Here, there and everywhere: Emotion and mental state talk in different social contexts predicts empathic helping in toddlers

A growing body of literature suggests that parents socialize early-emerging prosocial behavior across varied contexts and in subtle yet powerful ways. We focus on discourse about emotions and mental states as one potential socialization mechanism given its conceptual relevance to prosocial behavior and its known positive relations with emotion understanding and social-cognitive development, as well as parents' frequent use of such discourse beginning in infancy. Specifically, we ask how parents' emotion and mental state talk (EMST) with their toddlers relates to toddlers' helping and how these associations vary by context. Children aged 18- to 30-months (n = 38) interacted with a parent during book reading and joint play with toys, two everyday contexts that afford parental discussion of emotions and mental states. Children also participated in instrumental and empathic helping tasks. Results revealed that although parents discuss mental states with their children in both contexts, the nature of their talk differs: during book reading parents labeled emotions and mental states significantly more often than during joint play, especially simple affect words (e.g., happy, sad) and explanations or elaborations of emotions; whereas they used more desire talk and mental state words (e.g., think, know) in joint play. Parents' emotion and mental state discourse related to children's empathic, emotion-based helping behavior; however, it did not relate to instrumental, action-based helping. Moreover, relations between parent talk and empathic helping varied by context: children who helped more quickly had parents who labeled emotion and mental states more often during joint play and who elicited this talk more often during book reading. As EMST both varies between contexts and exhibits context-specific associations with empathic prosocial behavior early in development, we conclude that such discourse may be a key form of socialization in emerging prosociality. © 2014 Drummond, Paul, Waugh, Hammond and Brownell

The disappearance of the "revolving door" patient in Scottish general practice: successful policies

<b>Background</b> We describe the health of "revolving door" patients in general practice in Scotland, estimate changes in their number over the timescale of the study, and explore reasons for changes, particularly related to NHS and government policy.<p></p> <b>Methods</b> A mixed methods predominantly qualitative study, using a grounded theory approach, set in Scottish general practice. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional key informants, 6 Practitioner Services staff who administer the GP registration system and 6 GPs with managerial or clinical experience of working with "revolving door" patients. Descriptive statistical analysis and qualitative analysis of patient removal episodes linked with routine hospital admissions, outpatient appointments, drug misuse treatment episodes and deaths were carried out with cohorts of "revolving door" patients identified from 1999 to 2005 in Scotland.<p></p> <b>Results</b> A "revolving door" patient is removed 4 or more times from GP lists in 7 years. Patients had complex health issues including substance misuse, psychiatric and physical health problems and were at high risk of dying. There was a dramatic reduction in the number of "revolving door" patients during the course of the study.<p></p> <b>Conclusions</b> "Revolving door" patients in general practice had significant health problems. Their numbers have reduced dramatically since 2004 and this probably resulted from improved drug treatment services, pressure from professional bodies to reduce patient removals and the positive ethical regulatory and financial climate of the 2004 GMS GP contract. This is a positive development for the NHS

Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction with Young Users

Artificial companion agents have the potential to combine novel means for effective health communication with young patients support and entertainment. However, the theory and practice of longterm child-robot interaction is currently an under-developed area of research. This paper introduces an approach that integrates multiple functional aspects necessary to implement temporally extended human-robot interaction in the setting of a paediatric ward. We present our methodology for the implementation of a companion robot which will be used to support young patients in hospital as they learn to manage a lifelong metabolic disorder (diabetes). The robot will interact with patients over an extended period of time. The necessary functional aspects are identified and introduced, and a review of the technical challenges involved is presented

The removal of thermally aged films of triacylglycerides by surfactant solutions

Thermal ageing of triacylglycerides (TAG) at high temperatures produces films which resist removal using aqueous surfactant solutions. We used a mass loss method to investigate the removal of thermally aged TAG films from hard surfaces using aqueous solutions of surfactants of different charge types. It was found that cationic surfactants are most effective at high pH, whereas anionics are most effective at low pH and a non-ionic surfactant is most effective at intermediate pH. We showed that the TAG film removal process occurs in several stages. In the first ‘‘lag phase’’ no TAG removal occurs; the surfactant first partitions into the thermally aged film. In the second stage, the TAG film containing surfactant was removed by solubilisation into micelles in the aqueous solution. The effects of pH and surfactant charge on the TAG removal process correlate with the effects of these variables on the extent of surfactant partitioning to the TAG film and on the maximum extent of TAG solubilisation within the micelles. Additionally, we showed how the TAG removal is enhanced by the addition of amphiphilic additives such as alcohols which act as co-surfactants. The study demonstrates that aqueous surfactant solutions provide a viable and more benign alternative to current methods for the removal of thermally aged TAG films

Phenothiazine-mediated rescue of cognition in tau transgenic mice requires neuroprotection and reduced soluble tau burden

Abstract Background It has traditionally been thought that the pathological accumulation of tau in Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies facilitates neurodegeneration, which in turn leads to cognitive impairment. However, recent evidence suggests that tau tangles are not the entity responsible for memory loss, rather it is an intermediate tau species that disrupts neuronal function. Thus, efforts to discover therapeutics for tauopathies emphasize soluble tau reductions as well as neuroprotection. Results Here, we found that neuroprotection alone caused by methylene blue (MB), the parent compound of the anti-tau phenothiaziazine drug, Rember™, was insufficient to rescue cognition in a mouse model of the human tauopathy, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and fronto-temporal dementia with parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP17): Only when levels of soluble tau protein were concomitantly reduced by a very high concentration of MB, was cognitive improvement observed. Thus, neurodegeneration can be decoupled from tau accumulation, but phenotypic improvement is only possible when soluble tau levels are also reduced. Conclusions Neuroprotection alone is not sufficient to rescue tau-induced memory loss in a transgenic mouse model. Development of neuroprotective agents is an area of intense investigation in the tauopathy drug discovery field. This may ultimately be an unsuccessful approach if soluble toxic tau intermediates are not also reduced. Thus, MB and related compounds, despite their pleiotropic nature, may be the proverbial "magic bullet" because they not only are neuroprotective, but are also able to facilitate soluble tau clearance. Moreover, this shows that neuroprotection is possible without reducing tau levels. This indicates that there is a definitive molecular link between tau and cell death cascades that can be disrupted.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78314/1/1750-1326-5-45.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78314/2/1750-1326-5-45.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78314/3/1750-1326-5-45-S1.PDFPeer Reviewe

3-D Ultrastructure of O. tauri: Electron Cryotomography of an Entire Eukaryotic Cell

The hallmark of eukaryotic cells is their segregation of key biological functions into discrete, membrane-bound organelles. Creating accurate models of their ultrastructural complexity has been difficult in part because of the limited resolution of light microscopy and the artifact-prone nature of conventional electron microscopy. Here we explored the potential of the emerging technology electron cryotomography to produce three-dimensional images of an entire eukaryotic cell in a near-native state. Ostreococcus tauri was chosen as the specimen because as a unicellular picoplankton with just one copy of each organelle, it is the smallest known eukaryote and was therefore likely to yield the highest resolution images. Whole cells were imaged at various stages of the cell cycle, yielding 3-D reconstructions of complete chloroplasts, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticula, Golgi bodies, peroxisomes, microtubules, and putative ribosome distributions in-situ. Surprisingly, the nucleus was seen to open long before mitosis, and while one microtubule (or two in some predivisional cells) was consistently present, no mitotic spindle was ever observed, prompting speculation that a single microtubule might be sufficient to segregate multiple chromosomes

The long and the short of it: long-styled florets are associated with higher outcrossing rate in Senecio vulgaris and result from delayed selfpollen germination

The research reported in this article was funded in part by the Natural Environment Research Council under grants: GR3/6203A - Male competition and outcrossing rate in a hermaphrodite plant. GR9/1782A – Genomic analysis of wild hybrid derivatives of Senecio squalidus x S. vulgaris using in situ hybridization.Background: It has been reported that some plants of the self-compatible species, Senecio vulgaris, produce capitula containing long-styled florets which fail to set seed when left to self-pollinate, although readily set seed when self-pollinated by hand. Aims: To determine if production of long-styled florets is associated with higher outcrossing rate in S. vulgaris, and whether long-styles occur in non-pollinated florets, whereas short-styles are present in self-pollinated florets. Methods: The frequency of long-styled florets was compared in the radiate and non-radiate variants of S. vulgaris, known to exhibit higher and lower outcrossing rates, respectively. In addition, style length was compared in emasculated florets that were either self-pollinated or left non-pollinated. Results: Long-styled florets were more frequent in the higher outcrossing radiate variant. Following emasculation, long styles occurred in non-pollinated florets, while short styles were present in self-pollinated florets. The two variants did not differ in style length within the non-pollinated or within the self-pollinated floret categories. Conclusions: A high frequency of long-styled florets is associated with higher outcrossing rate in S. vulgaris and results from delayed self-pollination and pollen germination on stigmas.Publisher PDFPublisher PDFPeer reviewe

Predicting Phenotypic Diversity and the Underlying Quantitative Molecular Transitions

During development, signaling networks control the formation of multicellular patterns. To what extent quantitative fluctuations in these complex networks may affect multicellular phenotype remains unclear. Here, we describe a computational approach to predict and analyze the phenotypic diversity that is accessible to a developmental signaling network. Applying this framework to vulval development in C. elegans, we demonstrate that quantitative changes in the regulatory network can render ~500 multicellular phenotypes. This phenotypic capacity is an order-of-magnitude below the theoretical upper limit for this system but yet is large enough to demonstrate that the system is not restricted to a select few outcomes. Using metrics to gauge the robustness of these phenotypes to parameter perturbations, we identify a select subset of novel phenotypes that are the most promising for experimental validation. In addition, our model calculations provide a layout of these phenotypes in network parameter space. Analyzing this landscape of multicellular phenotypes yielded two significant insights. First, we show that experimentally well-established mutant phenotypes may be rendered using non-canonical network perturbations. Second, we show that the predicted multicellular patterns include not only those observed in C. elegans, but also those occurring exclusively in other species of the Caenorhabditis genus. This result demonstrates that quantitative diversification of a common regulatory network is indeed demonstrably sufficient to generate the phenotypic differences observed across three major species within the Caenorhabditis genus. Using our computational framework, we systematically identify the quantitative changes that may have occurred in the regulatory network during the evolution of these species. Our model predictions show that significant phenotypic diversity may be sampled through quantitative variations in the regulatory network without overhauling the core network architecture. Furthermore, by comparing the predicted landscape of phenotypes to multicellular patterns that have been experimentally observed across multiple species, we systematically trace the quantitative regulatory changes that may have occurred during the evolution of the Caenorhabditis genus

The feasibility of using pedometers and brief advice to increase activity in sedentary older women:a pilot study

Background: People over the age of 70 carry the greatest burden of chronic disease, disability and health care use. Participation in physical activity is crucial for health, and walking accounts for much of the physical activity undertaken by sedentary individuals. Pedometers are a useful motivational tool to encourage increased walking and they are cheap and easy to use. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility of the use of pedometers plus a theory-based intervention to assist sedentary older women to accumulate increasing amounts of physical activity, mainly through walking. Methods: Female participants over the age of 70 were recruited from primary care and randomised to receive either pedometer plus a theory-based intervention or a theory-based intervention alone. The theory-based intervention consisted of motivational techniques, goal-setting, barrier identification and self-monitoring with pedometers and daily diaries. The pedometer group were further randomised to one of three target groups: a 10%, 15% or 20% monthly increase in step count to assess the achievability and acceptability of a range of targets. The primary outcome was change in daily activity levels measured by accelerometry. Secondary outcome measures were lower limb function, health related quality of life, anxiety and depression. Results: 54 participants were recruited into the study, with an average age of 76. There were 9 drop outs, 45 completing the study. All participants in the pedometer group found the pedometers easy to use and there was good compliance with diary keeping (96% in the pedometer group and 83% in the theory-based intervention alone group). There was a strong correlation (0.78) between accelerometry and pedometer step counts i.e. indicating that walking was the main physical activity amongst participants. There was a greater increase in activity (accelerometry) amongst those in the 20% target pedometer group compared to the other groups, although not reaching statistical significance (p = 0.192). Conclusion: We have demonstrated that it is feasible to use pedometers and provide theory-based advice to community dwelling sedentary older women to increase physical activity levels and a larger study is planned to investigate this further.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe