Medical students' attitudes toward the anatomy dissection room in relation to personality

Assessment of the personalities of medical students could enable medical educators to formulate strategies for the best development of academic and clinical competencies. In this article, we focus on the experience of students in the anatomy dissecting room. While there have been many attempts to evaluate the emotional responses of medical students to human cadaveric dissection, there has been no investigation into how different personality traits affect the responses. The main hypothesis tested was that there is a relationship between personality traits and attitudes toward the dissection room. For the present study, a group of French medical students (n = 403; mean age 21.3 ± 1.6; 65.3% female) completed a Big Five personality inventory and a questionnaire to assess their attitudes in regard to human dissection. The findings are consistent with our hypothesis, in that we found a relationship between reporting anxiety and four of the Big Five dimensions (all except openness). The rated level of anxiety was positively correlated with negative affectivity, more strongly at the beginning than at the end of the course. There were significant gender differences in attitudes toward dissection. The findings are discussed in relation to the possibility of preparing students for the dissecting room experience and also in relation to the students' understanding of mortality issues.     

Lunge performance and its determinants

For activities such as squash, badminton and fencing, the ability to quickly complete a lunge and return to the start or move off in another direction is critical for success. Determining which strength qualities are important predictors of lunge performance was the focus of this study. Thirty-one male athletes performed: (1) a unilateral maximal squat (one-repetition maximum, 1-RM) and unilateral jump squat (50% 1-RM) on an instrumented supine squat machine, and (2) a forward lunge while attached to a linear transducer. We performed stepwise multiple regression analysis with lunge performance as the dependent variable and various strength, flexibility and anthropometric measures as the independent variables. From the many strength and power measures calculated, time to peak force was the best single predictor of lunge performance, which accounted for 55% of the explained variance. The best three-variable model for predicting lunge performance accounted for 76-85% of the explained variance. The models differed, however, according to whether lunge performance was expressed relative to body mass (time to peak force, mean power and relative strength = 76%) or taken as an absolute value (time to peak force, leg length and flexibility = 85%). We conclude that one to two trials were reliable for strength diagnosis and that one strength measure cannot accurately explain functional performance because other factors, such as body mass, flexibility and leg length, have diverse effects on the statistical models.     

Helsen, Gilis and Weston (2006) err in testing the optical error hypothesis

In this commentary, we react to the recent study by Helsen, Gilis and Weston (2006) on judging offside in football. Helsen et al. claim that their data falsify the optical error hypothesis presented by Oudejans et al. (2000). However, as we will elucidate here, they misinterpret this hypothesis and present a data set that is seriously flawed, and hence not suited to test it. Therefore, their conclusions regarding the optical error hypothesis are in error.     

<Emphasis Type=Italic>Mrakia psychrophila</Emphasis> sp. nov., a new species isolated from Antarctic soil

The yeast strain （Y18） was isolated from a soil sample collected from Fildes Peninsula, Antarctica. The strain is a psychrophilic yeast with optimum and maximum growth temperatures of 10 ℃ and 18 ℃, respectively. Teliospores were formed after 7 d on malt agar, when the germination of teliospores was observed. Both inositol and D-glucuronate were assimilated. Positive results of the DBB （diazonium blue B） color reaction, urease test, and starch formation were observed. The major CoQ is Qs. All results indicated that Y18 belongs to the genes of Mrakia. The 18S rDNA sequence analyses showed that Y18 is closely related to Mrakiafrigida. DNA-DNA relatedness study, and some biochemistry characteristics indicated that Y18 represents a new species for which Mrakia psychrophila sp. nov. is proposed.     

Effect of foster care on young children's language learning

This report examines 174 young children's language outcomes in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, the first randomized trial of foster placement after institutional care. Age of foster placement was highly correlated with language outcomes. Placement by 15 months led to similar expressive and receptive language test scores as typical age peers at 30 and 42 months. Placement from 15 to 24 months also led to dramatic language improvement. In contrast, children placed after 24 months had the same severe language delays as children in institutional care. Language samples at 42 months confirmed that placement after 24 months led to lower expressive skill.