[Textual research on Bambusae Concretio Silicea]

By studying various ancient texts such as herbal classics and medical literature from different eras, it was found that there were discrepancies in the records about Bambusae Concretio Silicea(Tian Zhu Huang). In order to establish an accurate foundation, this research was based on ancient herbal literature and combined with plant morphology and investigative studies to examine its earliest mentions in ancient texts, nomenclature, medicinal properties, indications, and quality assessment standards. In the early records, Bambusae Concretio Silicea was referred to by several different names, such as "Zhu Huang" "Tian Zhu Huang" "Zhu Gao" "Zhu Tang", and "Zhu Huang". The earliest known formal usage of the name "Tian Zhu Huang" was found in the book Ri Hua-zi's Materia Medica(Ri Hua Zi Ben Cao). Throughout various ancient texts, the earliest recorded information about Bambusae Concretio Silicea also appeared in Ri Hua-zi's Materia Medica, not in Materia Medica of Sichuan(Shu Ben Cao) or other ancient texts. Ri Hua-zi's Materia Medica provided relevant descriptions of its origin, medicinal properties, and indications, albeit with some errors due to limited knowledge. However, this has been a valuable starting point for future research on Bambusae Concretio Silicea and holds pioneering significance in forming a mature system. As the research delved deeper, the medicinal properties of Bambusae Concretio Silicea have been consistent since Ri Hua-zi's Materia Medica, and the understanding has gradually improved through years of clinical verification. During the investigation process, the authors found limited records on the quality evaluation of Bambusae Concretio Silicea in ancient texts. Although the information is scarce, it serves as a foundational basis for establishing corresponding quality grading standards for Bambusae Concretio Silicea in the future.

Historical changes in baby names in China

Based on previous research on names and naming practices, I propose three suggestions to Bao et al. (2021), which investigated historical changes in given names of Han Chinese in China between 1920 and 2005. Their study analyzed a one-shot cross-sectional survey conducted in 2005 and reported that unique names increased from 1920 to 2005. The authors concluded that China became more individualistic over time for the period. However, three questions have remained unanswered in Bao et al. (2021). First, were the samples of older birth cohorts truly representative? Second, did unique names increase only after the 1970s? Third, how are the historical changes in average name length interpreted? Answering these three questions would contribute to a further understanding of the historical changes in given names and their underlying psychological/cultural shifts in China.

Assessing the Correct Documentation of Time and Physician Information on Medical Records in the Emergency Department of Queen's Hospital: An Audit and Re-audit

BACKGROUND

Medical records are confidential medical and legal documents describing a patient's contact with a healthcare facility. The quality of documentation has been found to be lower in settings of high patient volume and complex cases, such as the emergency department (ED). The variety and number of healthcare professionals involved in the care of the patient also negatively affect the quality of documentation. The aim of this paper is to present the results of an audit and re-audit conducted in the ED of Queen's Hospital, Romford, to assess ED record documentation against General Medical Council (GMC) and Royal College of Physicians (RCP) standards.

METHODS

For the audit, all records of patients who were discharged from the ED of Queen's Hospital in one day were reviewed and evaluated on whether they have a date, time, the full name of the physician, their GMC number, and signature documented, as per GMC and RCP official guidelines. No medical information or patient data were recorded. After the implementation of the change aiming to raise awareness of ED staff, a new sample was collected two months later, and the same parameters were assessed against the set standards.

RESULTS

Results of the audit showed a low percentage of documentation of all parameters, especially of GMC number and signature. After the presentation of the results and implementation of change, the results of the re-audit demonstrated significant raise in all percentages, with a relative improvement of 40% regarding the recording of GMC number and 65% regarding signature. However, the documentation of these two parameters remained low and below acceptable levels.

DISCUSSION

The re-audit results underline that the low compliance was significantly improved after the implementation of measures aiming to increase correct documentation awareness among ED staff. However, to maintain and even raise the level of current practice, additional systematic measures need to be put into action.

How accurate are gender detection tools in predicting the gender for Chinese names? A study with 20,000 given names in Pinyin format

Objective

We recently showed that the gender detection tools NamSor, Gender API, and Wiki-Gendersort accurately predicted the gender of individuals with Western given names. Here, we aimed to evaluate the performance of these tools with Chinese given names in Pinyin format.

Methods

We constructed two datasets for the purpose of the study. File #1 was created by randomly drawing 20,000 names from a gender-labeled database of 52,414 Chinese given names in Pinyin format. File #2, which contained 9,077 names, was created by removing from File #1 all unisex names that we were able to identify (i.e., those that were listed in the database as both male and female names). We recorded for both files the number of correct classifications (correct gender assigned to a name), misclassifications (wrong gender assigned to a name), and nonclassifications (no gender assigned). We then calculated the proportion of misclassifications and nonclassifications (errorCoded).

Results

For File #1, errorCoded was 53% for NamSor, 65% for Gender API, and 90% for Wiki-Gendersort. For File #2, errorCoded was 43% for NamSor, 66% for Gender API, and 94% for Wiki-Gendersort.

Conclusion

We found that all three gender detection tools inaccurately predicted the gender of individuals with Chinese given names in Pinyin format and therefore should not be used in this population.

Newborns' clinical conditions are correlated with the neonatal assessment manual scorE (NAME)

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the relationship between the Neonatal Assessment Manual scorE (NAME) and newborns' clinical condition on a large number of infants. The NAME model was developed as an instrument to assess the infant's general conditions, especially in NICUs, by evaluating how the infant's body responds to an external stressor such as static touch. Previous studies, employing experienced assessors, showed good validity indices as well as high inter-rater reliability.

STUDY DESIGN

Newborns were recruited at the "Vittore Buzzi" Pediatric Hospital NICU ward in Milan and their clinical conditions were collected through a standardized form-the complexity index. Two manual practitioners assessed all eligible newborns using the NAME scores. Data was analyzed using Kendall's τ correlation and odds ratio (OR) to assess the relationship between the NAME scores and the complexity index.

RESULTS

Two hundred two newborns (46% female; 34.1 w ± 4.3; birth weight of 2,093.4 gr ± 879.8) entered the study. The Kendall's correlation between the clinical conditions (complexity index) and the NAME score was -0.206 [95% CI: (-0.292, -0.116), p-value < 0.001], corresponding to an OR of 0.838 [95% CI: (0.757, 0.924), p-value < 0.001]. Further exploratory analyses showed significant correlation between gestational age, birth weight and NAME scores.

CONCLUSION

The present paper adds evidence to the NAME model validity by demonstrating its applicability in the clinical neonatological context.

Novel Evidence for the Increasing Prevalence of Unique Names in China: A Reply to Ogihara

In this study, we aimed to address three comments proposed by Ogihara on a recent study where we found that unique names in China have become increasingly popular from 1950 to 2009. Using a large representative sample of Chinese names (N = 2.1 million), we replicated the increase in uniqueness of Chinese names from 1920 to 2005, especially since the 1970s, with multiple uniqueness indices based on name-character frequency and name-length deviation. Over the years, Chinese characters that are rare in daily life or naming practice were more often used in given names, and the length of given names became more deviant from typical practice (i.e., more one-character and three-character given names and higher standard deviation of name length). Taken together, these findings not only reconfirmed the increasing prevalence of unique names but also demonstrated the validity of various indices in assessing name uniqueness in China.

Using genderize.io to infer the gender of first names: how to improve the accuracy of the inference

Objective

We recently showed that genderize.io is not a sufficiently powerful gender detection tool due to a large number of nonclassifications. In the present study, we aimed to assess whether the accuracy of inference by genderize.io can be improved by manipulating the first names in the database.

Methods

We used a database containing the first names, surnames, and gender of 6,131 physicians practicing in a multicultural country (Switzerland). We uploaded the original CSV file (file #1), the file obtained after removing all diacritic marks, such as accents and cedilla (file #2), and the file obtained after removing all diacritic marks and retaining only the first term of the compound first names (file #3). For each file, we computed three performance metrics: proportion of misclassifications (errorCodedWithoutNA), proportion of nonclassifications (naCoded), and proportion of misclassifications and nonclassifications (errorCoded).

Results

naCoded, which was high for file #1 (16.4%), was reduced after data manipulation (file #2: 11.7%, file #3: 0.4%). As the increase in the number of misclassifications was small, the overall performance of genderize.io (i.e., errorCoded) improved, especially for file #3 (file #1: 17.7%, file #2: 13.0%, and file #3: 2.3%).

Conclusions

A relatively simple manipulation of the data improved the accuracy of gender inference by genderize.io. We recommend using genderize.io only with files that were modified in this way.

Performance of gender detection tools: a comparative study of name-to-gender inference services

Objective:

To evaluate the performance of gender detection tools that allow the uploading of files (e.g., Excel or CSV files) containing first names, are usable by researchers without advanced computer skills, and are at least partially free of charge.

Methods:

The study was conducted using four physician datasets (total number of physicians: 6,131; 50.3% female) from Switzerland, a multilingual country. Four gender detection tools met the inclusion criteria: three partially free (Gender API, NamSor, and genderize.io) and one completely free (Wiki-Gendersort). For each tool, we recorded the number of correct classifications (i.e., correct gender assigned to a name), misclassifications (i.e., wrong gender assigned to a name), and nonclassifications (i.e., no gender assigned). We computed three metrics: the proportion of misclassifications excluding nonclassifications (errorCodedWithoutNA), the proportion of nonclassifications (naCoded), and the proportion of misclassifications and nonclassifications (errorCoded).

Results:

The proportion of misclassifications was low for all four gender detection tools (errorCodedWithoutNA between 1.5 and 2.2%). By contrast, the proportion of unrecognized names (naCoded) varied: 0% for NamSor, 0.3% for Gender API, 4.5% for Wiki-Gendersort, and 16.4% for genderize.io. Using errorCoded, which penalizes both types of error equally, we obtained the following results: Gender API 1.8%, NamSor 2.0%, Wiki-Gendersort 6.6%, and genderize.io 17.7%.

Conclusions:

Gender API and NamSor were the most accurate tools. Genderize.io led to a high number of nonclassifications. Wiki-Gendersort may be a good compromise for researchers wishing to use a completely free tool. Other studies would be useful to evaluate the performance of these tools in other populations (e.g., Asian).

Unique Names in China: Insights From Research in Japan-Commentary: Increasing Need for Uniqueness in Contemporary China: Empirical Evidence

By comparing naming practices between China and Japan, I propose three suggestions on Cai et al.'s (2018) Study 2, which examined historical changes in baby names in China. Their study found that the average daily frequencies of Chinese characters used in baby names decreased between 1950 and 2009. The authors concluded that unique names increased for this period and suggested a rise in the need for uniqueness and individualism in China. However, there are three questions that have remained unanswered. First, did the Chinese characters that were used in names indeed become more unique over time? Second, did the number of Chinese characters in names increase over time? Third, did the reading (pronunciation) of names become more unique over time? Answering these three questions would further increase the validity and impacts of the article and contribute to a better understanding of cultural changes in China.

Clinical Research: Auditory Stimulation in the Disorders of Consciousness

Due to the complex situation of disorder of consciousness (DOC) patients, the assessment of conscious states of these patients has become a huge challenge for a long time (Laureys et al., 2010). At present, the main clinical diagnostic method to assess the conscious state of a DOC patient is the use of a relevant behavior scale like the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R). In this article, we will focus on auditory stimulation and select some representative auditory stimulus, like calling names and music stimulation, to discuss the function and application of the auditory stimulus in patients with DOC and provide guidance for future research.

Social-emotional processing in nonverbal individuals with Angelman syndrome: evidence from brain responses to known and novel names

BACKGROUND

The combination of intellectual, communicative and motor deficits limits the use of standardised behavioural assessments in individuals with Angelman syndrome (AS). The current study aimed to objectively evaluate the extent of social-emotional processing in AS using auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) during passive exposure to spoken stimuli.

METHODS

Auditory ERP responses were recorded in 13 nonverbal individuals with the deletion subtype of AS, age 4-45 years, during the name recognition paradigm, in which their own names and names of close others (relative or friend) were presented among novel names. No behavioural responses were required.

RESULTS

Contrary to findings in typical children and adults, there was no significant evidence of differential neural response to known vs. novel names in participants with AS. Nevertheless, greater amplitude differences between known and unknown names demonstrated the predicted association with better interpersonal relationships and receptive communication abilities.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings indicate good tolerability of ERP procedures (85% success rate). The lack of own name differentiation is consistent with increased incidence of the autism-related symptoms in AS. Strong associations between the caregiver reports of adaptive functioning and neural indices of known name recognition support the utility of brain-based measures for objectively evaluating cognitive and affective processes in nonverbal persons with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Temporal Changes in Individualism and Their Ramification in Japan: Rising Individualism and Conflicts with Persisting Collectivism

Many studies have shown that American culture has become more individualistic over time. However, it was unclear whether other cultures, especially East Asian cultures, have also shifted toward greater individualism. Therefore, this article reviewed studies investigating temporal changes in individualism in Japan and their ramifications on psychology and behavior. Japan has experienced rapid and dramatic economic growth and urbanization and has adopted more social systems based on individualistic concepts in various contexts (e.g., workplace, school). Recent studies have suggested that, along with these socioeconomic changes, Japanese culture has become more individualistic over time. Specifically, the divorce rate increased and household size decreased. Moreover, people give more unique names to their children and dogs, and individualistic words such as "individual" and "uniqueness" appear more frequently in newspapers. Furthermore, social values became more individualistic. Yet, it has also been shown that some collectivistic values still remain. As a result, people have difficulty in adapting to this coexistence, which injures interpersonal relationships and well-being. This paper discussed how Japanese culture changed over time and how such changes affected Japanese psychology and behavior.

Low prevalence of the use of the Chinese term for 'psychiatry' in the names of community psychiatry clinics: A nationwide study in Taiwan

BACKGROUND

Relabeling has been proposed as a strategy to reduce the stigma associated with mental illnesses. Previous studies have shown that changing the names of psychiatry clinics has led to reduced feelings of being stigmatized among patients. In Taiwan, terms other than 'psychiatry' (in Chinese, jīng shén kē) are more commonly used in the names of psychiatry clinics. The term 'psychosomatic clinics' is widely used instead.

AIMS

This study investigated the characteristics of psychiatry clinic names in order to better understand the role of clinic names in primary care settings.

METHODS

Relevant data were extracted from an open database maintained by the government of Taiwan. These data included the names of community psychiatry clinics and hospital-based psychiatry clinics, population size and the degree of urbanization in the area served by each clinic.

RESULTS

At the time of this study, there were 254 community psychiatry clinics and 190 hospital-based psychiatry clinics in Taiwan. Only 18.9% of the community clinic names included the term 'psychiatry'. Additionally, 14.6% of community clinic names and 28.4% of hospital-based clinic names included the term 'psychosomatics'. The regions in which clinics without 'psychiatry' in their names were located had significantly larger populations and higher levels of urbanization than the regions in which clinics with 'psychiatry' in their names were located.

CONCLUSION

A low prevalence of the term 'psychiatry' in community psychiatry clinic names was found in Taiwan. The stigma associated with psychiatry and other socio-cultural factors are hypothesized to explain this phenomenon.

Are common names becoming less common? The rise in uniqueness and individualism in Japan

We examined whether Japanese culture has become more individualistic by investigating how the practice of naming babies has changed over time. Cultural psychology has revealed substantial cultural variation in human psychology and behavior, emphasizing the mutual construction of socio-cultural environment and mind. However, much of the past research did not account for the fact that culture is changing. Indeed, archival data on behavior (e.g., divorce rates) suggest a rise in individualism in the U.S. and Japan. In addition to archival data, cultural products (which express an individual’s psyche and behavior outside the head; e.g., advertising) can also reveal cultural change. However, little research has investigated the changes in individualism in East Asia using cultural products. To reveal the dynamic aspects of culture, it is important to present temporal data across cultures. In this study, we examined baby names as a cultural product. If Japanese culture has become more individualistic, parents would be expected to give their children unique names. Using two databases, we calculated the rate of popular baby names between 2004 and 2013. Both databases released the rankings of popular names and their rates within the sample. As Japanese names are generally comprised of both written Chinese characters and their pronunciations, we analyzed these two separately. We found that the rate of popular Chinese characters increased, whereas the rate of popular pronunciations decreased. However, only the rate of popular pronunciations was associated with a previously validated collectivism index. Moreover, we examined the pronunciation variation of common combinations of Chinese characters and the written form variation of common pronunciations. We found that the variation of written forms decreased, whereas the variation of pronunciations increased over time. Taken together, these results showed that parents are giving their children unique names by pairing common Chinese characters with uncommon pronunciations, which indicates an increase in individualism in Japan.

Distinct but Overlapping Patterns of Response to Words and Faces in the Fusiform Gyrus

Converging evidence suggests that the fusiform gyrus is involved in the processing of both faces and words. We used fMRI to investigate the extent to which the representation of words and faces in this region of the brain is based on a common neural representation. In Experiment 1, a univariate analysis revealed regions in the fusiform gyrus that were only selective for faces and other regions that were only selective for words. However, we also found regions that showed both word-selective and face-selective responses, particularly in the left hemisphere. We then used a multivariate analysis to measure the pattern of response to faces and words. Despite the overlap in regional responses, we found distinct patterns of response to both faces and words in the left and right fusiform gyrus. In Experiment 2, fMR adaptation was used to determine whether information about familiar faces and names is integrated in the fusiform gyrus. Distinct regions of the fusiform gyrus showed adaptation to either familiar faces or familiar names. However, there was no adaptation to sequences of faces and names with the same identity. Taken together, these results provide evidence for distinct, but overlapping, neural representations for words and faces in the fusiform gyrus.

Long-term repetition priming and semantic interference in a lexical-semantic matching task: tapping the links between object names and colors

Using a novel paradigm to engage the long-term mappings between object names and the prototypical colors for objects, we investigated the retrieval of object-color knowledge as indexed by long-term priming (the benefit in performance from a prior encounter with the same or a similar stimulus); a process about which little is known. We examined priming from object naming on a lexical-semantic matching task. In the matching task participants encountered a visually presented object name (Experiment 1) or object shape (Experiment 2) paired with either a color patch or color name. The pairings could either match whereby both were consistent with a familiar object (e.g., strawberry and red) or mismatch (strawberry and blue). We used the matching task to probe knowledge about familiar objects and their colors pre-activated during object naming. In particular, we examined whether the retrieval of object-color information was modality-specific and whether this influenced priming. Priming varied with the nature of the retrieval process: object-color priming arose for object names but not object shapes and beneficial effects of priming were observed for color patches whereas inhibitory priming arose with color names. These findings have implications for understanding how object knowledge is retrieved from memory and modified by learning.

Do attendees at sexual health and HIV clinics prefer to be called in by name or number?

Calling patients in from the waiting area is an important aspect of the initial medical encounter. According to national and international guidelines, clinics should decide on an appropriate way of calling patients in from the waiting room for consultations; however, no preference is actually recommended. A survey was carried out to see if patients were happy to be called in by number, first name, surname, full name, or title (Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms) followed by surname. One hundred unselected patients were drawn from each clinic including; a genito-urinary medicine (GUM), a co-located GUM (cGUM) and co-located reproductive health (cRH), an HIV and a reproductive health (RH) clinic. Patients from the GUM, cGUM, cRH and RH clinics preferred to be called in by number rather than full name or title. Patients from the cRH clinic also preferred number to first name. In contrast, patients from the HIV clinics preferred to be called in by first name rather than number, surname, full name or title. Following this survey it would appear that number would be the most popular method of calling patients in sexual and reproductive health clinics and first name is the choice in HIV clinics.

Development and preliminary evidence for the validity of an instrument assessing implementation of human-factors principles in medication-related decision-support systems--I-MeDeSA

BACKGROUND

Medication-related decision support can reduce the frequency of preventable adverse drug events. However, the design of current medication alerts often results in alert fatigue and high over-ride rates, thus reducing any potential benefits.

METHODS

The authors previously reviewed human-factors principles for relevance to medication-related decision support alerts. In this study, instrument items were developed for assessing the appropriate implementation of these human-factors principles in drug-drug interaction (DDI) alerts. User feedback regarding nine electronic medical records was considered during the development process. Content validity, construct validity through correlation analysis, and inter-rater reliability were assessed.

RESULTS

The final version of the instrument included 26 items associated with nine human-factors principles. Content validation on three systems resulted in the addition of one principle (Corrective Actions) to the instrument and the elimination of eight items. Additionally, the wording of eight items was altered. Correlation analysis suggests a direct relationship between system age and performance of DDI alerts (p=0.0016). Inter-rater reliability indicated substantial agreement between raters (κ=0.764).

CONCLUSION

The authors developed and gathered preliminary evidence for the validity of an instrument that measures the appropriate use of human-factors principles in the design and display of DDI alerts. Designers of DDI alerts may use the instrument to improve usability and increase user acceptance of medication alerts, and organizations selecting an electronic medical record may find the instrument helpful in meeting their clinicians' usability needs.

Event-related potentials in response to subjects' own names: A comparison between humans and a chimpanzee

The sound of one's own name is one of the most salient auditory environmental stimuli. Several studies of human brain potentials have revealed some characteristic waveforms when we hear our own names. In a recent work, we investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) in a female chimpanzee and demonstrated that the ERP pattern generated when she heard her own name differed from that generated when she heard other sounds. However, her ERPs did not exhibit a prominent positive shift around 300 ms (P3) in response to her own name, as has been repeatedly shown in studies of human ERPs. The present study collected comparative data for adult humans using basically the same procedure as that used in our previous study of the chimpanzee. These results also revealed no prominent P3 to the human subjects' own names. The lack of increased P3 is therefore likely due to our experimental protocol, in which we presented the subject's own name relatively frequently. In contrast, our results revealed prominent negativity to the subject's own name at around 500 ms in the chimpanzee and around 200 ms in human subjects. This may indicate that initial orientation to the sound of one's own name is delayed in the chimpanzee.

What's in a name? Let's keep asking

The names we call each other stir passions, as we see from two recent commentaries on naming in psychiatry. Pamela Hyde, Director of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency, urges us to use terms that recognize the many individualized paths to recovery people with mental illnesses follow. Fuller Torrey urges us to call people with schizophrenia "patients." This commentary suggests that, by respecting the preferences of those being named, clinicians may enhance engagement in treatment and demonstrate respect for people as individuals beyond the label of a disease.

The detection of communicative signals directed at the self in infant prefrontal cortex

A precondition for successful communication between people is the detection of signals indicating the intention to communicate, such as eye contact or calling a person's name. In adults, establishing communication by eye contact or calling a person's name results in overlapping activity in right prefrontal cortex, suggesting that, regardless of modality, the intention to communicate is detected by the same brain region. We measured prefrontal cortex responses in 5-month-olds using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to examine the neural basis of detecting communicative signals across modalities in early development. Infants watched human faces that either signaled eye contact or directed their gaze away from the infant, and they also listened to voices that addressed them with their own name or another name. The results revealed that infants recruit adjacent but non-overlapping regions in the left dorsal prefrontal cortex when they process eye contact and own name. Moreover, infants that responded sensitively to eye contact in the one prefrontal region were also more likely to respond sensitively to their own name in the adjacent prefrontal region as revealed in a correlation analysis, suggesting that responding to communicative signals in these two regions might be functionally related. These NIRS results suggest that infants selectively process and attend to communicative signals directed at them. However, unlike adults, infants do not seem to recruit a common prefrontal region when processing communicative signals of different modalities. The implications of these findings for our understanding of infants’ developing communicative abilities are discussed.