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Purpose: The prediction of student attrition is critical to facilitate retention mechanisms. This study aims to focus on implementing a method to predict student attrition in the upper years of a physiotherapy program. Design/methodology/approach: Machine learning is a computer tool that can recognize patterns and generate predictive models. Using a quantitative research methodology, a database of 336 university students in their upper-year courses was accessed. The participant's data were collected from the Financial Academic Management and Administration System and a platform of Universidad Autónoma de Chile. Five quantitative and 11 qualitative variables were chosen, associated with university student attrition. With this database, 23 classifiers were tested based on supervised machine learning. Findings: About 23.58% of males and 17.39% of females were among the attrition student group. The mean accuracy of the classifiers increased based on the number of variables used for the training. The best accuracy level was obtained using the "Subspace KNN" algorithm (86.3%). The classifier "RUSboosted trees" yielded the lowest number of false negatives and the higher sensitivity of the algorithms used (78%) as well as a specificity of 86%. Practical implications: This predictive method identifies attrition students in the university program and could be used to improve student retention in higher grades. Originality/value: The study has developed a novel predictive model of student attrition from upper-year courses, useful for unbalanced databases with a lower number of attrition students.

Purpose: Simulator Adaptation Syndrome arises from a perceptual discordance between expected and actual motion, giving rise to symptoms such as nausea and disorientation. This research focused on determining the benefit of Transcutaneous Vagal Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) and Galvanic Cutaneous Stimulation (GCS), where both were applied in conjunction, as compared to their administration in isolation, to decrease Simulator Adaptation Syndrome (SAS). Method: A driving simulation study was proposed where SAS, body balance, and driving performance were measured. These measurements were taken during seven different stimulation scenarios with a baseline condition without stimulation compared against tVNS and GCS conditions. Results: The main result showed that the combination of tVNS and GCS reduced SAS and improved body balance and driving performance more successfully than their administration in isolation. Conclusion: Similar neuromodulation in the temporoparietal junction is proposed to mitigate SAS for GCS and tVNS (although additional explanations are discussed). Applying both techniques simultaneously is encouraged to decrease SAS in future interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on physiological indices of social anxiety has offered unclear results. In this study, participants with low and high social anxiety performed five social interaction tasks while being recorded with a thermal camera. Each task was associated with a dimension assessed by the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Adults (1 = Interactions with strangers. 2 = Speaking in public/Talking with people in authority, 3 = Criticism and embarrassment, 4 = Assertive expression of annoyance, disgust or displeasure, 5 = Interactions with the opposite sex). Mixed-effects models revealed that the temperature of the tip of the nose decreased significantly in participants with low (vs. high) social anxiety (p < 0.001), while no significant differences were found in other facial regions of interest: forehead (p = 0.999) and cheeks (p = 0.999). Furthermore, task 1 was the most effective at discriminating between the thermal change of the nose tip and social anxiety, with a trend for a higher nose temperature in participants with high social anxiety and a lower nose temperature for the low social anxiety group. We emphasize the importance of corroborating thermography with specific tasks as an ecological method, and tip of the nose thermal change as a psychophysiological index associated with social anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Retos: Nuevas Perspectivas de Educación Física, Deporte y Recreación is the property of Federacion Espanola de Asociaciones de Docentes de Educacion Fisica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We investigated the extent to which a complex finger sequence impacts on hand switching costs in a sequential action. Response component latencies (premotor, motor, and movement) were compared in no-switch (same finger performed the action of pressing and reaching) and switch conditions (pressing with one finger and completing the reaching action with the homologous finger from the other hand). Results showed that the switch condition presented longer latency for premotor and movement components. For the motor component, however, switch condition was faster. This expands the previous literature investigating switching costs using simple finger movements in more complex tasks. A mechanical explanation of the interplay between response subcomponents is provided to explain the inversion of response pattern for the motor component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Thermology International is the property of European Association of Thermology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the past decades, animal and human physiological studies have suggested that subcortical structures that are part of the extrageniculate pathways have an important role to play in the attentive selection of targets and the filtering of distractors. However, not much has been done to investigate the filtering of distractors in purely behavioural experiments through cues that might reveal extrageniculate functions, such as the asymmetry in performance between the nasal and the temporal visual fields. Here, under monocular conditions, participants viewed laterally and tachistoscopically presented sets of visual stimuli and were required to decide whether a target was present in the set or not. The manipulation of attention demands was achieved by varying the degree of spatial organization of the stimuli. A temporal field advantage in detection accuracy was found, and was observed only for disorganised sets of stimuli, that is, when demands on attention were greater. Furthermore, this pattern was found only for stimuli projected to the right hemisphere. The results suggest that the extrageniculate pathways of the right hemisphere in humans are involved in filtering out distractors. They are discussed in light of findings and theories about extrageniculate mediation of selective attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article cites a study that examines the effectiveness of galvanic cutaneous stimulation provided during curves or intermittently during the whole circuit in mitigating simulator syndrome. Topics include the use of drivers in the study, comparison of scores of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) across different stimulation conditions, screening of drivers for motion sickness, and application of stimulation through electrodes placed on the sternocleidomastoid muscles of neck.