Enhanced handling and positioning in early infancy advances development throughout the first year

Behaviors emerge, in part, from the interplay of infant abilities and caregiver–infant interactions. Cross‐cultural and developmental studies suggest caregiver handling and positioning influence infant development. In this prospective, longitudinal study, the effects of 3 weeks of enhanced handling and positioning experiences provided to 14 infants versus control experiences provided to 14 infants at 2 months of age were assessed with follow‐up through 15 months of age. Behaviors in prone were immediately advanced. Short‐term advancements occurred in multiple behaviors, including prone, head control, reaching, and sitting behaviors. Longer term advancements, up to 12 months after the experience period, occurred in object transfer, crawling and walking behaviors. This suggests broad and long‐lasting changes can arise via brief periods of change in caregiver–infant interactions.     

Beyond semantic accuracy: preschoolers evaluate a speaker's reasons

Children's sensitivity to the quality of epistemic reasons and their selective trust in the more reasonable of 2 informants was investigated in 2 experiments. Three-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (N = 90) were presented with speakers who stated different kinds of evidence for what they believed. Experiment 1 showed that children of all age groups appropriately judged looking, reliable testimony, and inference as better reasons for belief than pretense, guessing, and desiring. Experiment 2 showed that 3- and 4-year-old children preferred to seek and accept new information from a speaker who was previously judged to use the "best" way of thinking. The findings demonstrate that children distinguish certain good from bad reasons and prefer to learn from those who showcased good reasoning in the past.     

Unperturbed dimensions of atactic poly（dibenzyl itaconate）s

The unperturbed dimension and temperature character of poly(dibenzyl itaconate)s (PDBzI) are studied by a revised rotational isomeric state (RIS) method. The improved formulas of the mean-square radius of gyration, deduced by the pseudo-stereochemical equilibrium approach, may be used to investigate the configurational-conformational properties of atactic polymers with large side groups [poly(itaconates) for instance]. The calculated results showed that poly(itaconates) have larger dimension of the molecule than other vinyl polymers. Comparison of the dimension between considering and without considering side groups showed that the effect of large side groups on the unperturbed dimension for short-chain polymers is more obvious than that of long-chain polymers and, if the dimension of side groups increases, the effect also increases. The dimension differences of PDBzI between short-chain and long-chain polymers are investigated by the relation of characteristic ratios and temperature coefficients with temperature. Moreover, the dependence between the temperature coefficients and the tacticity of chains shows that the temperature characters of the isotactic, syndiotactic and atactic PDBzI chains have remarkable difference.     

Resident perceptions of anatomy education: a survey of medical school alumni from two different anatomy curricula and multiple medical specialties

In 2004, the University of Michigan Medical School reduced its gross anatomy curriculum. To determine the effect of this reduction on resident perceptions of their clinical preparedness, we surveyed alumni that included residents from the original and new shortened curricula. A Likert-scale survey was sent to four classes of alumni. Respondents were compared in old curriculum (OC) and new curriculum (NC) groups, surgical specialty (SS) and nonsurgical specialty (NS) groups, and subgroups of SS and NS were compared for differences between OC and NC. Mean response scores were compared using independent samples T-tests. As a single population (n = 110), respondents felt their anatomy education prepared them well for residency, that a more robust anatomy curriculum would be helpful, that dissection was important to their residency preparation, and that a 4th year anatomy elective was effective in expanding their anatomy education and preparing them for residency. No significant difference existed between OC and NC groups, neither as a whole nor as SS and NS subgroups. The SS group felt dissection was more important to their residency preparation than the NS group (P = 0.001) and that a more robust anatomy curriculum would have better prepared them for residency (P = 0.001). Thirty percent of SS respondents who did not take a 4th year elective commented that they wish they had. Fourth year anatomy electives were highly valued by residents, and respondents felt that they should be offered to students as a way of revisiting anatomy following the 1st year of clinical training.     

Modulation of an activity response with associative and nonassociative fear in the rat: A lighting differential influences the form of defensive behavior evoked after fear conditioning

Rats confronted with the onset of a light gradient display a transient increase in locomotion called theactivity response (AR) and a dark preference (Godsil & Fanselow, 2004). These experiments demonstrate that the magnitude of the AR can be blunted with Pavlovian fear-conditioning procedures via associative and nonassociative fear. Although manifested in decreased locomotion, the blunted AR effect was not due to increased freezing or immobility behaviors. Instead, rats displayed reduced rearing and an increase in a class of behaviors calledstationary activity. These results suggest that the lighting differential supplied by the cue influences the topography of defensive behavior and reduces the expression of freezing. This procedure provides a means by which to examine learned and unlearned defensive responses to the same stimulus.