Cognitive tests used in chronic adult human randomised controlled trial micronutrient and phytochemical intervention studies

In recent years there has been a rapid growth of interest in exploring the relationship between nutritional therapies and the maintenance of cognitive function in adulthood. Emerging evidence reveals an increasingly complex picture with respect to the benefits of various food constituents on learning, memory and psychomotor function in adults. However, to date, there has been little consensus in human studies on the range of cognitive domains to be tested or the particular tests to be employed. To illustrate the potential difficulties that this poses, we conducted a systematic review of existing human adult randomised controlled trial (RCT) studies that have investigated the effects of 24 d to 36 months of supplementation with flavonoids and micronutrients on cognitive performance. There were thirty-nine studies employing a total of 121 different cognitive tasks that met the criteria for inclusion. Results showed that less than half of these studies reported positive effects of treatment, with some important cognitive domains either under-represented or not explored at all. Although there was some evidence of sensitivity to nutritional supplementation in a number of domains (for example, executive function, spatial working memory), interpretation is currently difficult given the prevailing 'scattergun approach' for selecting cognitive tests. Specifically, the practice means that it is often difficult to distinguish between a boundary condition for a particular nutrient and a lack of task sensitivity. We argue that for significant future progress to be made, researchers need to pay much closer attention to existing human RCT and animal data, as well as to more basic issues surrounding task sensitivity, statistical power and type I error

Top Ten Challenges Facing Worship Leaders in 2014

At the 2003 Symposium, Paul Detterman presented a seminar on the “Top Ten Challenges Facing Worship Leaders that is still sparking conversations a decade later. While some basic realities remain the same, accelerating change in the culture and the church make this a conversation worth revisiting regularly. Come with your challenges

Trans-Forming Worship

Just as the Sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, communal worship of the Triune God is an outward liturgical expression of inner, spiritual life. Explore how parallel movements of liturgical and spiritual renewal from the past offer wisdom and blessing to those planning worship in 2014

Alleluias Concentrated: Enabling Expansive Worship in Small Membership Congregations

“If we only had / could…” can become too common a phrase in smaller congregations. God invites us to worship as we can, not as we can’t. Paul Detterman spends the vast majority of his time working with “wee kirks” (under 70 in worship). This session will equip and encourage even the smallest congregation (or small group within a larger community) to design and experience deep, joy-filled worship using everything God has given them and requiring nothing more

Administration of a Unix computer network

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3193042

Early Holocene Warm Interval In Northern Alaska

Reports a radiocarbon date of 8400 ± 300 BP for a poplar log found 6 m below surface near the Sagavanirktok River and close to the Itkillik glaciation type area. This confirms the correlation of dates reported earlier by others in the Seward Peninsula, Pt Barrow and along the Anaktuvuk River, with a warm period between the Antler valley and Anivik Lake advances of the Itkillik glaciation

Changed responses under cross-examination: The role of anxiety and individual differences in child witnesses

The present study explored whether levels of anxiety, and a range of individual differences measures (age, IQ, and suggestibility), could predict performance during crossexamination questioning. Eighty-three children (aged 4-11 years) witnessed a staged event before being interviewed (3-6 days later) and cross-examined (ten months later). Results demonstrated that cross-examination induced a significant rise in anxiety levels. Further, recall of unchallenged details (based on children’s initial testimony, which they reviewed prior to cross-examination) and anxiety levels were the only significant predictors of crossexamination performance. Further research is needed to explore the inter-relationship between anxiety and other individual difference measures on cross-examination performance, and to determine how to alleviate the anxiety of child witnesses (to enable them to achieve their best evidence in court). Preparation to ensure children understand the importance of attending to the recording of their original evidence may improve children’s resilience under cross-examination and reduce anxiety levels

Conceptual learning : the priority for higher education

The common sense notion of learning as the all-pervasive acquisition of new behaviour and knowledge, made vivid by experience, is an incomplete characterisation, because it assumes that the learning of behaviour and the learning of knowledge are indistinguishable, and that acquisition constitutes learning without reference to transfer. A psychological level of analysis is used to argue that conceptual learning should have priority in higher education

Testing sleep consolidation in skill learning: a field study using an online game

Using an observational sample of players of a simple online game (n > 1.2 million), we are able to trace the development of skill in that game. Information on playing time, and player location, allows us to estimate time of day during which practice took place. We compare those whose breaks in practice probably contained a night’s sleep and those whose breaks in practice probably did not contain a night’s sleep. Our analysis confirms experimental evidence showing a benefit of spacing for skill learning, but fails to find any additional benefit of sleeping during a break from practice. We discuss reasons why the well established phenomenon of sleep consolidation might not manifest in an observational study of skill development. We put the spacing effect into the context of the other known influences on skill learning: improvement with practice, and individual differences in initial performance. Analysis of performance data from games allows experimental results to be demonstrated outside of the lab, and for experimental phenomenon to be put in the context of the performance of the whole task

Can Machine Intelligence be Measured in the Same Way as Human intelligence?

In recent years the number of research projects on computer programs solving human intelligence problems in artificial intelligence (AI), artificial general intelligence, as well as in Cognitive Modelling, has significantly grown. One reason could be the interest of such problems as benchmarks for AI algorithms. Another, more fundamental, motivation behind this area of research might be the (implicit) assumption that a computer program that successfully can solve human intelligence problems has human-level intelligence and vice versa. This paper analyses this assumption