Integrating blockchain capabilities in an omnichannel healthcare system: A dual theoretical perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic opened a market for omnichannel healthcare. While some patients trusted the hybrid mode of consultancy, others lacked trust in the online mode of consultancy. The purpose of the study is to understand the extent to which blockchain can influence the swift trust of stakeholders and the usage intention of omnichannel healthcare systems (OHS). We used a quantitative approach by surveying 250 patients that rendered services from OHS by drawing upon the lens of organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and swift trust theory (STT). We test the hypotheses using the PLS-SEM technique. The results show blockchain technology can significantly affect the adoption of omnichannel healthcare by reinforcing swift trust in OHS and its continued usage.     

The association of paternal mood and infant temperament: A pilot study

Maternal depression is associated with adverse child development, but little is known about the effects of paternal depression. This pilot study estimated the prevalence of paternal depression and mood state, and assessed the relationship between paternal mood and infant temperament. The participants in the study were 98 fathers of newborn babies. Fathers were initially screened for depressed mood (Hospital anxiety and depression scale, and Edinburgh postnatal depression scale), and at 6 months parental mood, infant temperament, couple relationship quality, alcohol use, adverse life events, parenting, and demographics were recorded. Infant fussiness was analysed in relation to paternal mood and other contextual factors using multiple regression. Of the 98 fathers, 48 (49%) completed depression-screening measures. Of these 48 fathers, 4 (8%) reported depressive symptoms above the cut-off for case definition. A total of 48% (N=19) completed measures at follow-up. In the adjusted model, higher paternal depression scores, more traditional attitudes towards fathering, and increased recent life events were related to higher infant fussiness scores; and better couple relationship quality was related to lower fussiness scores. This study showed that 1 in 12 fathers had depressed mood, and lower mood was associated with negative infant temperament. Since the findings of this feasibility study were based on a small sample size the association of paternal mood and child development merits further study using a larger sample of fathers.     

Strengthening of a thin austenitic stainless steel coil by cold wavy rolling with no magnetic and dimensional changes

A comparison of the effects of wavy rolling and cold rolling on microstructure variation, phase evolution, tensile and magnetic properties of a thin coil of Fe-18.47Cr-8.10Ni-0.94Mn austenitic stainless steel was made at room temperature. Wavy rolling led to strengthening with no change in magnetic property and thickness, unlike the conventional cold rolling that changed all these properties by deformation induced martensitic transformation, in addition to substructure evolution. The yield strength of 413 MPa and magnetic saturation 3.7 emu/g under mill-annealed condition increased, respectively, to 1208 MPa and 11.8 emu/g, upon four cycles of wavy rolling. While the maximum yield strength of 1790 MPa could be achieved by combining this stage of four cycles of wavy rolling with subsequent 50% conventional cold rolling, the magnetic saturation increased to 73.3 emu/g by deformation induced martensitic transformation caused by the latter.     

Sex Differences in Psychological Factors Associated with Social Discounting

The social discounting paradigm is a powerful means of quantifying altruism in humans, who are typically willing to forgo some amount of personal earnings in exchange for increased earnings for another person. The amount of money that people are willing to forgo decreases with increasing social distance. In this study, we examined variables related to sex, intolerance of uncertainty, and empathy, all of which are theorized to affect the social discounting rate. Participants (27 men and 28 women) completed measures of intolerance of uncertainty, empathy, and social discounting. We found sex differences in psychological predictors of social discounting: in women, empathy (but not intolerance of uncertainty) predicts the social discounting rate, while in men, social discounting is associated with intolerance of uncertainty (but not empathy). Possible neurobiological, social, and cognitive explanations for this sex difference are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Practice makes perfect: familiarity of task determines success in solvable tasks for free-ranging dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis lupus familiaris</Emphasis>)

Domestic dogs’ (Canis lupus familiaris) socio-cognitive faculties have made them highly sensitive to human social cues. While dogs often excel at understanding human communicative gestures, they perform comparatively poorly in problem-solving and physical reasoning tasks. This difference in their behaviour could be due to the lifestyle and intense socialization, where problem solving and physical cognition are less important than social cognition. Free-ranging dogs live in human-dominated environments, not under human supervision and are less socialized. Being scavengers, they often encounter challenges where problem solving is required in order to get access to food. We tested Indian street dogs in familiar and unfamiliar independent solvable tasks and quantified their persistence and dependence on a novel human experimenter, in addition to their success in solving a task. Our results indicate that free-ranging dogs succeeded and persisted more in the familiar task as compared to the unfamiliar one. They showed negligible amount of human dependence in the familiar task, but showed prolonged gazing and considerable begging behaviour to the human experimenter in the context of the unfamiliar task. Cognitive abilities of free-ranging dogs thus play a pivotal role in determining task-associated behaviours based on familiarity. In addition to that, these dogs inherently tend to socialize with and depend on humans, even if they are strangers. Our results also illustrate free-ranging dogs’ low competence at physical cognitive tasks.     

A meta-analysis of mental rotation in the first years of life

Mental rotation, the cognitive process of moving an object in mind to predict how it looks in a new orientation, is coupled to intelligence, learning, and educational achievement. On average, adolescent and adult males solve mental rotation tasks slightly better (i.e., faster and/or more accurate) than females. When such behavioral differences emerge during development, however, remains poorly understood. Here we analyzed effect sizes derived from 62 experiments conducted in 1705 infants aged 3–16 months. We found that male infants recognized rotated objects slightly more reliably than female infants. This difference survives correction for small degrees of publication bias. These findings indicate that gender differences in mental rotation are small and not robustly detectable in the first months of postnatal life.

Research Highlights

• We analyzed effect sizes of 62 mental rotation experiments including 1705 infants.
• Looking time reveals that 3–16-months-old infants are able to perform mental rotation.
• Mental rotation is slightly more reliable in male infants compared to female infants.
• Gender difference in mental rotation is robust to small degrees of publication bias.