The impact of parents' expectations on parenting behaviour: an experimental investigation

Over-involved parenting is commonly hypothesized to be it risk factor for the development of anxiety disorders in childhood. This parenting style may result from parental attempts to prevent child distress based on expectations that the child will be unable to cope in a challenging situation. Naturalistic studies are limited in their ability to disentangle the overlapping contribution of child and parent factors in driving parental behaviours. To overcome this difficulty, an experimental study was conducted in which parental expectations of child distress were manipulated and the effects on parent behaviour and child mood were assessed. Fifty-two children (aged 7 - 11 years) and their primary caregiver participated. Parents were allocated to either a "positive" or a "negative" expectation group. Observations were made of the children and their parents interacting whilst completing a difficult anagram task. Parents given negative expectations of their child's response displayed higher levels of involvement. No differences were found on indices of child mood and behaviour and possible explanations for this are considered. The findings are consistent with suggestions that increased parental involvement may be a "natural" reaction to enhanced perceptions of child vulnerability and an attempt to avoid child distress.

Nuclear-follower foraging associations among Characiformes fishes and Potamotrygonidae rays in clean waters environments of Teles Pires and Xingu rivers basins, Midwest Brazil

Por meio de observações sub e supra-aquáticas foram registradas associações alimentares do tipo nuclear-seguidor entre três espécies de peixes characiformes - Chalceus epakros, Hemiodus semitaeniatus e Hemiodus unimaculatus - e uma espécie de raia de água doce - Potamotrygon orbignyi - nas bacias dos rios Teles Pires e Xingu, no Centro-Oeste do Brasil. Os peixes teleósteos foram observados seguindo as raias quando estas revolviam o substrato à procura de invertebrados, formando discretas nuvens de sedimento. Essas situações atraíram os peixes que se aproximaram das raias para se alimentar de pequenas presas e outros tipos de alimentos expostos desta forma. Esse é um típico exemplo de relação comensal onde um participante é beneficiado enquanto o outro não é prejudicado e representa o segundo registro na literatura de associação alimentar do tipo nuclear-seguidor entre raias potamotrigonídeas e peixes teleósteos, demonstrando o potencial de estudos naturalísticos para a descoberta de novas interações envolvendo espécies de peixes de água doce.

Species composition and spatial distribution of a stream fish assemblage in the east coast of Brazil: comparison of two field study methodologies

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Physician speciality and pain reduction in patients with depressive symptoms under treatment with venlafaxine

Excessive pain perception may lead to unnecessary diagnostic testing or invasive procedures resulting in iatrogenic complications and prolonged disability. Naturalistic studies on patients with chronic pain and depressive symptoms investigating the impact of medical speciality on treatment outcome in a primary care setting are lacking.

Inspeção-Geral da Educação e Ciência e Avaliação das Escolas : o caso da autoavaliação de um agrupamento de escolas : um olhar a partir de quem avalia e de quem é avaliado

Relatório de estágio de mestrado, Educação (Área de especialidade em Administração Educacional), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2016

Being stoned: A review of self-reported cannabis effects

Although there has been considerable research into the adverse effects of cannabis, less attention has been directed toward subjective effects that may be associated with ongoing cannabis use. Examination of self-reported cannabis effects is an important issue in understanding the widespread use of cannabis. While reviews have identified euphoria as a primary factor in maintaining cannabis use, relaxation is the effect reported most commonly in naturalistic studies of cannabis users, irrespective of the method used. Self-reported effects in 12 naturalistic and 18 laboratory studies were compared. Regardless of methodology there was considerable variation in the effects experienced. Variation has been reported in terms of opposite effects being experienced by different individuals, variation of effects by individuals within a single occasion and between occasions of use. Factors that might explain this variation are outlined. Limitations of the available literature and suggested directions for future research are discussed.

Do long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) know what others can and cannot hear?

Theory of mind has been defined as the ability to attribute mental sates such as perceptions, knowledge, and belief to others. Studies examining theory of mind in primates have been the center of intense controversy. Much of the research on this subject has focused on designing methodologies to test a primate’s ability to discern the perceptions of others. Namely, many studies have examined an individual’s knowledge of what others can and cannot see. However, other sensory modalities have not undergone as much extensive research. This study aimed to replicate the methodology of a previous experiment with the addition of two novel experimental conditions. Individual long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) were allowed to approach one of two identical, lidded, clear boxes which had jingle bells attached to them. One of the boxes had the metal bits removed from inside of the jingle bells attached to it, thus creating one “silent” box and leaving the remaining one “noisy”. The experimenter either looked directly at the subject, down at the ground between their knees, or in the novel conditions, turned their back to the subject, or wore a welder’s mask while facing the subject after demonstrating each box’s auditory properties. It was predicted that subjects would choose to approach the silent container in the latter three conditions. The results indicated that subjects selected boxes at random in all conditions. Additionally, in order to explore the possibility of perspective-taking representing a derived trait in the genus Macaca, a phylogeny of the genus was created and annotated to display the presence of perspective-taking as a phenotypic trait in extant species. Three likely evolutionary scenarios leading to the current distribution of perspective-taking are postulated and analyzed for parsimony through the number of assumed gains and losses. The most parsimonious tree suggests that perspective taking could be a conserved trait among the order, giving credence to the argument that some other variable was responsible the negative results in this experiment. It is suggested that the results of the present study represent an artifact of the social environment of the subject population. Moreover, arguments are made for the development of more naturalistic studies for examining mental state attribution in primates.

Nuclear-follower foraging associations among Characiformes fishes and Potamotrygonidae rays in clean waters environments of Teles Pires and Xingu rivers basins, Midwest Brazil

Por meio de observações sub e supra-aquáticas foram registradas associações alimentares do tipo nuclear-seguidor entre três espécies de peixes characiformes - Chalceus epakros, Hemiodus semitaeniatus e Hemiodus unimaculatus - e uma espécie de raia de água doce - Potamotrygon orbignyi - nas bacias dos rios Teles Pires e Xingu, no Centro-Oeste do Brasil. Os peixes teleósteos foram observados seguindo as raias quando estas revolviam o substrato à procura de invertebrados, formando discretas nuvens de sedimento. Essas situações atraíram os peixes que se aproximaram das raias para se alimentar de pequenas presas e outros tipos de alimentos expostos desta forma. Esse é um típico exemplo de relação comensal onde um participante é beneficiado enquanto o outro não é prejudicado e representa o segundo registro na literatura de associação alimentar do tipo nuclear-seguidor entre raias potamotrigonídeas e peixes teleósteos, demonstrando o potencial de estudos naturalísticos para a descoberta de novas interações envolvendo espécies de peixes de água doce.

Diagnostic accuracy of the Eurotest for dementia: a naturalistic, multicenter phase II study

BACKGROUND Available screening tests for dementia are of limited usefulness because they are influenced by the patient's culture and educational level. The Eurotest, an instrument based on the knowledge and handling of money, was designed to overcome these limitations. The objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the Eurotest in identifying dementia in customary clinical practice. METHODS A cross-sectional, multi-center, naturalistic phase II study was conducted. The Eurotest was administered to consecutive patients, older than 60 years, in general neurology clinics. The patients' condition was classified as dementia or no dementia according to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. We calculated sensitivity (Sn), specificity (Sp) and area under the ROC curves (aROC) with 95% confidence intervals. The influence of social and educational factors on scores was evaluated with multiple linear regression analysis, and the influence of these factors on diagnostic accuracy was evaluated with logistic regression. RESULTS Sixteen neurologists recruited a total of 516 participants: 101 with dementia, 380 without dementia, and 35 who were excluded. Of the 481 participants who took the Eurotest, 38.7% were totally or functionally illiterate and 45.5% had received no formal education. Mean time needed to administer the test was 8.2+/-2.0 minutes. The best cut-off point was 20/21, with Sn = 0.91 (0.84-0.96), Sp = 0.82 (0.77-0.85), and aROC = 0.93 (0.91-0.95). Neither the scores on the Eurotest nor its diagnostic accuracy were influenced by social or educational factors. CONCLUSION This naturalistic and pragmatic study shows that the Eurotest is a rapid, simple and useful screening instrument, which is free from educational influences, and has appropriate internal and external validity.

Investigating Gaze of Children with ASD in Naturalistic Settings.

BACKGROUND: Visual behavior is known to be atypical in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Monitor-based eye-tracking studies have measured several of these atypicalities in individuals with Autism. While atypical behaviors are known to be accentuated during natural interactions, few studies have been made on gaze behavior in natural interactions. In this study we focused on i) whether the findings done in laboratory settings are also visible in a naturalistic interaction; ii) whether new atypical elements appear when studying visual behavior across the whole field of view. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Ten children with ASD and ten typically developing children participated in a dyadic interaction with an experimenter administering items from the Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS). The children wore a novel head-mounted eye-tracker, measuring gaze direction and presence of faces across the child's field of view. The analysis of gaze episodes to faces revealed that children with ASD looked significantly less and for shorter lapses of time at the experimenter. The analysis of gaze patterns across the child's field of view revealed that children with ASD looked downwards and made more extensive use of their lateral field of view when exploring the environment. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The data gathered in naturalistic settings confirm findings previously obtained only in monitor-based studies. Moreover, the study allowed to observe a generalized strategy of lateral gaze in children with ASD when they were looking at the objects in their environment.

Prevalence and Distribution of Young Driver Distraction Errors in Naturalistic Driving, TPF-5(207), 2014

Naturalistic driving studies are the latest resource for gathering data associated with driver behavior. The University of Iowa has been studying teen driving using naturalistic methods since 2006. By instrumenting teen drivers’ vehicles with event-triggered video recorders (ETVR), we are able to record a 12-second video clip every time a vehicle exceeds a pre-set g-force threshold. Each of these video clips contains valuable data regarding the frequency and types of distractions present in vehicles driven by today’s young drivers. The 16-year old drivers who participated in the study had a distraction present in nearly half of the events that were captured. While a lot of attention has been given to the distractions associated with technology in the vehicle (cell phones, navigation devices, entertainment systems, etc.), the most frequent type of distraction coded was the presence of teen passengers engaging in conversation (45%). Cognitive distractions, such as singing along with the radio, were the second most common distraction. Cell phone use was the third most common distraction, detected in only 10% of the events containing distraction.

Synapse formation in adult barrel cortex following naturalistic environmental enrichment.

Environmental enrichment paradigms in adult laboratory animals, consisting of physical, perceptual, and social stimulation, have been shown to affect synapse and cell morphology in sensory cortex and enhance learning ability, whereas enrichment, which is in harmony with the animal's natural habitat may have even greater implications for plasticity. Previous studies in our laboratory have shown that whisker stimulation induced the formation of synapses and spines in the corresponding barrel. In the present study adult C57/Bl6J female laboratory mice at 6 weeks of age were placed during 2 months in a protected enrichment enclosure in a forest clearing at the Chisti Les Biological Station, Tvier, Russia. We analyzed neuropil ultrastructure in the C2 barrel using serial-section electron microscopy on a total of eight mice (n=4 enriched, n=4 standard cagemate controls). Quantitative analyses of volumes of neuropil showed a significant increase in excitatory and inhibitory synapses on spines and excitatory synapses on dendritic shafts in the C2 barrel in the enriched group compared with standard cagemate controls. These results demonstrate that naturalistic experience alters the synaptic circuitry in layer IV of the somatosensory cortex, the first cortical relay of sensory information, leaving a lasting trace that may guide subsequent behavior.

Writing for the contemporany naturalistic stage: a personal process of creation

El objetivo principal de este proyecto es desarrollar más a fondo y consolidar los objetivos formativos y competencias del grado en Estudios Ingleses a través de un trabajo de escritura creativa, en concreto, la creación de una obra teatral original. Este trabajo consiste en, por un lado, una introducción al Naturalismo, como género literario en un marco cultural y metodológico, y por otro lado, la creación personal de una obra naturalista que incluye la primera parte del manuscrito. Este proyecto incluye un proceso completo de creatividad justificado gracias a las principales teorías de algunos escritores naturalistas, como: Émile Zola – como precursor del Naturalismo – y August Strindberg como uno de los mayores mentores de este género literario. Los resultados obtenidos en este trabajo son: la creación de una obra teatral original, una especialización en el movimiento Naturalista aplicado al teatro contemporáneo, y un profundo conocimiento de la lengua inglesa a través de la perspectiva de un dramaturgo.

Evaluating the Relationship between the Driver and Roadway to Address Rural Intersection Safety using the SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving Study Data, RB05-013, 2016

Rural intersections account for 30% of crashes in rural areas and 6% of all fatal crashes, representing a significant but poorly understood safety problem. Transportation agencies have traditionally implemented countermeasures to address rural intersection crashes but frequently do not understand the dynamic interaction between the driver and roadway and the driver factors leading to these types of crashes. The Second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) conducted a large-scale naturalistic driving study (NDS) using instrumented vehicles. The study has provided a significant amount of on-road driving data for a range of drivers. The present study utilizes the SHRP 2 NDS data as well as SHRP 2 Roadway Information Database (RID) data to observe driver behavior at rural intersections first hand using video, vehicle kinematics, and roadway data to determine how roadway, driver, environmental, and vehicle factors interact to affect driver safety at rural intersections. A model of driver braking behavior was developed using a dataset of vehicle activity traces for several rural stop-controlled intersections. The model was developed using the point at which a driver reacts to the upcoming intersection by initiating braking as its dependent variable, with the driver’s age, type and direction of turning movement, and countermeasure presence as independent variables. Countermeasures such as on-pavement signing and overhead flashing beacons were found to increase the braking point distance, a finding that provides insight into the countermeasures’ effect on safety at rural intersections. The results of this model can lead to better roadway design, more informed selection of traffic control and countermeasures, and targeted information that can inform policy decisions. Additionally, a model of gap acceptance was attempted but was ultimately not developed due to the small size of the dataset. However, a protocol for data reduction for a gap acceptance model was determined. This protocol can be utilized in future studies to develop a gap acceptance model that would provide additional insight into the roadway, vehicle, environmental, and driver factors that play a role in whether a driver accepts or rejects a gap.

Clinical Predictors Associated With Duration of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Treatment for Remission in Bipolar Depression A Naturalistic Study

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been widely tested and shown to be effective for unipolar depression. Although it has also been investigated for bipolar depression (BD), there are only few rTMS studies with BD. Here, we investigated 56 patients with BD who received rTMS treatment until remission (defined as Hamilton Depression Rating Scores <= 7). We used simple and multiple logistic regressions to identify clinical and demographic predictors associated with duration of treatment (defined as <15 vs. >15 rTMS sessions). Age, refractoriness, number of prior depressive episodes, and severe depression at baseline were associated with a longer rTMS treatment. In the multivariate analysis, refractoriness (likelihood ratio (LR) = 4.33; p < 0.01) and baseline severity (LR = 0.18, p < 0.01) remained significant predictors. Our preliminary study showed that, in remitted patients, refractoriness and severity of index episode are associated with the need of a longer rTMS treatment; providing preliminary evidence of important factors associated with rTMS parameters adjustment.