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How do children map linguistic representations onto the conceptual structures that they encode? In the present studies, we provided 3-4-year-old children with minimal-pair scene contrasts in order to determine the effect of particular event properties on novel verb learning. Specifically, we tested whether spatiotemporal cues to causation also inform children's interpretation of transitive verbs either with or without the causal/inchoative alternation ("She broke the lamp/the lamp broke"). In Experiment 1, we examined spatiotemporal continuity. Children saw scenes with puppets that approached a toy in a distinctive manner, and toys that lit up or played a sound. In the causal events, the puppet contacted the object, and activation was immediate. In the noncausal events, the puppet stopped short before reaching the object, and the effect occurred after a short pause (apparently spontaneously). Children expected novel verbs used in the inchoative transitive/intransitive alternation to refer to spatiotemporally intact causal interactions rather than to "gap" control scenes. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the temporal order of sub-events, holding spatial relationships constant, and provided evidence for only one verb frame (either transitive or intransitive). Children mapped transitive verbs to scenes where the agent's action closely preceded the activation of the toy over scenes in which the timing of the two events was switched, but did not do so when they heard an intransitive construction. These studies reveal that children's expectations about transitive verbs are at least partly driven by their nonlinguistic understanding of causal events: children expect transitive syntax to refer to scenes where the agent's action is a plausible cause of the outcome. These findings open a wide avenue for exploration into the relationship between children's linguistic knowledge and their nonlinguistic understanding of events.

To understand how children develop adult argument structure, we must understand the nature of syntactic and semantic representations during development. The present studies compare the performance of children aged 2;6 on the two intransitive alternations in English: patient ("Daddy is cooking the food"/"The food is cooking") and agent ("Daddy is cooking"). Children displayed abstract knowledge of both alternations, producing appropriate syntactic generalizations with novel verbs. These generalizations were adult-like in both "flexibility" and "constraint." Rather than limiting their generalizations to lexicalized frames, children produced sentences with a variety of nouns and pronouns. They also avoided semantic overgeneralizations, producing intransitive sentences that respected the event restrictions and animacy cues. Some generated semantically appropriate agent intransitives when discourse pressure favored patient intransitives, indicating a stronger command of the first alternation. This was in line with frequency distributions in child-directed speech. These findings suggest that children have early access to representations that permit flexible argument structure generalization.

Researchers have long debated the mechanisms underlying the learning of syntactic structure. Of significant interest has been the fact that passive constructions appear to be learned earlier in Sesotho than English. This paper provides a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of the passive input Sesotho-speaking children hear, how it differs from English input, and the implications for learning the passive. The findings indicate that the more frequent use of both the passive "and" the "by"-phrase in Sesotho child-directed speech, in conjunction with the non-ambiguous passive morpheme, may together facilitate earlier access to thematic roles (agent, patient), thereby promoting early implicit learning of the passive. The implications for the acquisition of syntactic structure more generally are discussed. (Contains 3 footnotes, 1 table, and 3 figures.)

Abstract AIMS This study attempted to Identify perceived benefits, motivators, and barriers for registered nurses returning to school for a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degree. BACKGROUND Studies link [...]

The ideal of scientific progress is that we accumulate measurements and integrate these into theory, but recent discussion of replicability issues has cast doubt on whether psychological research conforms to this model. Developmental research-especially with infant participants-also has discipline-specific replicability challenges, including small samples and limited measurement methods. Inspired by collaborative replication efforts in cognitive and social psychology, we describe a proposal for assessing and promoting replicability in infancy research: large-scale, multi-laboratory replication efforts aiming for a more precise understanding of key developmental phenomena. The ManyBabies project, our instantiation of this proposal, will not only help us estimate how robust and replicable these phenomena are, but also gain new theoretical insights into how they vary across ages, linguistic communities, and measurement methods. This project has the potential for a variety of positive outcomes, including less-biased estimates of theoretically important effects, estimates of variability that can be used for later study planning, and a series of best-practices blueprints for future infancy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ovarian reserve (OR) testing with serum anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) can provide information about a woman's fertility potential. The aim of this study was to assess interest and knowledge about OR testing and investigate the utility of measuring AMH in women of reproductive age deferring pregnancy. Methods: Women ages 27-37 years currently delaying childbearing were invited to take a survey regarding attitudes and knowledge about OR testing before and after an AMH measurement with explanation of their results. Results: Of 121 women who took the pre-test survey, 96% believed OR testing was beneficial. The median AMH of the 97 women who underwent testing was 3.3 ng/mL (IQR 1.9-5.4 ng/mL). Nineteen percent of women had AMH <10th percentile for age and 3% had an undetectable AMH. Although 83% of these women were using hormonal contraception, none had known risk factors for diminished ovarian reserve. Seventy-eight percent of women with low AMH levels for age planned to seek fertility preservation or pregnancy, while those with AMH levels within established age normograms were reassured. On the post-test survey, 100% reported benefit in knowing their AMH level. Follow-up testing, 6-8 months after the initial measurement, showed stable AMH levels for most participants. Conclusions: Women are interested in OR testing. Most women will be reassured by knowing their AMH level, whereas those with a lower AMH can be counseled on fertility preservation options or may attempt pregnancy earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) serodiscordant couples are at risk of sexual transmission of HIV between the infected and uninfected partner. We assessed New York area care providers for people living with HIV regarding attitudes, knowledge, and practice patterns toward fertility and conception in serodiscordant couples. Data were collected via a survey distributed in October 2013. Seventeen percent of respondents reported prescribing antiretroviral preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for a woman in a serodiscordant couple, and 38% percent of respondents reported having counseled serodiscordant couples on timed, unprotected intercourse without PrEP. Respondents who reported being “very” familiar with the data on HIV transmission in serodiscordant couples were more likely to report counseling their patients in timed, unprotected intercourse compared with those who reported less familiarity with the data (41% vs. 8%,p= 0.001). Although only 20% reported being “very” or “somewhat” familiar with the data on the safety of sperm washing with intrauterine insemination, those who did were more likely to have reported referring a patient for assisted reproductive technology (61% vs. 32%,p= 0.006). Effective patient counseling and referral for appropriate reproductive options were associated with knowledge of the literature pertaining to these options. This emphasizes the need for further provider education on reproductive options and appropriate counseling for serodiscordant couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do children map linguistic representations onto the conceptual structures that they encode? In the present studies, we provided 3-4 year old children with minimal-pair scene contrasts in order to determine the effect of particular event properties on novel verb learning. Specifically, we tested whether spatiotemporal cues to causation also inform children’s interpretation of transitive verbs either with or without the causal/inchoative alternation (She broke the lamp/the lamp broke). In Experiment 1, we examined spatiotemporal continuity. Children saw scenes with puppets that approached a toy in a distinctive manner, and toys that lit up or played a sound. In the causal events, the puppet contacted the object, and activation was immediate. In the noncausal events, the puppet stopped short before reaching the object, and the effect occurred after a short pause (apparently spontaneously). Children expected novel verbs used in the inchoative transitive/intransitive alternation to refer to spatiotemporally intact causal interactions rather than to 'gap' control scenes. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the temporal order of sub-events, holding spatial relationships constant, and provided evidence for only one verb frame (either transitive or intransitive). Children mapped transitive verbs to scenes where the agent's action closely preceded the activation of the toy over scenes in which the timing of the two events was switched, but did not do so when they heard an intransitive construction. These studies reveal that children’s expectations about transitive verbs are at least partly driven by their nonlinguistic understanding of causal events: children expect transitive syntax to refer to scenes where the agent's action is a plausible cause of the outcome. These findings open a wide avenue for exploration into the relationship between children’s linguistic knowledge and their nonlinguistic understanding of events., Linguistics, Psychology, Other Research Unit

A previous study of passive constructions has suggested that these are much more frequent in Sesotho than in English spontaneous speech (Demuth, 1989). This has raised a number of questions regarding the possible effects of the input on the apparently earlier acquisition of passives in Sesotho. This paper explores the distribution of passives in Sesotho child-directed speech. It aims to provide a more thorough investigation of the grammatical, lexical and discourse contexts in which the passive is used. The findings confirm that passives occur in approximately 4% of utterances directed at 2-3-year olds. Many of these are full (rather than truncated) passives, most occurring with actional verbs that show active/passive alternations. Many passives are also questions/clarifications about past events. The implications for language acquisition are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supercritical extraction of organic phases from films containing poly(vinyl butyral) (PVB) binder and dioctyl phthalate (DOP) plasticizer was performed with CO2 and C2H4 at 35–75 °C and 10–40 MPa for cycle times of 3 h. For films containing 60:40 wt.% PVB:DOP, extraction efficiencies near 50% were observed with either fluid at 75 °C and 40 MPa, which suggests nearly complete removal of the plasticizer. The degree of plasticization of the PVB+DOP films before and after supercritical extraction was characterized by using differential scanning calorimetry. For films containing 60:40 wt.% PVB:DOP, no thermal transitions were observed from −15 to 110 °C before supercritical extraction, whereas multiple thermal transitions were seen after supercritical extraction. The glass transition temperatures, Tg, of the films after extraction were between 24 and 45 °C, as compared to the Tg∼72.5 °C for the as-received PVB. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The field of infancy research faces a difficult challenge: some questions require samples that are simply too large for any one lab to recruit and test. ManyBabies aims to address this problem by forming large-scale collaborations on key theoretical questions in developmental science, while promoting the uptake of Open Science practices. Here, we look back on the first project completed under the ManyBabies umbrella - ManyBabies 1 - which tested the development of infant-directed speech preference. Our goal is to share the lessons learned over the course of the project and to articulate our vision for the role of large-scale collaborations in the field. First, we consider the decisions made in scaling up experimental research for a collaboration involving 100+ researchers and 70+ labs. Next, we discuss successes and challenges over the course of the project, including: protocol design and implementation, data analysis, organizational structures and collaborative workflows, securing funding, and encouraging broad participation in the project. Finally, we discuss the benefits we see both in ongoing ManyBabies projects and in future large-scale collaborations in general, with a particular eye towards developing best practices and increasing growth and diversity in infancy research and psychological science in general. Throughout the paper, we include first-hand narrative experiences, in order to illustrate the perspectives of researchers playing different roles within the project. While this project focused on the unique challenges of infant research, many of the insights we gained can be applied to large-scale collaborations across the broader field of psychology.

The American Nurses Credentialing Center's Magnet Recognition Program 2019 Magnet Application Manual "continue(s) to raise the bar as the gold standard for nursing" (p. IX). In this column, the authors, who are Magnet commissioners, provide background and guidance on the standards for nurse satisfaction and patient satisfaction.

Concerns have been growing about the veracity of psychological research. Many findings in psychological science are based on studies with insufficient statistical power and nonrepresentative samples, or may otherwise be limited to specific, ungeneralizable settings or populations. Crowdsourced research, a type of large-scale collaboration in which one or more research projects are conducted across multiple lab sites, offers a pragmatic solution to these and other current methodological challenges. The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) is a distributed network of laboratories designed to enable and support crowdsourced research projects. These projects can focus on novel research questions, or attempt to replicate prior research, in large, diverse samples. The PSA's mission is to accelerate the accumulation of reliable and generalizable evidence in psychological science. Here, we describe the background, structure, principles, procedures, benefits, and challenges of the PSA. In contrast to other crowdsourced research networks, the PSA is ongoing (as opposed to time-limited), efficient (in terms of re-using structures and principles for different projects), decentralized, diverse (in terms of participants and researchers), and inclusive (of proposals, contributions, and other relevant input from anyone inside or outside of the network). The PSA and other approaches to crowdsourced psychological science will advance our understanding of mental processes and behaviors by enabling rigorous research and systematically examining its generalizability.

Resistance-associated mutations in the HIV-1 protease modify viral fitness through changes in the catalytic activity and altered binding affinity for substrates and inhibitors. In this report, we examine the effects of 31 mutations at 26 amino acid positions in protease to determine their impact on infectivity and protease inhibitor sensitivity. We found that primary resistance mutations individually decrease fitness and generally increase sensitivity to protease inhibitors, indicating that reduced virion-associated protease activity reduces virion infectivity and the reduced level of per virion protease activity is then more easily titrated by a protease inhibitor. Conversely, mutations at more variable positions (compensatory mutations) confer low-level decreases in sensitivity to all protease inhibitors with little effect on infectivity. We found significant differences in the observed effect on infectivity with a pseudotype virus assay that requires the protease to cleave the cytoplasmic tail of the amphotropic murine leukemia virus (MuLV) Env protein. Additionally, we were able to mimic the fitness loss associated with resistance mutations by directly reducing the level of virion-associated protease activity. Virions containing 50% of a D25A mutant protease were 3- to 5-fold more sensitive to protease inhibitors. This level of reduction in protease activity also resulted in a 2-fold increase in sensitivity to nonnucleoside inhibitors of reverse transcriptase and a similar increase in sensitivity to zidovudine (AZT), indicating a pleiotropic effect associated with reduced protease activity. These results highlight the interplay between enzyme activity, viral fitness, and inhibitor mechanism and sensitivity in the closed system of the viral replication complex.