Fisheries. Different behaviour of North and Irish Sea cod.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J Metcalfe.
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The relation between people's confidence in the accuracy of an erroneous response and their later performance was investigated. Most models of human memory suggest that the higher a person's confidence, the stronger the item (in the context of the eliciting cue) that is retrieved from memory. In recall, stronger associates to a cue interfere with competing associates more than do weaker associates. This state of affairs implies that errors endorsed with high, rather than low, confidence should be more difficult to correct by learning the correct response feedback. In contrast to the authors' expectations, highly confident errors were the most likely to be corrected in a subsequent retest. Participants nearly always endorsed the correct response in cases in which both the correct response and the original erroneous response were generated at retest, suggesting that people possess a refined metacognitive ability to know what is correct and incorrect.
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) defects are associated with a number of human disorders. Although many occur sporadically, maternal transmission is the hallmark of diseases due to mtDNA point mutations. The same mutation may manifest strikingly different phenotypes; for example, the A to G substitution at np 3243 was first reported in patients with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (the MELAS syndrome), but is also found in patients with diabetes and deafness. Here we present a case of gestational diabetes, deafness, premature greying, placenta accreta and Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome associated with a mtDNA mutation. Although this is the first report of such an association, study of 27 other patients with WPW syndrome failed to confirm that this mtDNA mutation is a common cause of such pre-excitation disorders.
A. Koriat distinguishes between feeling-based and inferentially based feeling-of-knowing judgments. The former are attributable to partial information that is activated in implicit memory but not fully articulated. They are not, however, attributable to direct access to the target-an hypothesis that Koriat specifically repudiates. While there is considerable merit in the distinction that Koriat draws, and his emphasis on the possibility that people base at least some of their metacognitive judgments on implicit information seems well founded, it is argued that his rejection of the direct access view is premature. There may be a state-a true noetic state-in which people actually know the answer before they are able to express it. A case is made for further consideration of the scientific merits of the direct-access view of the noetic feelings people experience in imminent tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states.
This article investigates how people's metacognitive judgments influence subsequent study-time-allocation strategies. The authors present a comprehensive literature review indicating that people allocate more study time to judged-difficult than to judged-easy items--consistent with extant models of study-time allocation. However, typically, the materials were short, and participants had ample time for study. In contrast, in Experiment 1, when participants had insufficient time to study, they allocated more time to the judged-easy items than to the judged-difficult items, especially when expecting a test. In Experiment 2, when the materials were shorter, people allocated more study time to the judged-difficult materials. In Experiment 3, under high time pressure, people preferred studying judged-easy sonnets; under moderate time pressure, they showed no preference. These results provide new evidence against extant theories of study-time allocation.
A 2-system framework is proposed for understanding the processes that enable--and undermine--self-control or "willpower" as exemplified in the delay of gratification paradigm. A cool, cognitive "know" system and a hot, emotional "go" system are postulated. The cool system is cognitive, emotionally neutral, contemplative, flexible, integrated, coherent, spatiotemporal, slow, episodic, and strategic. It is the seat of self-regulation and self-control. The hot system is the basis of emotionality, fears as well as passions--impulsive and reflexive--initially controlled by innate releasing stimuli (and, thus, literally under "stimulus control"): it is fundamental for emotional (classical) conditioning and undermines efforts at self-control. The balance between the hot and cool systems is determined by stress, developmental level, and the individual's self-regulatory dynamics. The interactions between these systems allow explanation of findings on willpower from 3 decades of research.
The problem of latex allergy is not limited to health care workers who provide direct patient care. Individuals in environmental services, dietary, engineering, and medical records departments have the potential for sensitization. Due to the significant liability that may arise from a latex-induced anaphylaxis or death, it is no longer prudent for health care facilities to ignore the problem. This article proposes practical recommendations for implementation of an institution wide latex-safe environment in health care facilities.
In a wide variety of cognitive tasks, people's expectations of what their own performance is, was, and will be are an overestimate of reality. After documenting a number of situations in which people exhibit such overconfidence, several reasons for it are discussed. It is suggested that in these situations, the optimistic bias is not attributable exclusively to self-deception or wishful thinking. Rather, the information yielded up by the cognitive system, in combination with the heuristics used for making judgments of future and past performance tailored to the specific questions asked of participants, produces a bias toward believing that one knows, knew, and will perform better than actual performance substantiates. Consequently, in the cognitive domain, the inflated beliefs that result in overconfidence also result in cessation of efforts before the correct solution of problems is ascertained, before accurate retrieval of memorial information is attained, or before adequate learning of new material has been accomplished. This effect seems in contrast to findings on people's moods and self-esteem in real-world or threatening situations that suggest that an optimistic bias in these domains be person protective and adaptive.
Early in incubation the nuclei of the chick chorioallantoic capillaries are randomly distributed around the capillary lumen; later most of them are located on the portion of the capillary surface opposite the inner shell membrane. This is one of the complex of processes that results in progressive thinning of the diffusion pathway for gases between the external environment and the blood of the embryo. The present study quantified this nuclear "relocation". Our data show a progressive relocation of the endothelial nuclei from the tenth through the sixteenth day at an average rate of 6% per day.
This study was undertaken to clarify the effect of sulphonylurea therapy on beta cell function in 27 subjects with newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetes mellitus. Plasma glucose, insulin, intact and 32/33 split proinsulin were measured at diagnostic OGTT. After 8-12 weeks on a conventional diet, subjects with a fasting glucose > 9 mmol l-1 (n = 12) were commenced on sulphonylurea therapy. At diagnosis, the sulphonylurea requiring group were more hyperglycaemic (p < 0.0001), less obese (p < 0.05) and more insulin deficient with a lower 30 min insulin (p < 0.0002) than the diet group. Following dietary intervention in the sulphonylurea group, weight remained unchanged but there was a reduction in fasting glucose (p < 0.009). Fasting insulin, intact proinsulin, and 32/33 split proinsulin remained unchanged. After 12 weeks of sulphonylurea therapy there was a weight gain of 1.5 kg (p < 0.01), but a reduction in fasting glucose (p < 0.0001). Fasting insulin and intact proinsulin increased (p < 0.004) but 32/33 split proinsulin remained unchanged. There was a significant increase in both the fasting insulin to glucose ratio (p < 0.005), and intact to 32/33 split proinsulin ratio (p < 0.02). Final fasting glucose following sulphonylurea therapy was positively correlated with the initial intact and 32/33 split proinsulin and the fasting glucose following dietary treatment. It is clear from this work that sulphonylureas have a complex effect on beta cell physiology and as well as stimulating release of insulin they increase the release of intact proinsulin but not that of 32/33 split proinsulin, hence they increase the intact to 32/33 split proinsulin ratio.
A t(X;14)(q28;q11) translocation was present for many years in T cells in two patients with ataxia telangiectasia (A-T), who subsequently developed T-prolymphocytic leukemia. We describe here the relationship between the translocation breakpoints in these patients with respect to two recently described genes, c6.1A and c6.1B, on Xq28 which are transcribed in opposite directions from the same CpG island. In our first patient, the Xq28 breakpoint disrupts the c6.1A gene which is consequently transcribed as a fusion mRNA with the TCR C alpha chain gene. In the second case, the Xq28 breakpoint lies within the adjacent gene c6.1B, and c6.1A is not transcribed. We show that the c6.1B gene is transcribed in both of our patients. c6.1B may be important in the initial clonal proliferation of T lymphocytes which commonly precedes transformation to T-PLL in ataxia telangiectasia patients. The same gene may also be involved in the development of T-PLL in the non-A-T population.
Four experiments contrasted the cue-familiarity hypothesis of feeling-of-knowing judgments (FKJs) and tip-of-the-tongue feelings (TOTs) to the target-retrievability hypothesis. Familiarity of the cues was contrasted to memorability of the targets in a paired-associate design (e.g., A-B A-B, A-B A-B', A-B A-D, A-B C-D), in which the number of repetitions of the cue A terms was dissociated from the memorability of the target B terms. Little support was found for the target-retrievability hypothesis, because in none of the 4 experiments were FKJs related to target memorability. In one experiment, an omnibus retrieval hypothesis (which implicates total retrieval rather than just correct retrieval) and the cue-familiarity hypothesis produced isomorphic predictions that were borne out by the FKJ and TOT results. All 4 experiments supported the cue-familiarity hypothesis, because FKJs and TOTs were directly related to the number of presentations (and thereby the familiarity) of the cues.
This article stems from a technical problem in composite-trace distributed models of human memory and particularly in the Composite Holographic Associative Recall Memory (CHARM) model. Briefly, the composite trace--used as a central construct in such models--can become catastrophically out of control. To solve the problem, a prestorage novelty-familiarity monitor and a simple control procedure need to be implemented. Eight lines of experimental evidence converge on the idea that output from such a novelty-familiarity monitor underlies people's metacognitive judgments of feeling of knowing. Breakdown of the monitoring-control mechanism produces Korsakoff-like symptoms in the model. Impairments in feeling-of-knowing judgments and the failure to release from proactive inhibition, both characteristic of Korsakoff amnesia, are thus attributed to a monitoring-control failure rather than to deficits in the basic memory system.
Recent requirements of the GP contract have included the testing of random urine samples from all patients aged 16-75 years for glycosuria. As a means of detecting diabetes this will be both inefficient and wasteful of resources, because of the method employed and age group screened. We examined a simple method for screening large populations for non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus using self-testing for post-prandial glycosuria, and compared its performance to that using fasting plasma glucose and haemoglobin A1. The study involved five general practices, screening over 13,000 subjects aged between 45 and 70 years. Of the 13,795 subjects screened, 10,348 responded (75%). Glycosuria was detected in 343 subjects (3.3%), of whom 330 (95.9%) attended for oral glucose tolerance testing. Of these 99 (30%) had newly diagnosed diabetes, 56 (17%) had impaired glucose tolerance. A further 65 subjects were identified as having diabetes but were not on a register of cases. Prevalence of diabetes in this age group rose from 2.26% to 4.1%. In a normal population control group (442 subjects from Ely), this system gave a sensitivity of 43%, specificity of 98% and positive predictive value of 53%, and compared favourably to the use of a fasting plasma glucose of 6 mmol/l, which gave a sensitivity of 65%, but only a specificity of 64% and positive predictive value of 9%. These results support the use of this simple system in large population screening for diabetes.
This paper reports beta cell function as assessed during OGTT using specific IRMAs for insulin, intact and 32/33 split proinsulin in subjects with newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetes matched to normal controls. The relationships between insulin and the proinsulins to risk factors for cardiovascular disease were also examined. Similar fasting insulin concentrations but lower 30-min post-glucose-load insulin concentrations were found in diabetic subjects (mean +/- SEM 143 +/- 12 pmol-1 vs 304 +/- 19 (p < 0.001). Subjects with diabetes had increased fasting intact (10.6 +/- 1.1 pmol-1 vs 3.3 +/- 0.2, p < 0.001) and 32/33 split proinsulin concentrations (8.1 +/- 0.9 pmol-1 vs 2.2 +/- 0.3, p < 0.0001). Beta cell dysfunction, as expressed by a reduction in the 30-min insulin to glucose ratio (9.4 +/- 1 vs 34.8 +/- 2.3, p < 0.0001) and an increase in the fasting percentage of total proinsulin-like to total insulin-like molecules (24.5 +/- 9% vs 11.6 +/- 5, p < 0.001), was present in subjects with diabetes. In diabetic subjects beta cell dysfunction and insulin deficiency increased relative to the degree of fasting hyperglycaemia. It seems clear that beta cell dysfunction and insulin deficiency are major features of Type 2 diabetes. Only the fasting concentration of 32/33 split proinsulin positively correlated with both the waist/hip ratio (r = 0.36, p < 0.001), diastolic blood pressure (r = 0.23, p < 0.01) in addition to plasma triglyceride concentration (r = 0.46, p < 0.001). It is questionable whether hyperinsulinaemia plays a pathogenic role in cardiovascular disease in subjects with glucose intolerance.
Two hypotheses concerning people's ability to predict later memory performance for unrecalled items were investigated. The target retrievability hypothesis states that feeling-of-knowing judgments (FKJs) are based on partial target information; and the cue familiarity hypothesis asserts that they are based on recognition of the cues. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects either generated or read the targets of paired associates. Half of the cues had been primed in a pleasantness-rating task. The generation manipulation increased recall but had no effect on FKJs. Cue priming had no effect on recall but increased FKJs. In Experiment 3, using general information questions, primed after the initial recall attempt, both cue and target priming increased FKJs. Experiment 4, which remedied difficulties in Experiment 3, showed no effect of target priming whereas cue priming increased FKJs. The results favor the cue familiarity hypothesis.
Epidermal skin thickness and vascular density were assessed in skin biopsies obtained from the dorsum of the foot in 28 Type 1 diabetic patients and 17 normal control subjects, matched for age. Epidermal skin thickness did not differ significantly between control subjects (74 +/- 4 (+/- SE) microns) and diabetic patients (78 +/- 4 microns). It was not related to the duration of diabetes and presence of complications. Neither small (capillary) nor large (arteriole/venule) vessel densities differed significantly between control subjects (59 +/- 6 mm-2 and 19 +/- 2 mm-2) and diabetic patients (65 +/- 4 mm-2 and 22 +/- 3 mm-2). Vessel densities were unrelated to the duration of diabetes and presence of complications.
The effects of a new integrated system of diabetes care with an enhanced role of the diabetes specialist nurse based in a purposed design diabetes centre, on diabetes control, attendance and cancellation rates, and admission for diabetic emergencies have been reviewed. Glycaemic control was examined in: (a) a cohort of 163 insulin-treated and 47 non-insulin treated diabetic subjects (age < 65 years) studied prospectively before and 3 years following the introduction of a new system of care; (b) a second cohort of more elderly patients aged greater than 65 years studied for the 3 years after the change over; (c) a cross-sectional study of the clinic population (n = 700) the year before and 3 years after the changeover; (d) a group of patients attending standard unaltered clinics in the same district (n = 157). Significant and sustained falls in HbA1 were observed in all groups of subjects attending the centre, with the means for those aged less than 65 falling from 11.9 +/- 2.3% to 9.9 +/- 1.9% and for those aged over 65 from a mean of 11.7 +/- 2.0% to 10.3 +/- 2.3%, 3 years later. The cross-sectional study provided similar results with a mean HbA1 of 12.2 +/- 3.0% prior to changeover and 10.4 +/- 4.4%, 3 years later. Smaller but significant changes were observed in patients continuing to attend the routine clinic (from 12.2 +/- 2.3% to 11.3 +/- 2.6%) over a similar period. Yearly admission rates for ketoacidosis and hypoglycaemia fell from 44 and 23, to 33 and 5 per annum, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)