Of Young People and Internet Cafés.

This study examines how adolescent experience in Internet cafés (known as wangba in Chinese) relates to academic attainment in urban, rural, and Tibetan schools of China. By documenting the frustrations teenagers express in their negotiations with adults surrounding access to and use of wangba and, by comparing self-reported academic standing of students from similar backgrounds with how they differ in their experience in wangba, the study finds that visiting wangba is not strongly correlated with the probability of students reporting either high- or under-achievement. While students without any experience in wangba are substantially less likely to report academic underperformance, the association disappears after matching when the logit regression model is less model-dependent and vulnerable to the problems associated with missing data. The paper concludes that visiting wangba alone is not systematically correlated with academic attainment, and that much adult anxiety concerning adolescent visit to wangba represents moral-technological panic and, offers a simplified explanation for educational problems that have deep macrosocial roots.

Using working memory performance to predict mathematics performance 2 years on.

A number of previous studies have used working memory components to predict mathematical performance in a variety of ways; however, there is no consideration of the contributions of the subcomponents of visuospatial working memory to this prediction. In this paper we conducted a 2-year follow-up to the data presented in Allen et al. (Q J Exp Psychol 73(2):239-248, 2020b) to ascertain how these subcomponents of visuospatial working memory related to later mathematical performance. 159 children (M age = 115.48 months) completed the maths test for this second wave of the study. Results show a shift from spatial-simultaneous influence to spatial-sequential influence, whilst verbal involvement remained relatively stable. Results are discussed in terms of their potential for education and future research.

Working memory predictors of mathematics across the middle primary school years.

BACKGROUND: Work surrounding the relationship between visuospatial working memory (WM) and mathematics performance is gaining significant traction as a result of a focus on improving academic attainment. AIMS: This study examined the relative contributions of verbal and visuospatial simple and complex WM measures to mathematics in primary school children aged 6-10 years. SAMPLE: A sample of 111 children in years 2-5 were assessed (Mage  = 100.06 months, SD = 14.47). METHOD: Children were tested individually on all memory measures, followed by a separate mathematics testing session as a class group in the same assessment wave. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Results revealed an age-dependent relationship, with a move towards visuospatial influence in older children. Further analyses demonstrated that backward word span and backward matrices contributed unique portions of variance of mathematics, regardless of the regression model specified. We discuss possible explanations for our preliminary findings in relation to the existing literature alongside their implications for educators and further research.

Working memory predictors of written mathematics in 7- to 8-year-old children.

There is extensive evidence for the involvement of working memory in mathematical attainment. This study aims to identify the relative contributions of verbal, spatial-simultaneous, and spatial-sequential working memory measures in written mathematics. Year 3 children (7-8 years of age, n = 214) in the United Kingdom were administered a battery of working memory tasks alongside a standardised test of mathematics. Confirmatory factor analyses and variance partitioning were then performed on the data to identify the unique variance accounted for by verbal, spatial-simultaneous, and spatial-sequential measures. Results revealed the largest individual contribution was that of verbal working memory, followed by spatial-simultaneous factors. This suggests the components of working memory underpinning mathematical performance at this age are those concerning verbal-numeric and spatial-simultaneous working memory. Implications for educators and further research are discussed.

Why are Behçet's disease patients always exhausted?

OBJECTIVES: Patients with Behçet's disease (BD) constantly complain of fatigue and many have problems with poor sleep. This ultimately has a major impact on all aspects of normal living. To attempt to understand this, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was used to identify potential biomarkers. These were alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH), vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and some inflammatory cytokines. We assessed the association of fatigue, quality of sleep and disease activity with circulating concentration of α-MSH, VIP and inflammatory cytokines. METHODS: There were 127 participants, 97 BD patients, and 30 healthy controls (HC). All completed the Multi-Dimensional Assessment of Fatigue questionnaire (MAF) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) on the day of their clinical assessment. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were used to evaluate the serum concentrations of α-MSH, VIP and cytokines (IL-1ß, IL-6, IL-10, and TNF-α). RESULTS: 64% of BD patients experienced high fatigue scores, and 63% had poor quality of sleep. When BD and HC were compared the MAF and PSQI scores as well as the serum concentrations of α-MSH, VIP, and IL-6 were significantly higher in BD (p values were: 0.001, 0.001, 0.001, 0.004 and 0.036, respectively). Both α-MSH and IL-6 had significant impact on MAF and PSQI. Interestingly, VIP had a significant influence on PSQI and disease activity, but not on MAF. CONCLUSIONS: A better understanding of these complex clinical and biochemical interactions between α-MSH, VIP and IL-6 might lead to the development of novel approaches to manage fatigue and sleep disorders as well as disease activity in BD patients.

Pyrodiversity is the coupling of biodiversity and fire regimes in food webs.

Fire positively and negatively affects food webs across all trophic levels and guilds and influences a range of ecological processes that reinforce fire regimes, such as nutrient cycling and soil development, plant regeneration and growth, plant community assembly and dynamics, herbivory and predation. Thus we argue that rather than merely describing spatio-temporal patterns of fire regimes, pyrodiversity must be understood in terms of feedbacks between fire regimes, biodiversity and ecological processes. Humans shape pyrodiversity both directly, by manipulating the intensity, severity, frequency and extent of fires, and indirectly, by influencing the abundance and distribution of various trophic guilds through hunting and husbandry of animals, and introduction and cultivation of plant species. Conceptualizing landscape fire as deeply embedded in food webs suggests that the restoration of degraded ecosystems requires the simultaneous careful management of fire regimes and native and invasive plants and animals, and may include introducing new vertebrates to compensate for extinctions that occurred in the recent and more distant past.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'.

Teaching meta-analysis using MetaLight.

BACKGROUND: Meta-analysis is a statistical method for combining the results of primary studies. It is often used in systematic reviews and is increasingly a method and topic that appears in student dissertations. MetaLight is a freely available software application that runs simple meta-analyses and contains specific functionality to facilitate the teaching and learning of meta-analysis. While there are many courses and resources for meta-analysis available and numerous software applications to run meta-analyses, there are few pieces of software which are aimed specifically at helping those teaching and learning meta-analysis. Valuable teaching time can be spent learning the mechanics of a new software application, rather than on the principles and practices of meta-analysis. FINDINGS: We discuss ways in which the MetaLight tool can be used to present some of the main issues involved in undertaking and interpreting a meta-analysis. CONCLUSIONS: While there are many software tools available for conducting meta-analysis, in the context of a teaching programme such software can require expenditure both in terms of money and in terms of the time it takes to learn how to use it. MetaLight was developed specifically as a tool to facilitate the teaching and learning of meta-analysis and we have presented here some of the ways it might be used in a training situation.

Behavioural phenotypes: An emerging specialist role for nurses.

The idea that behaviour can be influenced by genetics is not new and developments in the field of behavioural genetics suggest this is an area of increasing relevance to healthcare professionals who support people who have learning disabilities associated with genetic disorders. This paper considers both the evidence for behavioural phenotypes and the possible roles healthcare professionals have when supporting affected individuals and their families. The paper argues that nurses in all areas of health care need to have a foundation of skill and knowledge of behavioural phenotypes to ensure effective care is provided for individuals and their families. In addition, the paper proposes that a specialist nursing role is essential in providing direct support to clients and their families as well as in providing a consultancy and educational role to the health and social care professionals who support these families.

The mental health needs of people with severe learning disabilities.

People with severe learning disabilities can present with complex behavioural and emotional needs that are best understood within a biopsychosocial framework. This article outlines the range of issues involved in the presentation and identification of mental health needs in people with severe learning disabilities. The use of a multidisciplinary and multimodal approach to assessment, care planning and case management is promoted in order to provide effective, comprehensive care in meeting the mental health needs of this client group. The key knowledge and skills required to meet the mental health needs of this client group are outlined and the role of the nurse as a key professional in the coordination of the assessment and care management process is explored.

Prevalence of sensing abnormalities in dual chamber implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

BACKGROUND: The clinical efficacy of ICD therapy depends on accurate sensing of intracardiac signals and sensing algorithms. We investigated the occurrence of sensing abnormalities in patients with dual chamber ICDs. METHODS: The study group consisted of all patients with dual chamber ICDs enrolled in the LESS trial and patients implanted with dual chamber ICDs at a single center between January 1997 and July 2000. Electrograms of spontaneous ventricular arrhythmias requiring device intervention were analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 48 patients met the criteria for enrollment. Among the 244 episodes, 215 (88%) were due to ventricular tachycardia and 29 (12%) were due to ventricular fibrillation. Overall undersensing was infrequent with 12 (20%) patients exhibiting on average 2.2 undersensed beats during 26 episodes of ventricular arrhythmias. There was no delay in therapy due to undersensing. Oversensing occurred in 5 (10%) patients resulting in 13 (2.7%) episodes of inappropriate therapy. None of the patients had any lead abnormalities and oversensing resolved after device reprogramming in 4 patients while 1 patient required a separate rate sensing lead. Among patients with oversensing, 4 out of 5 were pacing before the index event while among patients with no oversensing only 5 out of 42 were pacing (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Dual chamber ICDs demonstrate outstanding accuracy of sensing. However, because of the selection of patient population requiring more frequent pacing, oversensing occurs with a significant frequency. Meticulous evaluation in such patients is necessary to minimize the likelihood of oversensing and inappropriate shocks.