The Perceptual Consistency and Association of the LMA Effort Elements

Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) and its Effort element provide a conceptual framework through which we can observe, describe, and interpret the intention of movement. Effort attributes provide a link between how people move and how their movement communicates to others. It is crucial to investigate the perceptual characteristics of Effort to validate whether it can serve as an effective framework to support a wide range of applications in animation and robotics that require a system for creating or perceiving expressive variation in motion. To this end, we first constructed an Effort motion database of short video clips of five different motions: walk, sit down, pass, put, wave performed in eight ways corresponding to the extremes of the Effort elements. We then performed a perceptual evaluation to examine the perceptual consistency and perceived associations among Effort elements: Space (Indirect/Direct), Time (Sustained/Sudden), Weight (Light/Strong), and Flow (Free/Bound) that appeared in the motion stimuli. The results of the perceptual consistency evaluation indicate that although the observers do not perceive the LMA Effort element 100% as intended, true response rates of seven Effort elements are higher than false response rates except for light Effort. The perceptual consistency results showed varying tendencies by motion. The perceptual association between LMA Effort elements showed that a single LMA Effort element tends to co-occur with the elements of other factors, showing significant correlation with one or two factors (e.g., indirect and free, light and free).

A Retrospective Naturalistic Study Comparing the Efficacy of Ketamine and Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Treatment-Resistant Depression

Depression is a common mental disorder that affects many people worldwide, while a significant proportion of patients remain non-responsive to antidepressant medications. Alternative treatment options such as ketamine therapy and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) therapy are offered nowadays. This study aims to describe and compare the acute antidepressive efficacy of both, intramuscular ketamine and rTMS in depression patients seeking help in a naturalistic clinical mental health setting. The clinical records of 24 patients with treatment resistant depression were collected from the clinical base of a real life clinic. Twelve patients were treated with intramuscular ketamine, twice weekly for 8 sessions, and twelve patients were treated with 30 sessions of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex – intermittent theta-burst stimulation (DLPFC-iTBS). Using three clinical assessments (HDRS, HAM-A, BDI-II), our data reveal that both therapies led to significant improvement in symptoms from pre- to post- treatment, as well as that the two experimental groups did not differ significantly with respect to pre- to post- depressive and anxiety symptoms, indicating that the effect of both experimental groups in our sample was equally effective. Furthermore, our results showed high remission and response rates in both groups, with no statistical differences between the patients of ketamine group and rTMS group in remission and response rates. We show a significant pre- to post- treatment reduction in depressive and anxiety symptoms, with no significant differences between the two experimental groups, indicating that the effect of both therapies was equally effective in our limited sample.

Six-Month Follow-Up after Vaccination with BNT162b2: SARS-CoV-2 Antigen-Specific Cellular and Humoral Immune Responses in Hemodialysis Patients and Kidney Transplant Recipients

Hemodialysis patients (HDP) and kidney transplant recipients (KTR) have a high risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 with poor clinical outcomes. Because of this, vaccination of these groups of patients against SARS-CoV-2 is particularly important. However, immune responses may be impaired in immunosuppressed and chronically ill patients. Here, our aim was to compare the efficacy of an mRNA-based vaccine in HDP, KTR, and healthy subjects. Design: In this prospective observational cohort study, the humoral and cellular response of prevalent 192 HDP, 50 KTR, and 28 healthy controls (HC) was assessed 1, 2, and 6 months after the first immunization with the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine. Results: After 6 months, 97.5% of HDP, 37.9% of KTR, and 100% of HC had an antibody response. Median antibody levels were 1539.7 (±3355.8), 178.5 (±369.5), and 2657.8 (±2965.8) AU/mL in HDP, KTR, and HC, respectively (p ≤ 0.05). A SARS-CoV-2 antigen-specific cell response to vaccination was found in 68.8% of HDP, 64.5% of KTR, and 90% of HC. Conclusion: The humoral response rates to mRNA-based vaccination of HDPs are comparable to HCs, but antibody titers are lower. Furthermore, HDPs have weaker T-cell response to vaccination than HCs. KTRs have very low humoral and antigen-specific cellular response rates and antibody titers, which requires other vaccination strategies in addition to booster vaccination.

Scratch the Scratch-off: Testing Prepaid and Conditional Incentives With Postcard and Letter Invitations in a Web-push Design With an Address-based Sample

We tested a novel extension to mailed invitations to a web-push survey, using a postcard invitation to deliver a scratch-off giftcode incentive similar to an instant-win lottery ticket. Scratch-off postcards were included as one of five conditions in randomized survey experiment varying two mailing types (letter and postcard) and three incentive types (prepaid cash, prepaid giftcodes, and conditional giftcodes). Invitations were sent to a sample of 17,808 addresses in Boston, Massachusetts, recruiting for a new online panel study of city residents. We report response rates and costs for each condition. Findings suggest that letters achieve higher response rates than postcards and are more cost effective overall. We also find that conditional incentives achieve higher response rates and are more cost effective, although conflating factors do not permit clear inferences. Notably, the novel scratch-off postcard condition achieved the lowest response rate and the highest costs per completed survey.

A Randomised Controlled Trial of Email Versus Mailed Invitation Letter In A National Longitudinal Survey of Physicians.

Background: Despite the low cost of using email to distribute surveys to medical practitioners, email invitations have been associated with lower response rates, potentially increasing response bias and reducing external validity. We examine if there is a difference in response rates from using email rather than a mailed invitation letter in a nationally representative longitudinal survey of qualified physicians. Methods: We use a parallel randomised controlled trial during the 11th annual wave of the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) longitudinal survey of doctors. Participants were from previous waves of MABEL and newly invited in Wave 11. The control group was invited using a mailed paper letter (including a paper survey plus instructions to complete online) and three mailed paper reminders. The intervention group was approached in the same way apart from the second reminder when they were approached by email only. The primary outcome is the response rate and the statistical analysis was blinded.Results: 18,247 doctors were randomly allocated to the control (9,125) or intervention group (9,127), with 9,108 and 9,107 included in the final analysis. Using intention to treat analysis, the response rate in the intervention group was 35.92% compared to 37.59% in the control group, a difference of -1.66 percentage points (95% CI: -3.06 to -0.26). The difference was larger for General Practitioners (-2.76 percentage points, 95% CI: -4.65 to -0.87) compared to other specialists (-0.47 percentage points, 95% CI: -2.53 to 1.60). For those who supplied an email address, the average treatment effect on the treated was higher at -2.63 percentage points (95% CI: -4.50 to -0.75) for all physicians, -3.17 percentage points (95% CI: -5.83 to -0.53) for General Practitioners, and -2.1 percentage points (95% CI: -4.75 to 0.56) for other specialists. Conclusions: For qualified physicians, using email to invite participants to complete a survey leads to lower response rates compared to a mailed letter. Lower response rates need to be traded off with the lower costs of using email rather than mailed letters.