Characterizing redundancy in pharmacy residency research projects.

DISCLAIMER: In an effort to expedite the publication of articles, AJHP is posting manuscripts online as soon as possible after acceptance. Accepted manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and copyedited, but are posted online before technical formatting and author proofing. These manuscripts are not the final version of record and will be replaced with the final article (formatted per AJHP style and proofed by the authors) at a later time. PURPOSE: Each year, roughly 5,000 residents conduct research on clinical and practice-based topics to meet the requirements of the ASHP residency standards related to research and project management. Several investigators have evaluated residency research project publication rates, but redundancy among projects has not been evaluated. The primary objective of this study was to determine the rate of redundancy among pharmacy residency research projects. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort analysis of abstracts accepted to various regional pharmacy residency conferences from 2017 through 2020. Each abstract was placed in a pharmacy domain by therapeutic area. The categorized data for each year were then further evaluated to identify clinical categories for the year. Topics were labeled as redundant if at least 10 projects fell into the same focus area within a clinical category. Descriptive statistics were used to quantify the incidence of redundancy each year. RESULTS: A total of 4,027 abstracts were included. The most common pharmacy domains were infectious disease, internal medicine, and benefit of pharmacy services. Overall, 8.2% projects (332 of 4,027) were categorized as redundant. The most common focus areas were rapid diagnostics, opioid reduction protocols, and vancomycin area-under-the-curve vs trough monitoring. CONCLUSION: Pharmacy residency research projects encompassed topics across a wide range of pharmacotherapy areas. Approximately 1 in 12 projects was redundant. This is likely because the project addressed a "hot topic" in practice and may represent an opportunity for institutions to collaborate to optimize project efficiency and impact.

Testing the adolescent social reorientation model during self and other evaluation using hierarchical growth curve modeling with parcellated fMRI data.

Adolescence is characterized as a period when relationships and experiences shift toward peers. The social reorientation model of adolescence posits this shift is driven by neurobiological changes that increase the salience of social information related to peer integration and acceptance. Although influential, this model has rarely been subjected to tests that could falsify it, or studied in longitudinal samples assessing within-person development. We focused on two phenomena that are highly salient and dynamic during adolescence-social status and self-perception-and examined longitudinal changes in neural responses during a self/other evaluation task. We expected status-related social information to uniquely increase across adolescence in social brain regions. Despite using hierarchical growth curve modeling with parcellated whole-brain data to increase power to detect developmental effects, we didn't find evidence in support of this hypothesis. Social brain regions showed increased responsivity across adolescence, but this trajectory was not unique to status-related information. Additionally, brain regions associated with self-focused cognition showed heightened responses during self-evaluation in the transition to mid-adolescence, especially for status-related information. These results qualify existing models of adolescent social reorientation and highlight the multifaceted changes in self and social development that could be leveraged in novel ways to support adolescent health and well-being.

A Multilab Replication of the Ego Depletion Effect.

There is an active debate regarding whether the ego depletion effect is real. A recent preregistered experiment with the Stroop task as the depleting task and the antisaccade task as the outcome task found a medium-level effect size. In the current research, we conducted a preregistered multilab replication of that experiment. Data from 12 labs across the globe (N = 1,775) revealed a small and significant ego depletion effect, d = 0.10. After excluding participants who might have responded randomly during the outcome task, the effect size increased to d = 0.16. By adding an informative, unbiased data point to the literature, our findings contribute to clarifying the existence, size, and generality of ego depletion.

A Pilot Study on High Wavenumber Raman Analysis of Human Dental Tissues.

Water plays a critical role in dental tissues including enamel and dentin. The characterization of water structure analysis was primarily conducted by nuclear magnetic resonance. Raman spectroscopy is a powerful analytic technology with capability for structure analysis in materials. However, acquiring high wavenumber Raman signals from dental tissues was challenging due to either the fluorescence interference under laser illumination or reduced sensitivity of CCD detectors. In this study, we demonstrate a pilot research on high wavenumber Raman analysis in dental tissues using a customized Raman spectrometer based on an InGaAs detector. A signal located at 3570 cm-1 is found dominating the O-H region Raman spectra of enamel but is barely detectable from dentin. The profiles of the high wavenumber region Raman spectra changes with the locations in enamel, as well as the polarization of the excitation laser beam. The results suggest that the size or crystallinity differences of hydroxyapatite crystals are the main cause of the spectral variation from dentin to enamel, and could be partially responsible for the variation among different locations in enamel.

Finding the "self" in self-regulation: The identity-value model.

Many psychological theories suggest a link between self-regulation and identity, but until now a mechanistic account that suggests ways to improve self-regulation has not been put forth. The identity-value model (IVM) connects the idea from social psychology, that aspects of identity such as core values and group affiliations hold positive subjective value, to the process-focused account from decision-making and behavioral economics, that self-regulation is driven by a dynamic value integration across a range of choice attributes. Together, these ideas imply that goal-directed behaviors that are identity-relevant are more likely to be enacted because they have greater subjective value than identity-irrelevant behaviors. A central hypothesis, therefore, is that interventions that increase the degree to which a target behavior is perceived as self-relevant will improve self-regulation. Additionally, identity-based changes in self-regulation are expected to be mediated by changes in subjective value and its underlying neural systems. In this paper, we define the key constructs relevant to the IVM, explicate the model and delineate its boundary conditions, and describe how it fits with related theories. We also review disparate results in the research literature that might share identity-related value as a common underlying mechanism of action. We close by discussing questions about the model whose answers could advance the study of self-regulation.

Self-Control as Value-Based Choice.

Self-control is often conceived as a battle between "hot" impulsive processes and "cold" deliberative ones. Heeding the angel on one shoulder leads to success; following the demon on the other leads to failure. Self-control feels like a duality. What if that sensation is misleading, and, despite how they feel, self-control decisions are just like any other choice? We argue that self-control is a form of value-based choice wherein options are assigned a subjective value and a decision is made through a dynamic integration process. We articulate how a value-based choice model of self-control can capture its phenomenology and account for relevant behavioral and neuroscientific data. This conceptualization of self-control links divergent scientific approaches, allows for more robust and precise hypothesis testing, and suggests novel pathways to improve self-control.