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PubMed1989

[Effects of the altering claims to treatment on the dentist's profession].

A genuine commitment to Health for All (HFA) in the European Region implies that there must be a new approach to health. It presupposes a change of emphasis in favour of health promotion and disease prevention, the appropriate use of resources, optimum management of health institutions, and a reorientation in the planning, training and utilization of health professionals. The well-known recent changes in oral disease patterns combined with the overall economical constraints in the health sector call for integrated, coordinated planning of preventive and treatment services for oral health, as well as for appropriate manpower production. The effect of these changes in the oral health status will force dentists to perform work previously left to the specialists, and for which their training is deficient, and others will shift to perform tasks for which their training and experience are inappropriate and excessive. However, experiences have shown that it is not enough just to change the dental curriculum. Educational goals of teaching objectives should also include a strong element of behavioural sciences aimed at motivating not only the students, but also the teachers, to develop a philosophy based on the premise that the ultimate goal of the dental profession is to be responsible for and to provide the highest possible level of oral health for each individual in the society.

Dental Health Services↗
PubMed1998

Work, income, the economy, and married fathers as child-care providers.

Previous research on fathers as child-care providers indicates a need to study the father's role in child care in the context of different economic cycles. Using data from the 1988, 1991, and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we examine whether fathers' availability and the couple's economic resources are differently related to child care by fathers over time. We focus on the differences between 1991--a recession year--and 1988 and 1993--two nonrecession years. Increased availability of fathers is significantly related to higher levels of fathers' participation in child care in all three years. Relative economic resources between husbands and wives help explain care by fathers only during the recession year, whereas family income is important only in the nonrecession years. These results suggest that in the future, researchers should acknowledge fluctuations in the economy when studying husbands' participation in traditional female tasks, as macroeconomic shifts appear to impact the likelihood of married fathers caring for their preschoolers during mothers' working hours.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Modulation of spatial bias in the dual task paradigm: evidence from patients with unilateral parietal lesions and controls.

Lateral attentional bias is common after unilateral brain damage. It has sometimes been proposed that lateral bias is increased by concurrent cognitive demands, perhaps because of lost top-down compensation. However, an important limitation of previous studies is the sole use of right hemisphere patients. Here we employed a dual task paradigm to measure spatial bias on a visual task while manipulating demands of a concurrent auditory task. Bias was examined in patients with left or right parietal lesions and controls. In Experiment 1 the addition of either a non-spatial or spatial auditory task led to a rightward shift in visual bias. This same rightward shift occurred in controls, left parietals and right parietals. Experiment 2 examined whether the participant's response hand affected their bias. In addition, it attempted to distinguish between the hypothesis that modulatory effects are strongly dependent on lateralization of the concurrent task, and the hypothesis that dual tasks cause a general rightward shift. Response hand was found to have no effect on spatial bias. In addition, bias did not differ between left hemisphere (verbal) and right hemisphere (pitch) concurrent tasks, though the trend was for a smaller rightward shift with the verbal task. Our results show that dual tasks do not exacerbate patients' underlying deficits; instead they cause a global shift in attention to the right. This shift may resemble general rightward shifts that have previously been linked to reduced arousal.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1990

Slow potentials in a melody recognition task.

In a previous study, slow negative shifts were found in the EEG of subjects listening to well-known melodies. The two experiments reported here were designed to investigate the variables to which these slow potentials are related. In the first experiment, two opposite hypotheses were tested: The slow shifts might express subjects' acquaintance with the melodies or, on the contrary, the effort invested to identify them. To this end, some of the melodies were presented in the rhythms of other melodies to make recognition more difficult. Further, melodies rated as very well-known and as very unknown were analysed separately. However, the slow shifts were not affected by these experimental variations. Therefore in the second experiment, on the one hand the purely physical parameters intensity and duration were varied, but this variation had no impact on the slow shifts either. On the other hand, recognition was made more difficult by monotonously repeating the pitch of the 4th tone for the rest of some melodies. The slow negative shifts were enhanced with these monotonous melodies. This enhancement supports the "effort" hypothesis. Accordingly, the ofter shifts obtained in both experiments might likewise reflect effort. But since the task was not demanding, it is suggested that these constant shifts reflect the effort invested for coping with the entire underarousing situation rather than with the task. Frequently, slow eye movements occurred in the same time range as the slow potentials, resulting in EOG potentials spreading to the EEG recording sites. Yet results did not change substantially when the EEG recordings were corrected for the influence of EOG potentials.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Downregulation of vitellogenin gene activity increases the gustatory responsiveness of honey bee workers (Apis mellifera).

In the honey bee (Apis mellifera), young workers usually perform tasks in the nest while older workers forage in the field. The behavioral shift from nest-task to foraging activity is accompanied by physiological and sensory changes so that foragers can be characterized by a higher juvenile hormone (JH) level, a lower vitellogenin protein titer, and an increased responsiveness to water and sucrose stimuli. JH was hypothesized to be the key mediator of behavioral development, physiology, and sensory sensitivity in honey bee workers. Recent research, however, has shown that JH is controlled by the hemolymph vitellogenin level, which implies that the fat body specific vitellogenin gene can be a key regulator of behavioral change. Here, we show that downregulation of vitellogenin activity by RNA interference (RNAi) causes an increase in the gustatory responsiveness of worker bees. Our observations suggest that vitellogenin is an important regulator of long-term changes in honey bee behavior.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

The effects of the lurcher mutation on object localization, T-maze discrimination, and radial arm maze tasks.

The Lurcher mutation is characterized by degeneration of the cerebellar cortex and cerebellar ataxia. The mutants were compared to littermate controls of the same background strain in three spatial tasks: 1) left-right discrimination in a water-filled T-maze, a reference memory task requiring a win-stay strategy; 2) the radial arm maze, a working memory task requiring a win-shift strategy; 3) object localization, a reference memory task requiring the use of cognitive mapping. Lurcher mutants were impaired in the object localization and radial arm maze tasks but not in the left-right discrimination task. These results indicate that trial-independent tasks and reference memory tasks using cognitive mapping may be particularly vulnerable to cerebellar degeneration.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Cognitive and neurobiologic markers of early Alzheimer disease.

Recent studies indicate that impairments in two cognitive domains characterize the cognitive abnormalities that appear earliest in the course of Alzheimer disease (AD). These cognitive domains pertain to memory and executive function ability; in particular, memory test scores reflecting the difference between immediate and delayed recall and tasks that assess cognitive flexibility (e.g., set-shifting). Preliminary data indicate that tasks of this nature, along with specific genetic information (i.e., APOE-4 status), are important in identifying which individuals with recent cognitive changes (considered to have "questionable" disease) will progress to the point where they meet criteria for AD over time. When this cognitive and genetic information is combined with neuroimaging measures targeted at the brain regions demonstrating pathology early in AD, it may serve as specific and accurate prognostic markers of AD.

Alcohol Amnestic Disorder↗
PubMed2000

The German approach to emergency/disaster management.

Disaster control and disaster relief in Germany are public tasks. But the government has shifted the responsibility of the administration of these tasks to the 16 states, the so called "Lander", because the EFG is a federal republic. The same is valid for the civil defense and the civil protection in the case of military or international risks. The 16 states are also responsible for the legislation of rescue service, fire fighting service and disaster control (natural and technical disasters). Counties and district-free cities are responsible for the organisation of these services. The German system is based on the principle of subsidiary between official and private institutions. A lot of official and private relief organisations are responsible for the execution of disaster relief tasks. In Germany the following organisations exist: Official (GO): Technisches Hilfswerk (THW/Federal Technical Support Service), Feuerwehren (Fire Brigades/professionals and volunteers) Academie of Emergency Planning and Civil Defense Private (NGO): Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund Deutschland (ASB/Workers' Samaritan Association Germany), Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbruchiger (DGzRS, German Lifesaving Association), Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (DRK/German Red Cross), Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe (JUH/St. John's Ambulance), Malteser Hilfsdienst (MEID/Maltese-Relief-Organisation). ASB, DRK, JUH and MHD are specialised in the field of rescue, medical and welfare services and medical disaster relief. 80% of the German rescue service and 95% of the German disaster medical relief are realised by these NGO's. NGO's and GO's employ more than 1.2 million volunteers and appr. 100,000 professionals. Rescue service is carried out by professionals, disaster relief by volunteers. The German constitution allows to call the federal army in case of disaster, to support the disaster relief organisations (for example: flood Oder River 1997, train-crash "ICE" 1998). In all counties and district free cities disaster control staffs are set up by the administration. During disaster relief operations a operational command is on site. Most of the counties and district free cities, medical executives, rescue staff executives along with fire executive officers are responsible for the medical rescue organisation. All emergency physicians and medical executives have attended special training or a 520 hours-training-course (Paramedics). All volunteers of the medical service in the disaster relief organisations are trained in separate special courses (90 hours). Over the last years, civil protection, disaster relief and rescue services in the FRG have been reorganised. In 1997, the civil protection was reformed by a new federal act. Disaster relief of the "Lander" is supported by Federal Government with about 9000 vehicles and a budget for training. Emergency physicians have to take part in a (80) eighty hours lasting course on emergency medicine from an interdisciplinary point of view; they are only allowed to do rescue missions after having proved basic experience in emergency medicine as well as having completed a (18) eighteen-months-postgraduate training period at least. Senior emergency physicians receive and additional (40) forty-hours-lasting theoretical and practical training-after three years practice in rescue services as a minimum. There are special training courses offered for Medical and Non-Medical Personal to cope with disaster situation by different institutions and organisations.

Disasters↗
PubMed1996

Goal-directed arm movements change eye-head coordination.

We compared the head movements accompanying gaze shifts while our subjects executed different manual operations, requiring gaze shifts of about 30 degrees. The different tasks yielded different latencies between gaze shifts and hand movements, and different maximum velocities of the hand. These changes in eye-hand coordination had a clear effect on eye-head coordination: the latencies and maximum velocities of head and hand were correlated. The same correlation between movements of the head and hand was also found within a task. Therefore, the changes in eye-head coordination are not caused by changes in the strategy of the subjects. We conclude that head movements and saccades during gaze shifts are not based on the same command: head movements depend both on the actual saccade and on possible future gaze shifts.

Arm↗
PubMed1992

Prospective memory intervention in Alzheimer's disease.

Four individuals with Alzheimer's disease were trained to remember and to implement an intention for future action. The training program utilized the spaced-retrieval method, which involves active attempts to recall information over expanding intervals of time. All participants learned to select a colored coupon from an array of distractors and offer it to the experimenter after a week's delay. Following one-week retention of the initial task, a different coupon became the new training target. All participants were able to shift to this new task requirement, and all learned three successive coupon colors successfully. These results indicate that individuals with Alzheimer's disease can learn a prospective memory task using spaced-retrieval practice and can make adjustments for changing task requirements.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

[Reduction of asthenopia-related to accommodative relaxation].

PURPOSE: We investigated experimentally the effect of accommodative relaxation by outward shift stimuli for accommodation on asthenopia. METHODS: Twenty female students fixed on optical outward-shift stimuli at accommodation for 2 min immediately after 15 min of a sustained task on a 3-D display. Before and after the trial task and the outward shift stimuli, their accommodative step response was measured and their subjective symptoms were assessed. The outward shift stimuli in the optical system, which was set on a refractometer, were presented by moving the target scenery images from far to near and near to far repetitively a round both eyes' far point position. At the same time as the accommodation measurements, the changes of refraction were recorded from the same eye. RESULTS: While looking at the outward shift stimuli, the refraction of 9 out of 20 subjects showed an outward shift and that of the other 11 subjects shifted inward. The post-trial value of contraction (from far to near) time of accommodative step response in the inward-shift group was markedly prolonged, from 0.86 s to 0.97 s (p = 0.043), and the post-trial accommodative power at the far target was shifted outward; from +1.21 D to +1.13 D(p = 0.048). The subjective symptoms of "ocular fatigue", "eye heaviness" and "eye dryness" also increased after the is(p = 0.0035, p = 0.0038, p = 0.0162, respectively). In the outward-shift group, however, no statistical changes were found. CONCLUSION: From these results, we suggested that accommodative relaxation produced by outward shift stimuli at accommodation is effective in reducing of asthenopia following the deterioration of accommodative functions.

Accommodation, Ocular↗
PubMed1994

Sun compass-based spatial learning impaired in homing pigeons with hippocampal lesions.

The hippocampal formation is known to be critical for spatial cognition, for example, regulating the learning of environmental maps. But how is a spatial map learned, and what is the role of the hippocampal formation in the learning process? The sun compass is perhaps the most ubiquitous, naturally occurring spatial orientation mechanism found in the animal kingdom. The sun compass may also serve as a directional reference that supports spatial learning. We report that homing pigeons with hippocampal lesions were unable to use the sun compass to learn the directional location of food in an outdoor, experimental arena. Homing pigeons with lesions of the caudal neostriatum readily learned the same task, and showed appropriately shifted directional responses following a clock-shift manipulation demonstrating that they were indeed using the sun compass to learn the task. Finally, both hippocampal and control lesioned birds quickly learned a procedurally similar task where a color cue identified the location of food in the same experimental arena. The results indicate that hippocampal lesions impair sun compass use in the context of learning. As such, the results support the hypothesis that the importance of the hippocampal formation in spatial cognition may be related to its participation in a neural process in which information from a directional reference, in this case the sun compass, is used to learn the directional relationship among stimuli in space.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Age shifts frontal cortical control in a cognitive bias task from right to left: part I. Neuropsychological study.

Two functionally and neurally distinct cognitive selection mechanisms involve the prefrontal lobes: those based on internal representations (context dependent) and those involving exploratory processing of novel situations (context independent). We used a cognitive bias task (CBT) representing contextual reasoning to correlate lateralization with age in the frontal lobes. Subjects included 37 healthy right-handed male children and adolescents (age range, 5-18 years). Controls were 19 right-handed men from 20 to 30 years old. A computer-presented version of the original card-choice task simplified, modified for children was used (modified CBT; mCBT). Simple visual stimuli differed dichotomously in shape, color, number, and shading. A target object presented alone was followed by two choices from which subjects selected according to preference. Considering all four characteristics, similarity between target and subject choice was scored for 30 trials. A high score implied a context-dependent response selection bias and a low score, a context-independent bias. Similarity increased significantly with age. The youngest children (5-7 years) scored lower than ages from 11 years to adulthood. Between 7 and 9 years, scores began to increase with age to reach an adult level by age 13-16. Young children showed context-independent responses representing right frontal lobe function, while adolescents and adults showed context-dependent responses implicating left frontal lobe function. The locus of frontal cortical control in right-handed male subjects thus shifts from right to left as cognitive contextual reasoning develops.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Are age trends in adult hand preference best explained by developmental shifts or generational differences?

Hand use in the performance of six everyday activities was analyzed as a function of age in a sample of 654 adults. An unskilled grasping tasks showed the largest shift toward consistent right-handedness as a function of age; skilled manipulation tasks, such as writing, exhibited weaker age-related trends. Analysis of individual preference patterns showed decreases in mixed right hand use (defined as a right-hander who occasionally uses the left hand) and increases in consistent right hand use in older adults. There was also a weaker age-related reduction in mixed left hand use but the numbers of consistent left-handers remained a small, constant percentage of the sample across all age groups. These results are congruent with the predictions of two developmental hypotheses offered to explain trends in adult hand preference. These are, first, a postulated age trend toward hand preference consistency and, second, a practice effect related to an environment arranged to favor right hand use.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Dysfunctional attention in autistic savants.

A dysfunctional attention hypothesis of the basis of savant skills was tested with a series of computerized tasks that assessed the ability to divide, shift, direct, and sustain attention. Ten healthy men with pervasive developmental disorders and unusual calendar-calculating skill, and 10 age- and sex-matched controls were tested. There were four general findings. First, the savants and controls did not differ on a measure of visual sustained attention. Second, the savants failed to detect rare auditory targets significantly more than did the controls. Third, the savants were unable to efficiently divide their attention when required to detect both visual and auditory targets simultaneously. Finally, deficient orienting or a deficit in shifting selective attention from one stimulus location to another was evidenced in overall slower reaction times for the savants across tasks requiring shifts and redirecting of attention. This deficit was attributed to an inability to disengage attention as a result of deficient orienting and overselectivity.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2001

Genetic algorithm for scheduling of laboratory personnel.

BACKGROUND: Staffing core laboratories with appropriate skilled workers requires a process to schedule these individuals so that all workstations are appropriately filled and all the skills of each worker are exercised periodically to maintain competence. METHODS: We applied a genetic algorithm to scheduling laboratory personnel. Our program, developed in Visual Basic 4.0, maximizes the value of a fitness function that measures how well a given scheduling of individuals and their skills matches a set of work tasks for a given work shift. The user provides in an Excel spreadsheet the work tasks, individuals available to work on any given date, and skills each individual possesses. The user also specifies the work shift to be scheduled, the range of dates to be scheduled, the number of days that an individual stays on a given workstation before rotating, and various parameters for the genetic algorithm if they differ from the default values. RESULTS: For >22 months, the program matched individuals to those tasks for which they were qualified and maintained personnel skills by rotating job duties. The schedules generated by the program allowed supervisory personnel to anticipate dates far in advance of when worker availability would be limited, so staffing could be adjusted. In addition, the program helped to identify skills for which too few individuals had been trained. This program has been well accepted by the staff in the clinical laboratories of a 670-bed university medical center, saving 37 h of labor per month, or approximately $11,000 per year, in time that supervisory personnel have spent developing work schedules. CONCLUSIONS: The genetic algorithm approach appears to be useful for scheduling in highly technical work environments that employ multiskilled workers.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1972

Ergonomic research in the German travelling mail services Part 2: results of ergonomic research in railway mail vans.

The travelling mail office clerks are shown, by medical examination and sociopsychological questionnaire, to be a very homogeneous naturally self-selected group with a low average age. The analysis of tasks shows a disadvantageous distribution of some main tasks over the work shift. Energy expenditure and cardio-vascular strain above physiological endurance limits occur mainly with the tasks of loading, handling and emptying mail bags. Environmental factors are mainly within acceptable standards. Fast-time simulation studies show that proposals can be made for organisation work (by job rotation) and selection of TMO clerks based on their individual working capacity.

Journal Article↗