Medical Trainees’ Readiness for the Promotion of Sexual Health in Tunisia: A Cross Sectional Study

In the Arab and Muslim countries, there are several taboos of sexuality. To overcome the latter, and to distinguish between cultural and scientific data, sexual education is a key measure, especially during medical studies. The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge of the Tunisian medical trainees and to identify their sources of information concerning sexuality. We conducted a survey among medical trainees of the faculty of medicine of Sfax, in Tunisia. An anonymous questionnaire was distributed to 171 and completed by 157 trainees (91.8%). The sources of knowledge about sexuality were: friends (81.5%; N = 128), internet (77.1%; N = 121), television and movies (68.2%; N = 107), courses at the faculty (40.1%; N = 63) and parents (22.9%; N = 36). The score of correct answers was higher than or equal to 75% for 28 trainees (17.8%). It was on average 63.3%. It was correlated with male gender (p = 0.006), being a second-year trainee (p = 0.017) and television and movies as a source of knowledge about sexuality (p = 0.008). Masturbation was considered pathological by 17.2% of participants (N = 27). A 5-min period of intercourse was deemed sufficient to have a female orgasm by 44 trainees (28%). Andropause and menopause are inconsistent with a satisfying sexuality according to 44.6% (N = 70) and 56.1% (N = 88) of the participants respectively.     

Getting credit for OCBs: potential costs of being a good actor vs. a good soldier

Employing a sample of 197 employee-supervisor dyads, we explore whether employees’ attitudes and underlying motivation for engaging in organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) differentially relate to supervisors’ assessments of their individual performance and reward recommendations. We theorized that employees who perform OCBs with self-serving motives would be low on affective commitment and high on equity sensitivity, and that such individuals would receive lower performance ratings and fewer reward recommendations than those who are high on affective commitment, low on equity sensitivity, and more selflessly motivated. Our results suggest that employees with high affective commitment, low equity sensitivity, and high selfless motives were more likely to receive positive supervisor performance ratings and high reward recommendations. We also found that affective commitment moderated the mediating path of prosocial values (a selfless motive) on the relationship between OCBs and reward recommendations. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Scientists Still Behaving Badly? A Survey Within Industry and Universities

Little is known about research misconduct within industry and how it compares to universities, even though a lot of biomedical research is performed by–or in collaboration with–commercial entities. Therefore, we sent an e-mail invitation to participate in an anonymous computer-based survey to all university researchers having received a biomedical research grant or scholarship from one of the two national academic research funders of Belgium between 2010 and 2014, and to researchers working in large biomedical companies or spin-offs in Belgium. The validated survey included questions about various types of research misconduct committed by respondents themselves and observed among their colleagues in the last three years. Prevalences of misconduct were compared between university and industry respondents using binary logistic regression models, with adjustments for relevant personal characteristics, and with significance being accepted for p < 0.01. The survey was sent to 1766 people within universities and an estimated 255 people from industry. Response rates were 43 (767/1766) and 48% (123/255), and usable information was available for 617 and 100 respondents, respectively. In general, research misconduct was less likely to be reported by industry respondents compared to university respondents. Significant differences were apparent for one admitted action (gift authorship) and three observed actions (plagiarism, gift authorship, and circumventing animal-subjects research requirements), always with lower prevalences for industry compared to universities, except for plagiarism. This survey, based on anonymous self-report, shows that research misconduct occurs to a substantial degree among biomedical researchers from both industry and universities.     

The eyes have it: lateralized coping strategies in cattle herds responding to human approach

We report a range of lateralized coping strategies adopted by large social groups of cattle in response to mild challenges posed by humans of varying degrees of familiarity. At either 14 or 18 pens at a commercial feedlot, with 90 to 200 cattle in each, we conducted a series of video recorded ‘pressure tests’. ‘Frontal’ pressure tests involved walking from a position perpendicular to the concrete feed bunk of a given pen, towards the geometric centre of the line of feeding cattle. ‘Bunk-side’ pressure tests involved experimenters walking closely past a pen of feeding cattle in one direction, before returning in the opposite direction shortly afterwards. Experimenters wore white dust masks to alter their facial features in the bunk-side pressure tests. In both frontal and bunk-side pressure tests, distance from the experimenter influenced cattle’s choice of binocular viewing, cessation of feeding, standing or stepping backwards to monitor the approach and leaving the feed bunk. The frequency of these coping strategies differed in a lateralized manner. The cattle were more likely to accept the close positioning of a generally familiar, unmasked human on their left, which is traditionally referred to as the “near” side. By contrast, when responding to the approach of an unfamiliar, masked human, cattle conformed to the general vertebrate model and were more likely to remove themselves from the potential threat viewed within the left and not right visual field. We argue that the traditional terms for livestock sidedness as “near” (left) and “off” (right) sides demonstrate a knowledge of behavioural lateralization in domestic livestock that has existed for over 300 years of stock handling.     

The Resources We Bring: The Cultural Assets of Diverse Medical Students

In response to the need for a more diverse workforce, our medical school developed new policies and procedures that focus on the recruitment and selection of diverse students with a specific focus on those considered underrepresented in medicine. To understand what these students bring to the practice of medicine, researchers investigated their perception of their cultural assets and how they plan to use these assets as physicians. A cross-section of 23 ethnically, culturally, and geographically diverse medical students were interviewed and data were analyzed through phenomenographical methods. The results indicate that students view themselves as having multiple assets that could be of significant value in their future practice of medicine, including: a) an interest in science and access to family members in medicine, b) personal and familial struggles with health, c) self and family as immigrants, and d) strong family and community orientations. Students perceived these as cultural assets because they could directly identify where these assets could be valuable in medicine but questioned how to maintain them throughout medical school. Now that our institution has identified these assets, next steps include administrators' investigation of ways to leverage them through curricular and educational programs.     

Effects of absolute luminance and luminance contrast on visual search in low mesopic environments

Diverse adaptive visual processing mechanisms allow us to complete visual search tasks in a wide visual photopic range (>0.6 cd/m²). Whether search strategies or mechanisms known from this range extend below, in the mesopic and scotopic luminance spectra (<0.6 cd/m²), has yet to be addressed. Based on a study that addressed simple target discrimination in luminance environments using contrast-dependent behavioral efficiency functions, we assessed visual search in more complex-feature and conjunction-search paradigms. The results verify the previously reported deficiency windows defined by an interaction of base luminance and luminance contrast for more complex visual-search tasks. Based on significant regression analyses, a more precise definition of the magnitude of contribution of different contrast parameters. Characterized feature search patterns had approximately a 2.5:1 ratio of contribution from the Michelson contrast property relative to Weber contrast, whereas the ratio was approximately 1:1 in a serial-search condition. The results implicate near-complete magnocellular isolation in a visual-search paradigm that has yet to be demonstrated. Our analyses provide a new method of characterizing visual search and the first insight in its underlying mechanisms in luminance environments in the low mesopic and scotopic spectra.

     

Naturalist Political Realism and the First Political Question

Many political realists reject the idea that the first task for political philosophy is to justify the existence of coercive political institutions (CPIs). Instead, they say, we should begin with the factual existence of CPIs, and ask how they ought to be structured. In holding this view, they adopt a form of political naturalism that is broadly Aristotelian in character. In this article, I distinguish between two forms that this political naturalism might take ‐ what I call a ‘strong’ form, and a ‘weak’ form ‐ and argue that both ought to be rejected. 1