The Evolution of the Conceptually Systematic Dimension and Its Current Functions in Applied Behavior Analysis

What does it mean to be conceptually systematic in contemporary applied behavior analysis (ABA) research and practice? To answer this question, the present study conducted a historical analysis of ABA scholars' interpretations of the conceptually systematic dimension of ABA over the last 55 years. The present article found the current characteristics of the conceptually systematic dimension are indeed sufficient to suggest ABA's conceptual independence from the experimental analysis of behavior or any other subdisciplines of behavior analysis. Based on this finding, this article addresses the challenges in contemporary ABA field such as ABA's own basic and applied continuum, translational research, and its relationship with other disciplines' research and practice.

Promoting Reciprocal Relations across Subfields of Behavior Analysis via Collaborations

Several barriers may inhibit the growth of behavior analysis as a more integrated and collaborative field. Two such barriers are siloed environments that reinforce a basic-applied distinction, and a lack of translational research pathways. We describe the perils of silos, and elaborate on potential solutions to increase reciprocal relations among subfields in behavior analysis. We promote a five-tiered system to classify research in behavior analysis, and discuss literature on cultivating effective intra and cross-disciplinary collaborations, including using the framework of metacontingencies to understand collaborations. We also propose quantitative and qualitative measures to examine whether the potential solutions increase intra and interdisciplinary interactions. These measures include bibliometric (e.g., citations across fields), sociometric (e.g., social network analysis), and narrative analysis. We apply some of these measures to publications from 2011-2022 from the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, and argue that behavior analysis overall may benefit from a more collaborative approach.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40614-023-00386-x.

In-hospital cardiac arrest: Incidence, prognostic factors and results

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

In-hospital cardiac arrest (CA) is a clinical entity with high morbidity and mortality that occurs in up to 2% of hospitalized patients. It is a public health problem with important economic, social, and medical repercussions, and as such its incidence needs to be reviewed and improved. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of in-hospital CA, return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), and survival rates at Hospital de la Princesa, and to define the clinical and demographic characteristics of patients with in-hospital CA.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Retrospective observational chart review of patients presenting in-hospital CA and treated by anaesthesiologists from the hospital's rapid intervention team. Data were collected over 1 year.

RESULTS

Forty four patients were included in the study, of which 22 (50%) were women. Mean age was 75.7 years (±15.78 years), and incidence of in-hospital CA was 2.88 per 100,000 hospital admissions. Twenty two patients (50%) achieved ROSC and 11 patients (25%) survived until discharge home. The most prevalent comorbidity was arterial hypertension (63.64%); 66.7% of cases were not witnessed, and only 15.9% presented a shockable rhythm.

CONCLUSIONS

These results are similar to those reported in other larger studies. We recommend introducing immediate intervention teams and devoting time to training hospital staff in in-hospital CA.

Coherence of achromatic, primary and basic classes of colour categories

A range of explanations have been advanced for the systems of colour names found in different languages. Some explanations give special, fundamental status to a subset of colour categories. We argue that a subset of colour categories, if fundamental, will be coherent - meaning that a non-trivial criterion distinguishes them from the other colour categories. We test the coherence of subsets of achromatic (white, black and grey), primary (white, black, red, green, yellow, blue) and basic (primaries plus brown, orange, purple, pink and grey) colour categories in English. Criteria for defining colour categories were expressed in terms of behavioural, linguistic and geometric features derived from colour naming and linguistic usage data; and were discovered using machine learning methods. We find that achromatic and basic colour categories are coherent subsets but not primaries. These results support claims that the basic colour categories have special status, and undermine claims about the fundamental role of primaries in colour naming systems.

Survey of Basic Laparoscopic Training Exposure of Nigerian Postgraduate Trainees

Background:

The practice of laparoscopy involves the use of training models that are different from conventional open surgery. These concepts are not captured in the traditional models of surgical residency training. Residency training in surgery has been seen as an ample opportunity for early introduction and training in laparoscopy.

Objectives:

This study aimed to assess the level of exposure and training experience of some surgical resident doctors in accredited training institutions in Nigeria on laparoscopy.

Methodology:

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among the resident doctors undergoing revision course in surgery at the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, and Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos, in March 2018. Using the quantitative method of data collection, a pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect information on the demography and training exposure of the residents in laparoscopy.

Results:

A total of 54 of 96 residents surveyed returned the questionnaire, giving a response rate of 56%. There were 53 (98.1%) males and 1 (1.9%) female. The age range of the respondents was between 30 and 46 years, with a mean of 34.2 ± 3.96 years. Thirty-two (59.3%) respondents had spent at least 2 years training in surgery. Thirty-six (66.7%) respondents had not participated in more than four laparoscopic procedures during their rotation. Forty-six percent of respondents reported that their experience in laparoscopy was mainly by observation of the procedures. Forty-nine (90.7%) of respondents surveyed had not attended any training program in laparoscopy. Eighty-one (81.0%) of respondents had a strong motivation and desire for future practice of laparoscopy.

Conclusion:

This study revealed that few Nigerian postgraduate trainees sampled in the survey were exposed and had training experience in laparoscopy.

Use of magnetic susceptibility to assess metals concentration in soils developed on a range of parent materials

This research was conducted to evaluate the utilization of magnetic susceptibility measurements in the assessment of metal concentrations in soils developed on a range of parent materials in northwestern Iran. Eighty surface soil samples were collected from eight parent rocks including ultrabasic rocks, basalt, andesite, granite, marl, limestone, Qom formation, and shale. The collected samples were assessed to determine magnetic susceptibility at low frequency (χlf) and concentrations of some metals comprising chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), zinc (Zn), cobalt (Co), and manganese (Mn). The results showed that the highest levels of metals and χlf were observed in basic and ultrabasic soils. Strong positive correlations (P < 0.01) detected between χlf and Fe (0.87), Mn (0.78), Zn (0.74), Ni (0.90), Co (0.78), and Cr (0.90) in all samples indicated a potential for using magnetic susceptibility in semi-quantitative estimation of metal concentrations in soils of natural ecosystems. Multiple linear regression between metal contents and χ_lf showed that Ni, Zn, Mn, and Co could explain 77% of the total variance in χ_lf in the study area. K-means cluster analysis categorized the studied soils into three groups based on metals and χ_lf variability. Clustering of soils based on their parent rocks and use of further magnetic measures, i.e., saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (SIRM), isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM100mT) and natural remanent magnetization (NRM) are expected to improve the accuracy of metal concentration predictions in natural soils of the study area.

Sex bias in basic and preclinical age-related hearing loss research

Objectives

This study aims to determine if there is sex bias in basic and preclinical research on age-related hearing loss for the 10-year period of 2006–2015, prior to the NIH mandate of including sex as a biological variable in 2016.

Design

Manuscripts were identified in PubMed for the query “age-related hearing loss” for the 10-year period of 2006 to 2015. Manuscripts were included if they were original research (not reviews or meta-analyses), written in English, contained an abstract, used animals, and were primarily on age-related hearing loss. These criteria yielded 231 unique manuscripts for inclusion in the study analysis. The text of each manuscript was screened for the sex of the animals, the number of male and female animals, the discussion of sex-based results, the study site (US or international), and the year of publication.

Results

Only two thirds of manuscripts reported the sex of animals used in the experiments, and of these, 54% used both sexes, 34% used males only, and 13% used females only. In papers reporting sex and number of animals used, 67% were males and 33% were females. Over twice as many internationally based studies used males only compared to US-based studies. Only 15% of all manuscripts discussed sex-based results.

Conclusions

Sex bias is present in basic and preclinical age-related hearing loss research for the manuscripts screened in the 10-year period. Equal inclusion of both males and females in basic and preclinical age-related hearing loss research is critical for understanding sex-based differences in mechanisms and for effective treatment options.

Current status and perspectives of patient-derived xenograft models in cancer research

Cancers remain a major public health problem worldwide, which still require profound research in both the basic and preclinical fields. Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models are created when cancerous cells or tissues from patients' primary tumors are implanted into immunodeficient mice to simulate human tumor biology in vivo, which have been extensively used in cancer research. The routes of implantation appeared to affect the outcome of PDX research, and there has been increasing applications of patient-derived orthotopic xenograft (PDOX) models. In this review, we firstly summarize the methodology to establish PDX models and then go over recent application and function of PDX models in basic cancer research on the areas of cancer characterization, initiation, proliferation, metastasis, and tumor microenvironment and in preclinical explorations of anti-cancer targets, drugs, and therapeutic strategies and finally give our perspectives on the future prospects of PDX models.

Assessment of Emergency Obstetric Care Services in Ibadan-Ibarapa Health Zone, Oyo State, Nigeria

Nigeria's high maternal mortality has been attributed to poor utilization of obstetric care services to handle complications of pregnancy and childbirth. But how available are standard emergency obstetric care services? This facility based cross sectional study assessed the availability and accessibility of emergency obstetric care services in Oyo State, Nigeria. Using a multi-stage sampling technique, 61 primary and 10 secondary health care facilities were selected. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire from the heads of the maternity units. Spatial mapping of the facilities was also produced. Results showed availability of comprehensive emergency obstetric care (CEmOC) facilities (0-3.9/500,000 population) was adequate, however a gross lack of basic emergency obstetric care (BEmOC) facilities (0-5.4/500,000 population) was observed, where available, they were clustered in the urban settlements. Prompt action needs to be taken to upgrade basic emergency obstetric care facilities accessible to the larger rural population dwellers to improve maternal health indices.

Effective Dissemination Requires Effective Talk: a Comparison of Behavior-Analytic Journals

We explored language used in three behavior-analytic journals (the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB), and Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP)) to evaluate differences in factors related to the ease of comprehension. Using a linguistic analysis tool, we compared the first three paragraphs of the introductions of research articles in ten issues of each of the journals. JEAB was found to use language that was less concrete, meaningful, and imageable than the two applied journals. Implications for the field are discussed.

World Journal of Hypertension: A new bench mark in the hypertension world

This is the first issue of the World Journal of Hypertension (WJH), a bimonthly peer-reviewed, online, open-access (OA) journal. The WJH will emphasize basic and clinical research about hypertension. As the OA model provides free, full-text articles in PDF and other formats for experts and the public without registration, the WJH enhances the speed of propagation and communication of scientific research results. As Editor-in-Chief of the WJH, I and the other members of the editorial board wish to share new ideas and knowledge about basic, clinical research and epidemiology in hypertension. We believe that you will find the WJH as an important journal in which to publish your excellent works.