Predictors of multiple injuries in individual distance runners: A retrospective study of 75,401 entrants in 4 annual races–SAFER XX

BackgroundThere are limited data on factors that predict an increased risk of multiple injuries among distance runners. The objective of this study was to determine risk factors that are predictive of individual runners with a high annual multiple injury risk (MIR).MethodsA retrospective, cross-sectional study at 4 annual (2012–2015) Two Oceans 21.1 km and 56.0 km races in South Africa with 75,401 consenting race entrants. Running-related injury data were collected retrospectively through an online pre-race medical screening questionnaire. The average number of injuries for each runner every year was calculated by taking a runner''s race entry history and injury history into account and categorizing entrants into 4 MIR categories (high, intermediate, low, and very low (reference)). Multiple logistic regression modeling (odds ratios) was used to determine whether the following factors were predictive of a high MIR (average > 1 injury/year): demographics, training and racing, chronic-disease history (composite chronic disease score (CCDS)), and history of allergies.ResultsOf all entrants, 9.2% reported at least 1 injury, and 0.4% of entrants were in the high MIR category; the incidence rate was 2.5 injuries per 10 runner-years (95% confidence interval (95%CI): 2.4–2.7). Significant factors predictive of runners in the high MIR category were: running for > 20 years: OR = 2.0 (95%CI: 1.3–3.1; p = 0.0010); a higher CCDS: OR = 2.2 (95%CI: 2.0–2.4; p < 0.0001); and a history of allergies: OR = 2.8 (95%CI: 2.0–3.8; p < 0.0001).ConclusionRunners who have been running recreationally for > 20 years and those with multiple chronic diseases or a history of allergies were at higher risk of multiple running-related injuries. This high-risk group can be targeted for further study and possible injury-prevention interventions.     

Towards a Semantic Documentation of Heritage Objects through Visual and Iconographical Representations

The recording of cultural heritage objects' data and information is constructed throughout the registration of different media items, which function as an anchor of the original object in digital space. The article investigates the application of a theoretical framework for the organization of information related to the visual works, on the base of the identity of their single constituent elements. The framework is, then, used for the formalization of an ontology which is constructed as an extension of CIDOC-CRM. The result is tested with information gathered over the Asinou Church in Cyprus, expressed throughout an ontology for recording propositions over the iconographical attributes and the characteristic of images.     

An Eye-Tracking Study of Learning From Science Text With Concrete and Abstract Illustrations

This study investigated the online process of reading and the offline learning from an illustrated science text. The authors examined the effects of using a concrete or abstract picture to illustrate a text and adopted eye-tracking methodology to trace text and picture processing. They randomly assigned 59 eleventh-grade students to 3 reading conditions: (a) text only; (b) text with a concrete illustration; and (c) text with an abstract illustration in a pretest, immediate, and delayed posttest design. Results showed that the text illustrated by either the concrete or the abstract picture led to better learning than did the text alone. Eye-fixation data revealed that the abstract illustration promoted more efficient processing of the text. Analyses of the gaze shifts between the 2 types of external representation indicated that the readers of the text with the abstract illustration made a greater effort to integrate verbal and pictorial information. Furthermore, relations between online and offline measures emerged.     

Implementing Bayh-Dole-like laws: Faculty problems and their impact on university patenting activity

The implementation of a Bayh-Dole-like legislation outside the US is still a major concern that needs to be addressed. I fill this gap in two ways. First, I report the results of a faculty survey on obstacles to patenting activity in Italian universities, targeted both to inventors and to those non-inventors which reported to engage in university patenting activity and to give up before any patents could be filed. Second, I investigate their effect in a regression model using universities’ patent counts as the dependent variable. Results show that obstacles to university patenting activity reduce to four dimensions: lack of support mechanisms (including insufficient reward for researchers, lack of a TTO, lack of funds to cover patenting costs), commercialisation problems, too heavy teaching and administrative duties, and personal/cultural problems (related to the scarce knowledge of institutional-level patent regulations and to the “open science” mentality of the university). Among them, however, only the lack of support by the university administration reduces the patent counts. Publication productivity has an inverted U-shaped relation with patent counts, but the overall effect is still largely positive, given the current publication levels.     

Brain Processes in Mothers and Nulliparous Women in Response to Cry in Different Situational Contexts: A Default Mode Network Study

SYNOPSIS

Objective: In everyday life, parents must respond to and interact with children while in different situational contexts. How situational contexts influence parents’ responses has not been systematically studied. Here we investigated mothers’ versus nonmothers’ neural responses to infant vocalizations in different situations with different task demands. Design: Using fMRI in 21 women (10 mothers), we explored the effects of being distracted by self-oriented (self-referential decisions about personality adjectives) versus goal-oriented (syllabic counting of personality adjectives) tasks while listening to infant cry in comparison with other emotional sounds (infant laughing, adult crying) on the activity of two medial nodes of the Default Mode Network (DMN): the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Results: In the self-oriented task while listening to infant cry, both mothers and nulliparas showed (weak) activation of the DMN; this response likely reflects a shift of attention from the task to the cry. In the goal-oriented task, mothers, not nulliparas, showed (weak) activation of the DMN; this result is compatible with interference of emotional sounds while attending to a goal-oriented task, an activity that deactivates the DMN. Conclusions: Mothers are prone to process infant cry and emotional sounds and are less distracted from doing so by situational contexts, demonstrating their greater sensitivity to emotional sounds such as cry. By contrast, situational context influenced brain responses to infant sounds in nulliparas.     

Cooperative Learning with Gifted and High-achieving Students: A review and meta-analyses of 12 studies

Should gifted and high-achieving students cooperate in homogeneous groups or do they learn better individually? Or should they learn together with less gifted peers in heterogeneous groups? Current empirical research is reviewed in this article and meta-analyses of available results in 12 published studies are performed. Results show that few methodologically sound studies can be found at present. In addition, researchers only considered a restricted spectrum of participants, focused on learning of relatively simple materials, measured only a restricted range of possible outcomes, and neglected processes and activities of the learners, which might determine outcomes of cooperative learning. Results therefore remain controversial even for fundamental issues like learning in homogeneous versus heterogeneous, mixed-ability groups. In spite of these limitations, analyses nevertheless show that cooperative learning offers strong potentials for further improving the quality of instruction with gifted and high-achieving students. Further empirical research is required to obtain more differentiated information on the various aspects of cooperative learning.     

Self-Cognition and Parental Brain

SYNOPSIS

A key feature of parenting is that it is observable starting from behaviors that are performed daily by adult caregivers during repeated interactions with the child. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research on parental brain should integrate settings that resemble ecologies of situations in which parents typically care for children. However, as our commentators point out, ecological settings in fMRI research are challenging and require a multiperspective approach that systematically considers psychological and behavioral complexities of “mommy brain” to better understand how contingent mental states of mothers articulate with specific multi-tasking situations.     

Do Belonging and Social Exclusion at School Affect Structural Brain Development During Adolescence?

Students’ sense of belonging presents an essential resource for academic and health outcomes, whereas social exclusion at school negatively impacts students’ well-being and academic performance. Aiming to understand how feelings of school-related belonging and exclusion shape the structural brain development, this study applied longitudinal questionnaire-based data and MRI data from 71 adolescent students (37 females, M_age at t1 = 15.0; t2 = 16.1 years). All were white participants from Germany. Voxel-based morphometry revealed only an association of social exclusion (and not of belonging) and gray matter volume in the left anterior insula: From t1 to t2, there was less gray matter decrease, the more social exclusion students perceived. School-related social exclusion and disturbed neurodevelopment are thus significantly associated.