boundaries and territorial protection, but their economic outlook is not bright, and above all, improving residential conditions is difficult due to their aging and declining populations. Education on islands is worse than some of their other underdeveloped sectors. Therefore, this study investigated the current status of education and improvement plans for the island of Ulleungdo, South Korea. According to a survey of 327 of its residents, school education played an important role in finding employment, and the most frequent response was that the number of experts in charge of education on Ulleungdo was insufficient. The measures suggested for improving lifelong education were developing and distributing programs and strengthening the professionalism of educators. To solve the educational problems on Ulleungdo, we suggest the following: develop educational programs for parents, offer career experiences for youths and young adults, establish Ulleung County People’s University, and support learning clubs.

Designing a Gardening Intervention to Improve Health: Recommendations From New and Experienced Gardeners

Objectives Gardeners consume more fruits and vegetables (F&V) and have lower body mass indexes (BMI) than non-gardeners, making gardening a potential public health intervention. Little is known about information needed to teach gardening skills to novice gardeners. This study investigated what never gardeners (NG) and experienced gardeners (EG) perceived as necessary information to teach gardening. Methods Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers responded to demographic and gardening questions via an online survey. After reviewing responses for completeness, 415 participants were included in the analysis. Participants were characterized by gardening experience level based on the total years they had gardened (0 years = NG, 1 + years = EG). In open ended questions, NG were asked: “What, if anything, would encourage you to start vegetable gardening?” and “What information do you think you would need to start a vegetable garden?” Experienced gardeners were asked “What information would be most important to teach someone who is new to vegetable gardening?” Qualitative responses were coded and the most frequent responses are presented. Results The overall sample had a mean age of 40 years, was 47% female, 80% white, and 68% with a college degree. There were 203 NG (48.9%) and 241 EG (51.1%). For reasons that would motivate NG to start a garden, the two most frequently indicated were, 1) having the space needed to start a garden (n = 33, 16%) or 2) if it would be a way to save money (20, 9.7%). For NGs the most frequently mentioned response to what information they would need to start vegetable gardening on their own was information regarding maintenance, such as sunlight, water, weeding, and spacing (n = 30, 14.8%). For EGs the most frequent response to what information would be most important to teach someone new to vegetable gardening, was also information related to maintenance such as, such as sunlight, water, weeding, and spacing (n = 41, 17%). Conclusions Gardening is a potential public health intervention that can influence health. Understanding space needs, costs of starting a garden, and knowing when to plant are key learning topics needed when developing these interventions for new gardeners. Future analyses will investigate the preferences and characteristics of those who would like to participate in an online versus an in-person gardening intervention. Funding Sources None.

Therapists’ response strategies in a group session involving French-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder

The focus in this article is on how two therapists orient a group of four French-speaking boys with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) towards achieving meaningful learning outcomes with regard to the topic of conversation. The analysis concentrates on the therapists’ output or response strategies when they orient the group discussion and assess speech produced by the children, either validating it or parts of it, or inviting them to provide more valid input. The material to be analysed comprises salient linguistic and interactional features in five examples representing the most frequent response categories. In terms of methodology, the study falls within the framework of conversation analysis, although insights from discourse analysis are also used to enhance the data interpretation. The results show that although a specific response category may have many functions, the aim in all of them is to maintain intersubjectivity among the participants. This is visible in the absence of overtly negative feedback, for example. The prosody gives strong clues concerning the additional meanings in the therapists’ response particles. Whereas the children maintain eye contact and show nuanced expressions such as smiling, the therapists’ attention is often directed towards notetaking and writing artefacts, behaviour that contradicts the ideal of ‘typical’ communication.

Attention in Skilled Behavior: an Argument for Pluralism

Peak human performance—whether of Olympic athletes, Nobel prize winners, or you cooking the best dish you’ve ever made—depends on skill. Skill is at the heart of what it means to excel. Yet, the fixity of skilled behavior can sometimes make it seem a lower-level activity, more akin to the movements of an invertebrate or a machine. Peak performance in elite athletes is often described, for example, as “automatic” by those athletes: “The most frequent response from participants (eight athletes and one coach) when describing the execution of a peak performance was the automatic execution of performance” (Anderson et al. 2014). While the automaticity of skilled behavior is widely acknowledged, some worry that too much automaticity in skill would challenge its ability to exhibit human excellence. And so two camps have developed: those who focus on the automaticity of skilled behavior, the “habitualists,” and those who focus on the higher-level cognition behind peak performance, the “intellectualists.” We take a different tack. We argue that skilled behavior weaves together automaticity and higher-level cognition, which we call “pluralism.” That is, we argue that automaticity and higher-level cognition are both normal features of skilled behavior that benefit skilled behavior. This view is hinted at in other quotes about automaticity in skill—while expert gamers describe themselves as “playing with” automaticity (Taylor and Elam 2018), expert musicians are said to balance automaticity with creativity through performance cues: “Performance cues allow the musician to attend to some aspects of the performance while allowing others to be executed automatically” (Chaffin and Logan 2006). We describe in this paper three ways that higher-level cognition and automaticity are woven together. The first two, level pluralism and synchronic pluralism, are described in other papers, albeit under different cover. We take our contribution to be both distinguishing the three forms and contributing the third, diachronic pluralism. In fact, we find that diachronic pluralism presents the strongest case against habitualism and intellectualism, especially when considered through the example of strategic automaticity. In each case of pluralism, we use research on the presence or absence of attention (e.g., in mind wandering) to explore the presence or absence of higher-level cognition in skilled behavior.

A Diverse Specialty: What Students Teach Us About Neurology and “Neurophobia”

ABSTRACT:Objective:To explore what elective students learn about the specialty of Neurology.Methods:A prospective qualitative study using pre- and post-elective written questionnaires.Results:Analysis concentrated on three main themes: What did students learn about the specialty of Neurology? What would they change about their experience? Did their opinions change? Major findings were (i) pre- and post-elective the most frequent response for “what is the best thing about Neurology?” was the “process of localization” and (ii) post-elective students were less likely to cite the challenge or problem-solving aspect of Neurology as the best thing while more emphasized the importance of the physical exam and the variety of cases. (iii) Students were most surprised by the scope of neurological practice. (iv) They would diversify the setting of their elective to include less time spent in the emergency room and more time in clinic. (v) The perception of Neurology as a specialty in which patients have a poor prognosis was the opinion that changed the most.Conclusions:Showcasing the diversity of cases and careers in Neurology may be a useful strategy to increase interest in the specialty and reduce neurophobia. Lectures or small groups early in medical school should concentrate on clear examples of common neurological conditions and emphasize the role of general neurologists and subspecialists involved in patient care. Whenever possible students should rotate through different clinics and not concentrate exclusively on emergency room and in-patient cases.

Helping Teens Overcome Anxiety Episodes in Project Work: The Power of Reframing

Overwhelming challenges in youth program projects (e.g., arts, leadership, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM]) can create intense anxiety for adolescents that disrupts engagement in their work. This study examines how experienced program leaders respond to these episodes to help youth overcome anxiety. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 27 veteran leaders from high-quality youth programs about their experiences with these situations. Programs primarily served Latinx, African American, and European American youth (ages 11–18). We utilized grounded theory analysis to examine leaders’ descriptions of the situations, their strategies, and the goals of those strategies. Leaders’ most frequent response was reframing—providing youth new cognitive frames to understand anxiety-eliciting situations, reduce anxiety, and restore motivation. We identified three types of reframing strategies. First, reframing youth’s understanding of their abilities entailed providing youth new perspectives for enhancing their conceptions of their competencies in the work. Second, reframing youth’s understanding of challenge involved suggesting new frameworks for youth to assess and control work challenges. Third, reframing emotion involved helping youth understand anxiety as normal and as a tool for problem-solving. The findings also suggest these strategies help youth learn skills for managing situations that create anxiety in future work.

Assisting Students Learning Experiences Using an Augmented Reality Model Framework

In learning through experience there are so many techniques that can be used in order to learn and master skills. Strategies used for learning may be in the form of presentation, multimedia, simulation or hands-on. Others might prefer combination of strategies both being able to hear and/or see the actual or real object of machines, tools or equipment. There are advanced visual technologies available in the internet to choose from but most are not designed to the learning process in a school. Augmented reality is an emerging advance technology that shows a lot of use and opportunity as a tool for learning and enhancing experience. AR can simulate real objects into models that be used for education. This study aims to experiment on an AR engine created using the AR model framework to enhance the learning experiences of students in the different learning strategies used in this study. The experiment is focused to find the significant differences of not having and having an AR model into the learning/teaching strategy. To analyze the data frequency, statistical mode is used to find the most frequent response to interpret the nominal and ordinal categories of the variables. The results of using the AR model framework significantly improved the learning experiences of the participants.

Socioeconomic Situation and Satisfaction in the Family Life

In this chapter, the attention is paid to two fields which are linked with family lifestyle. The first one concerns socioeconomic situations in a family and shows that the economic side of family functioning is actually very essential these days. The importance of family economic situation is affirmed also in the results of our international survey. We asked what was the main family income, experience with unemployment and whether our respondents had possibility to save some money. Furthermore, we were interested in expenditure items and in evaluation of an overall standard of living by respondents. The Germans and then Czechs evaluated it as the best, the worst was found in families in Latvia. The second part monitors life satisfaction as a subjective feeling of well-being and is understood as a part of quality of life. To the question “How do you imagine a satisfied family?”, the most frequent response was—harmonic coexistence without conflicts, well-being, good health of all family members and material security. For the question “What do you lack to your satisfaction?” respondents stated—financial security and lack of free time for the family. However, there were specific differences among individual surveyed countries.

Anti-thrombogenic coatings for devices in neurointerventional surgery: Case report and review of the literature

Background: Stent-assisted coiling and extra-saccular flow diversion require dual anti-platelet therapy due to the thrombogenic properties of the implants. While both methods are widely accepted, thromboembolic complications and the detrimental effects of dual anti-platelet therapy remain a concern. Anti-thrombogenic surface coatings aim to solve both of these issues. Current developments are discussed within the framework of an actual clinical case. Case description: A 33-year-old male patient lost consciousness while doing sport and was administered 500 mg acetylsalicylic acid on site. Computed tomography revealed a massive subarachnoid haemorrhage, and digital subtraction angiography showed an aneurysm of the right middle cerebral artery. Stent-assisted coiling using a neck bridging device with a hydrophilic coating (pCONUS_HPC) was considered as an appropriate approach. Another 500 mg acetylsalicylic acid IV was given. After the single anti-platelet therapy was seen to be effective, a pCONUS_HPC was implanted, and the aneurysm sac subsequently fully occluded using coils. No thrombus formation was encountered. During the following days, 2 × 500 mg acetylsalicylic acid IV daily were required to maintain single anti-platelet therapy, monitored by frequent response testing. Follow-up digital subtraction angiography after 13 days confirmed the occlusion of the aneurysm and the patency of the middle cerebral artery. Conclusion: A variety of ways to reduce the thrombogenicity of neurovascular stents is discussed. Hydrophilic surface coatings are a valid concept to improve the haemocompatibility of neurovascular implants while avoiding the use of dual anti-platelet therapy. Phosphorylcholine and phenox hydrophilic polymer coating are currently the most promising candidates. This concept is supported by anecdotal experience. However, formalised registries and randomised trials are currently being established.