Dancing with the porcupine: rules for governing the university-industry relationship.
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Biomedical Research↗
Biomedical subjects
E Gibson
Publications and source records attributed to E Gibson.
Recency in verb phrase attachment.
Four experiments investigated attachment preferences in constructions involving 3 verb phrases (VPs) followed by an attaching modifier. Readers preferred attachment to the most recent (lowest) VP site overall and preferred to attach the modifier to the middle VP over the highest VP, demonstrating a monotonic recency-based preference ordering. This pattern could not be attributed to lexical or plausibility-based preferences. The results contrast with the pattern for relative clause attachment into 3 potential noun phrase sites, where the preference ordering is nonmonotonic (e.g., E. Gibson, N. J. Pearlmutter, E. Canseco-Gonzalez, & G. Hickok, 1996), and support the multiple-constraint theory described by E. Gibson and N. J. Pearlmutter (1998), which proposes that recency/locality and a secondary factor, predicate proximity, combine with lexical, grammatical, prosodic, and contextual constraints to determine attachment preferences.
Adult↗
Distinguishing serial and parallel parsing.
This paper discusses ways of determining whether the human parser is serial maintaining at most, one structural interpretation at each parse state, or whether it is parallel, maintaining more than one structural interpretation in at least some circumstances. We make four points. The first two counterclaims made by Lewis (2000): (1) that the availability of alternative structures should not vary as a function of the disambiguating material in some ranked parallel models; and (2) that parallel models predict a slow down during the ambiguous region for more syntactically ambiguous structures. Our other points concern potential methods for seeking experimental evidence relevant to the serial/parallel question. We discuss effects of the plausibility of a secondary structure in the ambiguous region (Pearlmutter & Mendelsohn, 1999) and suggest examining the distribution of reaction times in the disambiguating region.
Cognition↗
Infant sleep position practices 2 years into the "back to sleep" campaign.
Since the 1992 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendation to put babies to sleep in the nonprone position and the subsequent 1994 "Back to Sleep" campaign, the U.S. rate of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has decreased more than 40%. This study reports sleep position practices in the greater Philadelphia area during 1996 and 1997. Four hundred and ten parents of infants 6 months of age or less answered a questionnaire by interview in Philadelphia clinics and private pediatric offices from December 1995 through February 1997. Sleep position practices and other SIDS risk factors were measured among demographic groups and compared with reported rates in a similar population from 1993 and 1994. Data were analyzed by Chi square after analysis of correlation coefficients. Significance is reported at p < 0.05. Seventy-two percent of all infants surveyed slept nonprone (NP) compared to 31.8% in 1993 and 59.1% in 1994. The population was 61% African-American (AA), 62% clinic patients. The breast feeding rate was 31%, maternal smoking 17%, and cosleeping 46%. AA infants (67% vs. 82%), infants receiving care at a clinic (66% vs. 84%), and infants > 3 months old (65% vs. 76%) are less likely to be placed nonprone. Most parents who place infants on their back report it was recommended by a medical professional (56%). The majority of those placing infants prone do so because their infant is more comfortable or sleeps better (65%), although 73% said their physician/nurse discussed sleep position with them. Nonprone sleeping continues to increase since the initiation of the "Back to Sleep" campaign. Disparity between some demographic groups persists. An excessive number of African-American families and clinic families still choose a prone sleep position. Many who do so cite increased infant comfort, despite knowledge of the AAP recommendation.
Chi-Square Distribution↗
Effect of nonviable infants on the infant mortality rate in Philadelphia, 1992.
OBJECTIVES: This report measured the effect of births at 22 weeks' gestation or earlier on infant mortality in Philadelphia, Pa. METHODS: The proportion of live-born deliveries at 22 weeks or earlier was calculated. Overall and race-specific infant mortality was calculated after excluding live-born deliveries at 22 weeks' gestation or earlier. RESULTS: Of all deliveries, 1.5% were at 22 weeks or earlier. Of these, 68% were stillborn and 32% were live-born. Large hospital-to-hospital variation in the proportion of live-born deliveries at 22 weeks' gestation or earlier was noted. When nonviable births were excluded, overall infant mortality decreased 40%. CONCLUSIONS: The development of a standardized birth certificate policy is needed and will facilitate comparisons of infant mortality across spatial boundaries and racial/ethnic groups.
Birth Certificates↗
Assessment of infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation rescue breathing technique: relationship of infant and caregiver facial measurements.
OBJECTIVE: Although a few infants ever require resuscitation, pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is performed most commonly under 1 year of age. American Heart Association guidelines for pediatric basic life support recommend that the caregiver place his/her mouth over the infant's mouth and nose to create a seal. The way CPR is currently taught encourages parents to attempt to seal the nose and open the mouth of the infant for rescue breathing. Recent studies suggest some parents may have trouble sealing an infant's nose and open mouth, but their study participant numbers were small. The aim of this report is to estimate, among a large cohort, the ability of caregivers to create a seal to their infants for the provision of rescue breathing according to current guidelines. METHODS: Infants up to 1 year of age (n = 281) and their caregivers were enrolled from Philadelphia pediatric offices. Facial measurements of the infants were obtained to estimate the length needed to seal the nose and open mouth, and the nose and closed mouth. Mouth widths of the caregivers were compared with their infant's nose and mouth lengths. One-way analysis of variance with Tukey's postmortem analysis and ordinary least squares means regression were used for univariate analysis with analysis of covariance used to control for the effects of multiple variables when necessary. Infant measurements were stratified into 3-month age quadrants to compare against matched adult caregiver measurements. RESULTS: Most caregivers (n = 270) were female. Females had smaller mouth widths than males (4.9 +/- 0.5 cm vs 5.2 +/- 0.5 cm). Infant nose and mouth length increased during the first year of life, with the largest increase between 0 to 3 months and 3 to 6 months (4.2 +/- 0.4 cm to 4.7 +/- 0.4 cm). As infant age and face length increased, a progressively higher rate of adult females were estimated not to be able to cover their infant's nose and open mouth, with the greatest increase again between 0 to 3 months (9%) and 3 to 6 months (40%). All female caregivers except 1 were predicted to be able to seal their infant's nose and closed mouth by our measurements. CONCLUSIONS: Infant face length grows rapidly during the first year of life with the most rapid growth occurring during the first 6 months. As early as 3 to 6 months of infant age, many adult caregivers' facial measurements, especially female, predict that they may not be able to form a seal for mouth-to-nose and open-mouth infant rescue breathing. By related measurements, nearly 100% of caregivers should be able to seal their infant's nose and closed mouth. If facial measurement predictions correlate with functional inability to seal an infant's nose and open mouth, infant CPR rescue breathing instruction will need to emphasize head position and creation of a seal over the mouth and nose without teaching that the mouth be open. pediatric basic life support, infant CPR, rescue breathing, sudden infant death syndrome, acute life-threatening episode.
Adult↗
Recency and lexical preferences in Spanish.
One experiment provided evidence in support of Gibson, Pearlmutter, Canseco-Gonzalez, and Hickok's (1996) claim that a recency preference applies to Spanish relative clause attachments, contrary to the claim made by Cuetos and Mitchell (1988). Spanish speakers read stimuli involving either two or three potential attachment sites in which the same lexical content of the two-site conditions appeared in a different structural configuration in the three-site conditions. High attachment was easier than low attachment when only two sites were present, but low attachment was preferred over high attachment, which was in turn preferred over middle attachment, when three sites were present. The experiment replicated earlier results and showed that (1) attachment preferences are determined in part by a preference to attach recently/low, and (2) lexical biases are insufficient to explain attachment preferences.
Adult↗
Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies.
This paper proposes a new theory of the relationship between the sentence processing mechanism and the available computational resources. This theory--the Syntactic Prediction Locality Theory (SPLT)--has two components: an integration cost component and a component for the memory cost associated with keeping track of obligatory syntactic requirements. Memory cost is hypothesized to be quantified in terms of the number of syntactic categories that are necessary to complete the current input string as a grammatical sentence. Furthermore, in accordance with results from the working memory literature both memory cost and integration cost are hypothesized to be heavily influenced by locality (1) the longer a predicted category must be kept in memory before the prediction is satisfied, the greater is the cost for maintaining that prediction; and (2) the greater the distance between an incoming word and the most local head or dependent to which it attaches, the greater the integration cost. The SPLT is shown to explain a wide range of processing complexity phenomena not previously accounted for under a single theory, including (1) the lower complexity of subject-extracted relative clauses compared to object-extracted relative clauses, (2) numerous processing overload effects across languages, including the unacceptability of multiply center-embedded structures, (3) the lower complexity of cross-serial dependencies relative to center-embedded dependencies, (4) heaviness effects, such that sentences are easier to understand when larger phrases are placed later and (5) numerous ambiguity effects, such as those which have been argued to be evidence for the Active Filler Hypothesis.
Decision Trees↗
Sudden infant death syndrome rates subsequent to the American Academy of Pediatrics supine sleep position.
OBJECTIVES: In April 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that healthy infants be positioned for sleep on their side or back to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The authors hypothesized three different forms of the intervention to examine the impact of the recommendation according to theory such as technology diffusion. Seasonality was included in the models to control its effect when testing. METHODS: Box and Tiao time-series intervention methodology was used to examine the effect of the AAP recommendation on SIDS rates. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome mortality data from Philadelphia and Chicago were examined separately for white and nonwhite populations over 32 quarters. RESULTS: Overall SIDS rates dropped significantly according to an abrupt effect from the intervention. However, the effect appeared to be gradually declining in Philadelphia but permanent in Chicago. In Philadelphia, a decline of 62.3% was estimated in whites in the first quarter after the intervention but decreased to only 5% in the last quarter of 1994. A decline of 35.8% was estimated in nonwhites in the first quarter after the intervention but decreased to only 9.4% in the last quarter of 1994. An abrupt and permanent decrease of 26.7% and 16.5% was found in Chicago for whites and nonwhites, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence of an abrupt adoption of the recommendation can be explained by the authority innovation decision made by the AAP. Some evidence was found that the effect is temporary, perhaps because physicians are reversing earlier decisions. The demonstrated methodology provides a powerful way to test naturally occurring interventions from quasiexperimental designs to test the impact of policy guidelines.
Chicago↗
Processing syntactic relations in language and music: an event-related potential study.
In order to test the language-specificity of a known neural correlate of syntactic processing [the P600 event-related brain potential (ERP) component], this study directly compared ERPs elicited by syntactic incongruities in language and music. Using principles of phrase structure for language and principles of harmony and key-relatedness for music, sequences were constructed in which an element was either congruous, moderately incongruous, or highly incongruous with the preceding structural context. A within-subjects design using 15 musically educated adults revealed that linguistic and musical structural incongruities elicited positivities that were statistically indistinguishable in a specified latency range. In contrast, a music-specific ERP component was observed that showed antero-temporal right-hemisphere lateralization. The results argue against the language-specificity of the P600 and suggest that language and music can be studied in parallel to address questions of neural specificity in cognitive processing.
Adolescent↗
Earlier discharge of infants from neonatal intensive care units: a pilot program of specialized case management and home care. Delaware Valley Child Health Alliance.
A multidisciplinary approach using a neonatology independent physicians association, affiliated hospitals, a pediatric home care company, and a health maintenance organization was designed to promote earlier safe discharge of infants from intensive care. This pilot project involved 43 infants who received case management and early discharge home with home oxygen, monitoring, intravenous antibiotics, gavage feedings, phototherapy, or nutritional management for poor weight gain. A staff neonatologist remained the primary physician until the patient would have been discharged according to standard criteria. Two patients had unscheduled readmissions and all infants survived. This approach resulted in an estimated savings of 456 hospital days and $329,982; 89% of parents rated the care as good to excellent, and 83% were satisfied with the program and outcome. This study suggests that a prospectively designed program can be designed to promote safe earlier discharge of infants in intensive care.
Case Management↗
Studies on non-haem ferrous-dependent oxygenases and oxidases.
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Amino Acid Oxidoreductases↗
Skin-to-skin parental contact with fragile preterm infants.
Skin-to-skin contact has been implemented recently to facilitate maternal-infant bonding of preterm infants. The technique allows the removal of fragile preterm infants from an incubator to the bare chest of a parent or caretaker. When specific guidelines are followed, thermal stability can be maintained, parent-infant bonding can be facilitated, and parental satisfaction can be enhanced. We illustrate a case in which a preterm infant has skin-to-skin contact while being monitored for physiologic parameters, including heart and respiratory rate, oxyhemoglobin saturation, and nasal airflow. Improvements in breathing patterns in this infant during skin-to-skin care and maintenance of a normal temperature suggest that this technique may not only be safe and psychologically beneficial, but it may also promote physiologic improvement.
Humans↗
Reference range for potassium concentration is lower in Barbados than Europe.
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Barbados↗
The relationship between the frequency and the processing complexity of linguistic structure.
In this paper the relative frequencies of the possible resolutions of ambiguities involving noun phrase attachment sites are compared to the results of off-line psycholinguistic measurements of syntactic complexity. A lack of correlation between the two is observed. It is therefore argued that the comprehension system is distinct from what is driving the frequencies in the corpora. A production heuristic separate from the comprehension system is proposed to account for the observed frequencies.
Cognition↗
Recency preference in the human sentence processing mechanism.
Cuetos and Mitchell (1988) observed that in constructions in which a relative clause can attach to one of two possible sites, English speakers prefer the more recent attachment site, but Spanish speakers prefer the least recent attachment site, in violation of the proposed universal principle Late Closure (Recency Preference), which favors attachments to the most recent sites. Based on this evidence, Cuetos and Mitchell concluded that Late Closure is not a universal principle of the human sentence processing mechanism. In this paper, we provide new evidence from Spanish and English self-paced reading experiments on relative clause attachment ambiguities that involve three possible attachment sites. The results of our experiments suggest that a principle like Late Closure is in fact universally operative in the human parser, but that it is modulated by at least one other factor in the processing of relative clause attachment ambiguities. We propose that the second factor involved in the processing of these and related constructions is the principle of Predicate Proximity, according to which attachments are preferred to be as structurally close to the head of a predicate phrase as possible, and we further consider the origins and predictions of the theory combining these two factors.
Cognition↗
Effects of sweet taste stimulation on growth and sucking in preterm infants.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of sweet taste stimulation in augmenting the reported growth-enhancing effects of nonnutritive sucking in preterm infants who are gavage-fed. DESIGN: Random assignment of preterm infants to receive stimulation by one of three methods during each feeding until totally orally fed. SETTING: Hospital intensive-care and infant transitional units. PATIENTS: Eligibility criteria included body weight greater than or equal to 1,250 g, gestational age younger than 34 weeks, growth parameters appropriate for gestational age, tolerating at least 100 kcals/kg/day by gavage feeding with evidence of weight gain, and no clinical evidence of health complications. Data are presented for 42 infants who completed 14 days of treatment. INTERVENTIONS: Exposure to a sweet pacifier, a latex pacifier, or maternal heartbeat sounds during gavage feedings. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Growth, time to total oral feeding, and sucking responses. RESULTS: No significant differences in sucking measures were noted among treatment groups. Differences in progression time to total oral feedings and weight gain favored the sweet-pacifier group but were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Oral stimulation of gavage-fed, preterm infants during a 2-week hospitalization was not sufficient to elicit a significant improvement in growth efficiency, progression to total oral feedings, or sucking maturation. Additional studies may show a beneficial effect of chemosensory stimulation in preterm infants.
Child Development↗
Documented home apnea monitoring: effect on compliance, duration of monitoring, and validation of alarm reporting.
The objectives of this study were to: (1) measure patient compliance with monitoring, (2) validate parental reports of alarms at home, (3) examine monitoring duration, and (4) compare documented monitor records with the traditional pneumogram to evaluate patients for monitor discontinuation. During the 1-year period from January through December, 1992, 114 infants were followed up with documented monitoring. Simultaneously, 113 infants were followed up with conventional monitors. Infants were premature, or victims of apparent life-threatening episodes (ALTE), or siblings of SIDS victims. Monitors recorded all episodes of apnea greater than 15 seconds and bradycardia less than 80 beats per minute. All families were contacted biweekly by telephone. Downloads were performed at regular intervals. Monitor downloads were compared with simultaneous pneumograms to assess the accuracy of a long-term, intermittent event-recording system versus short-term (6- to 12-hour) continuous recording. All families were highly compliant with the use of home monitoring. Although Caucasian families used the monitors more often than non-Caucasian families, all groups used the monitor > 75% of the time. True episodes were verified in 38% of patients by monitor downloads. Only 7.4% of all recorded events were true events. Of the real events, 51.2% were apneas of 16-20 seconds. No significant differences were found in overall duration of monitoring between documented and nondocumented monitors. In the premature infants, the duration of monitoring was significantly reduced in those infants found to have no true episodes over those with real events at home. Readmission for ALTE was reduced in infants with documented monitors. Premature infants without events were monitored an average of 24 fewer days (P = 0.03). Computerized monitor downloads were found to be equally, if not more, sensitive than pneumograms in evaluating infants for monitor discontinuation. Documented monitoring offers a viable alternative to traditional monitoring and pneumograms in assisting clinicians and families in evaluating their infant's progress. By accurately assessing compliance, distinguishing true from false alarms, and decreasing the need for pneumograms, these devices provide valuable information to clinicians and families.
Apnea↗