Theorizing positioning strategies of secondary capital cities

Capital cities that are not the economic centers of their nations – so-called secondary capital cities (SSCs) – tend to be overlooked in the field of political science. Consequentially, there is a lack of research and resulting theory describing their political economy. This paper proposes a comparative research framework which analyzes how external pressures are influencing the relevant policy makers in the process of (re)positioning the SCC.

Current state of musculoskeletal ultrasound training and implementation in Europe: results of a survey of experts and scientific societies

To document the current state of musculoskeletal US (MSUS) training and extent of implementation among rheumatologists in the member countries of EULAR.

From school to work: A comprehensive model of work-related motivation in the transition to working life.

Motivation is a core concept to understand work related outcomes and vocational pursuits. However, existing research mostly focused on specific aspects of motivation, such as goals or self-efficacy beliefs, while falling short of adequately addressing more complex and integrative notions of motivation. Advancing the current state of research, we draw from Motivational Systems Theory and a model of proactive motivation to propose a comprehensive model of work-related motivation. Specifically, we define motivation as a system of mutually related factors consisting of goals, emotions, and personal agency beliefs, comprised by capability beliefs and context evaluations. Adapting this model of motivation to the school-to-work transition, we postulate that this motivational system is affected by different social, personal, and environmental variables, for example social support, the presence of role-models, personality traits, and scholastic achievement. We further expect that students with more autonomous work-related goals, expectations of more positive emotional experiences in their future working life, fewer perceived barriers to their career development, and higher work-related self-efficacy beliefs would be more successful in their transition from school to work. We also propose that goal-directed engagement acts as a partial mediator in the relationship between motivation and a successful transition. Finally, we hypothesize that work-related motivation while in school will have meaningful effects on positive outcomes while in vocational training, as represented by more work engagement, higher career commitment, job satisfaction, and lower intentions to quit training. In sum, we advance the point that the adaptation of a broader concept of work-related motivation in the school-to-work transition would result in more powerful predictions of success in this transition and would enhance scientific research and interventions in career development and counselling practice.

Impacts of a word-picture training on literacy skills in elementary school children and youths with intellectual disabilities

Objective: There is convincing evidence that phonological, orthographic and semantic processes influence children’s ability to learn to read and spell words. So far only a few studies investigated the influence of implicit learning in literacy skills. Children are sensitive to the statistics of their learning environment. By frequent reading they acquire implicit knowledge about the frequency of letter patterns in written words, and they use this knowledge during reading and spelling. Additionally, semantic connections facilitate to storing of words in memory. Thus, the aim of the intervention study was to implement a word-picture training which is based on statistical and semantic learning. Furthermore, we aimed at examining the training effects in reading and spelling in comparison to an auditory-visual matching training and a working memory training program. Participants and Methods: One hundred and thirty-two children aged between 8 and 11 years participated in training in three weekly session of 12 minutes over 8 weeks, and completed other assessments of reading, spelling, working memory and intelligence before and after training. Results: Results revealed in general that the word-picture training and the auditory-visual matching training led to substantial gains in reading and spelling performance in comparison to the working-memory training. Although both children with and without learning difficulties profited in their reading and spelling after the word-picture training, the training program led to differential effects for the two groups. After the word-picture training on the one hand, children with learning difficulties profited more in spelling as children without learning difficulties, on the other hand, children without learning difficulties benefit more in word comprehension. Conclusions: These findings highlight the need for frequent reading trainings with semantic connections in order to support the acquisition of literacy skills.

Modular training in vascular and endovascular surgery exemplified by the Vascular International Foundation and School

The partial shift from patient to model is a reasonable and necessary paradigm shift in surgery in order to increase patient safety and to adapt to the reduced training time periods in hospitals and increased quality demands. Since 1991 the Vascular International Foundation and School has carried out many training courses with more than 2,500 participants. The modular build training system allows to teach many open vascular and endovascular surgical techniques on lifelike models with a pulsatile circulation. The simulation courses cannot replace training in operating rooms but are suitable for supporting the cognitive and associative stages for achieving motor skills. Scientific evaluation of the courses has continually shown that the training principle established since 1991 can lead to significant learning success. They are extremely useful not only for beginners but also for experienced vascular surgeons. They can help to shorten the learning curve, to learn new techniques or to refine previously used techniques in all stages of professional development. Keywords Advanced training · Advanced training regulations · Training model · Vascular International · Certification

The role of vulnerability factors in individuals with an at-risk mental state of psychosis

Background Several indicators of heightened vulnerability to psychosis and relevant stressors have been identified. However, it has rarely been studied prospectively to what extent these vulnerability factors are in fact more frequently present in individuals with an at-risk mental state for psychosis. Moreover, it remains unknown whether any of these contribute to the prediction of psychosis onset in at-risk mental state individuals. Methods There were 28 healthy controls, 86 first-episode psychosis patients and 127 at-risk mental state individuals recruited within the Basel “Früherkennung von Psychosen” project. Relative frequencies of selected vulnerability factors for psychosis were compared between healthy controls, psychosis patients, those at-risk mental state individuals with subsequent psychosis onset (n = 31) and those without subsequent psychosis onset (n = 55). Survival analyses were applied to determine associations between time to transition to psychosis and vulnerability factors in all 127 at-risk mental state individuals. Results The vulnerability factors/indicators such as “difficulties during school education or vocational training”, “difficulties during employment”, “being single”, “difficulties with intimate relationships” and “being burdened with specific stressful situations” were more commonly found in the at-risk mental state and first-episode psychosis group than in healthy controls. Conclusions At-risk mental state and first-episode psychosis individuals more frequently present with vulnerability factors. Individual vulnerability factors appear, however, not to be predictive for an onset of psychosis.

Feasibility of resting-state microstates neurofeedback

Despite major progress, currently available treatment options for patients suffering from schizophrenia remain suboptimal. Antipsychotic medication is one such option, and is helpful in acute phases of the disease. However, antipsychotics cause significant side-effects that often require additional medication, and can even trigger the discontinuation of treatment. Taken together, along with the fact that 20-30% of patients are medication-resistant, it is clear that new medical care options should be developed for patients with schizophrenia. Besides medication, an emerging option to treat psychiatric symptoms is through the use of neurofeedback. This technique has proven efficacy for other disorders and, more importantly, has also proven to be feasible in patients with schizophrenia. One of the major advantages of this approach is that it allows for the influence of brain states that otherwise would be inaccessible; i.e. the physiological markers underlying psychotic symptoms. EEG resting-state microstates are a very interesting electrophysiological marker of schizophrenia symptoms. Precisely, a specific class of resting-state microstates, namely microstate class D, has consistently been found to show a temporal shortening in patients with schizophrenia compared to controls, and this shortening is correlated with the presence positive psychotic symptoms. Under the scope of biological psychiatry, appropriate treatment of psychotic symptoms can be expected to modify the underlying physiological markers accompanying behavioral manifestations of a disease. We reason that if abnormal temporal parameters of resting-state microstates seem to be related to positive symptoms in schizophrenia, regulating this EEG feature might be helpful as a treatment for patients. The goal of this thesis was to prove the feasibility of microstate class D contribution self-regulation via neurofeedback. Given that no other study has attempted to regulate microstates via neurofeedback, we first tested its feasibility in a population of healthy subjects. In the first paper we describe the methodological characteristics of the neurofeedback protocol and its implementation. Neurofeedback performance was assessed by means of linear mixed effects modeling, which provided a complete profile of the neurofeedback’s training response within and between-subjects. The protocol included 20 training sessions, and each session contained three conditions: baseline (resting-state) and two active conditions: training (auditory feedback upon self-regulation performance) and transfer (self-regulation with no feedback). With linear modeling we obtained performance indices for each of them as follows: baseline carryover (baseline increments time-dependent) and learning and aptitude for each of the active conditions. Learning refers to the increase/decrease of the microstate class D contribution, time-dependent during each active condition, and aptitude refers to the constant difference of the microstate class D contribution between each active condition and baseline independent of time. The indices provided are discussed in terms of tailoring neurofeedback treatment to individual profiles so that it can be applied in future studies or clinical practice. In our sample of participants, neurofeedback proved feasible, as all participants at least showed positive results in one of the aforementioned learning indices. Furthermore, between-subjects we observed that the contribution of microstate class D across-sessions increased by 0.42% during baseline, 1.93% during training trials, and 1.83% during transfer. This range is expected to be effective in treating psychotic symptoms in patients. In the second paper presented in this thesis, we explored the possible predictors of neurofeedback success among psychological variables measured with questionnaires. An interesting finding was the negative correlation between “motivational incongruence” and some of the neurofeedback performance indices. Even though this finding requires replication, we discuss it in terms of the interfering effects of incompatible psychological processes with neurofeedback training requirements. In the third paper, we present a meta-analysis on all available studies that have related resting-state microstate abnormalities and schizophrenia. We obtained medium effect sizes for two microstate classes, namely C and D. Combining the meta-analysis results with the fact that microstate class D abnormalities are correlated with the presence of positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia, these results add further support for the training of this precise microstate. Overall, the results obtained in this study encourage the implementation of this protocol in a population of patients with schizophrenia. However, future studies will have to show whether patients will be able to successfully self-regulate the contribution of microstate class D and, if so, whether this regulation will have an impact on symptomatology.