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Selected AbstractsCognitive flexibility in preschoolers: the role of representation activation and maintenanceDEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2008Nicolas Chevalier Preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility has often been attributed to perseverative processing. This study investigates alternative potential sources of difficulty such as deficits in activating previously ignored information and in maintaining currently relevant information. In Experiment 1, a new task tapping attentional switching was designed to isolate the difficulty of overriding an initial representation, that is, perseverative processing (,Perseveration' version), and the difficulty of activating a previously ignored representation, that is, activation deficit (,Activation-deficit' version). Three-year-olds' performance suggested that inflexibility may primarily stem from an activation deficit. Control experiments confirmed that the difficulty of the ,Activation-deficit' version could not be attributed to the effect of attraction to novelty. In Experiment 2, ,distraction' errors, alleged to reflect a failure to maintain a relevant representation, and ,perseverative' errors were distinguished. The results highlighted the important role of representation maintenance in flexibility. The present study indicates that preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility is multi-determined and prompts us to reconsider the role of perseveration. [source] The Role of Declarative Pointing in Developing a Theory of MindINFANCY, Issue 3 2004Luigia Camaioni It has been suggested that the child's capacity to represent and influence another person's attentional state about an object or event in triadic interactions (declarative communication) is an early manifestation of social understanding in the second year of life. This study tested the following predictions: First, in typically developing children declarative pointing emerges later than imperative pointing. Second, the capacity to use declarative pointing is linked to the understanding of other's intentions (i.e., to the capacity to reproduce other's intended acts after seeing failed attempts to perform these acts). The study was conducted in 2 phases. In the first phase, the parents of 133 typically developing infants completed the Questionnaire on Pointing Gesture, which allowed the identification of babies able to use pointing in familiar contexts. Of these children, 40 participated in the experiment and were tested on 2 tasks: a new task designed to elicit production and comprehension of imperative and declarative pointing, and a modified version of Meltzoff's (1995) task designed to assess understanding of others' intentions. Tasks were administered to each participant in 2 sessions carried out at 3-month intervals. Children were 12 months old on average at the 1st session and 15 months old on average at the 2nd session. Results showed that children produced and understood declarative pointing later than imperative pointing. Furthermore, production of declarative pointing was clearly linked to understanding of others' intentions. No relation was found between production and comprehension of imperative pointing and intention understanding. Implications from the association between declarative pointing and inferring other's intentions are discussed. [source] Concurrent Q-learning: Reinforcement learning for dynamic goals and environmentsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, Issue 10 2005Robert B. Ollington This article presents a powerful new algorithm for reinforcement learning in problems where the goals and also the environment may change. The algorithm is completely goal independent, allowing the mechanics of the environment to be learned independently of the task that is being undertaken. Conventional reinforcement learning techniques, such as Q-learning, are goal dependent. When the goal or reward conditions change, previous learning interferes with the new task that is being learned, resulting in very poor performance. Previously, the Concurrent Q-Learning algorithm was developed, based on Watkin's Q-learning, which learns the relative proximity of all states simultaneously. This learning is completely independent of the reward experienced at those states and, through a simple action selection strategy, may be applied to any given reward structure. Here it is shown that the extra information obtained may be used to replace the eligibility traces of Watkin's Q-learning, allowing many more value updates to be made at each time step. The new algorithm is compared to the previous version and also to DG-learning in tasks involving changing goals and environments. The new algorithm is shown to perform significantly better than these alternatives, especially in situations involving novel obstructions. The algorithm adapts quickly and intelligently to changes in both the environment and reward structure, and does not suffer interference from training undertaken prior to those changes. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 20: 1037,1052, 2005. [source] Early patient contact in primary care: a new challengeMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 9 2001Ann-Christin Haffling Background The Medical School of Lund University, Sweden, has introduced an early patient contact course, including training in communication and examination skills. The course runs parallel with theoretical subjects during the students' first two-and-a-half years. General practitioner (GP) participation is gradually increasing, and in the last half-year of the course GPs in all health centres in the area are involved. Little is known about the GPs' interest, competence and time for this new task. Aim To describe the GPs' attitudes towards teaching and the rewards and problems they experience. Subjects 30 GPs teaching third-year medical students. Method Semistructured interview study. Data analysis by a method described by Malterud. Results The attitude towards teaching was mostly positive and the teachers were confident about teaching examination procedure. Among rewards of teaching, improved quality of clinical practice was the main theme, but imparting knowledge to others, contact with enthusiastic students, and gains in self-esteem were also mentioned. Problems with teaching were mostly due to external factors such as lack of time and space, but concern about a negative effect on patient care was also recognized. Educational objectives of the course were not completely accepted. GPs were not fully aware about what to expect from the students, with subsequent problems concerning how to assess students' performance and how to give effective feedback. Conclusions The teaching of junior medical students is maintained by the GPs' enthusiasm for teaching. However, teacher training is required and the crucial issues of time and space have to be considered. [source] Increasing stereotypy in adult zebra finch song correlates with a declining rate of adult neurogenesisDEVELOPMENTAL NEUROBIOLOGY, Issue 13 2007Carolyn L. Pytte Abstract Adult neurogenesis is often correlated with learning new tasks, suggesting that a function of incorporating new neurons is to permit new memory formation. However, in the zebra finch, neurons are added to the song motor pathway throughout life, long after the initial song motor pattern is acquired by about 3 months of age. To explore this paradox, we examined the relationship between adult song structure and neuron addition using sensitive measures of song acoustic structure. We report that between 4 and 15 months of age there was an increase in the stereotypy of fine-grained spectral and temporal features of syllable acoustic structure. These results indicate that the zebra finch continues to refine motor output, perhaps by practice, over a protracted period beyond the time when song is first learned. Over the same age range, there was a decrease in the addition of new neurons to HVC, a region necessary for song production, but not to Area X or the hippocampus, regions not essential for singing. We propose that age-related changes in the stereotypy of syllable acoustic structure and HVC neuron addition are functionally related. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2007. [source] Doctors' assistants' views of case management to improve chronic heart failure care in general practice: a qualitative studyJOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 4 2009Rebecca Olbort Abstract Title.,Doctors' assistants' views of case management to improve chronic heart failure care in general practice: a qualitative study. Aim., This paper is a report of a study to explore the views, concerns and experiences of doctors' assistants of case management for patients with chronic heart failure, while experiencing the new role of being a case manager within the Heidelberg Integrated Case Management trial. Background., Case management is being investigated as part of a randomised controlled trial aiming to improve care for patients with chronic systolic heart failure. In a complex, multifaceted intervention, trained doctors' assistants (equivalent to a nursing role) adopted new tasks using standardised case management involving telephone monitoring, home visits and diagnostic screening. Method., In April 2007, 3 months after implementation of the intervention programme, 27 doctors' assistants participated in four focus group interviews discussing their views on, and experiences of, case management. Thematic analysis of the data was undertaken. Findings., Participants believed that the most positive factors in case management were about interaction with patients, including opportunities for identifying disease and psychosocial problems. However, barriers included lack of time allocated to perform case management in addition to their normal role and poor cooperation within the practice team. According to the doctors' assistants, the routine implementation of case management was acceptable, feasible and effective in improving the management of patients with chronic systolic heart failure. Conclusion., Case management enhanced the role of doctors' assistants, leading to increased awareness of the perspective of patients with chronic disease. In the wider international primary care practice nursing context, the orchestrated delegation of tasks using specific case management may be a promising strategy for improving the quality of care of chronically ill patients and enabling patient self-management. [source] Parents' safety beliefs and childhood agricultural injuryAMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 9 2009Muree Larson-Bright PhD Abstract Background This study examined potential associations between parental safety beliefs and children's chore assignments or risk of agricultural injury. Methods Analyses were based on nested case,control data collected by the 1999 and 2001 Regional Rural Injury Study-II (RRIS-II) surveillance efforts. Cases (n,=,425, reporting injuries) and controls (n,=,1,886, no injuries; selected using incidence density sampling) were persons younger than 20 years of age from Midwestern agricultural households. A causal model served as the basis for multivariate data analysis. Results Decreased risks of injury (odds ratio [OR] and 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were observed for working-aged children with "moderate," compared to "very strict" parental monitoring (0.60; 0.40,0.90), and with parents believing in the importance of physical (0.80; 0.60,0.95) and cognitive readiness (0.70, 0.50,0.90, all children; 0.30, 0.20,0.50, females) when assigning new tasks. Parents' safety beliefs were not associated with chore assignments. Conclusions Parents' safety beliefs were associated with reduced risk of childhood agricultural injury; the association was not mediated by chore assignments. Am. J. Ind. Med. Am. J. Ind. Med. 52:724,733, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] | ||||||||||