Experimental work has revealed causal links between physical cleansing and various psychological variables. Empirically, how robust are they? Theoretically, how do they operate? Major prevailing accounts focus on morality or disgust, capturing a subset of cleansing effects, but cannot easily handle cleansing effects in non-moral, non-disgusting contexts. Building on grounded views on cognitive processes and known properties of mental procedures, we propose grounded procedures of separation as a proximate mechanism underlying cleansing effects. This account differs from prevailing accounts in terms of explanatory kind, interpretive parsimony, and predictive scope. Its unique and falsifiable predictions have received empirical support: Cleansing attenuates or eliminates otherwise observed influences of prior events (1) across domains and (2) across valences. (3) Cleansing manipulations produce stronger effects the more strongly they engage sensorimotor capacities. (4) Reversing the causal arrow, motivation for cleansing is triggered more readily by negative than positive entities. (5) Conceptually similar effects extend to other physical actions of separation. On the flipside, grounded procedures of connection are also observed. Together, separation and connection organize prior findings relevant to multiple perspectives (e.g., conceptual metaphor, sympathetic magic) and open up new questions. Their predictions are more generalizable than the specific mappings in conceptual metaphors, but more fine-grained than the broad assumptions of grounded cognition. This intermediate level of analysis sheds light on the interplay between mental and physical processes.

Introduction: Competency-based skills development has driven the evolution of medical education. Simulation-based education is established as an essential tool to supplement clinical encounters and it provides the opportunity for low-stakes practice of common and high-acuity low-occurrence (HALO) procedures and scenarios. This is particularly important for emergency medicine trainees working to build confidence, knowledge, and skills in the field. Methods: In the procedural training sessions, learners rotate through 6 small-group stations over a 3-hour period. Skills topics are determined from faculty input, prior session feedback, and literature reviews. Topics included chest tubes, airway intervention, lumbar punctures and trauma interventions. Online content and brief written materials are used for pre-session learning. The small groups use hands-on faculty-guided training, with real-time feedback. Printed materials supplement key learning points at the stations. A combination of low-fidelity task trainers and simulated patients are used for practice and demonstration. R3 EM residents have the opportunity to mentor junior learners. Brief participant surveys are distributed at each session to gather qualitative and quantitative feedback. Results: Feedback forms were completed by 79/85 (92.9%) learners over a period of 4 years (2015-2018). Participants included medical students (11.8%), EM residents (52.9%), and non-EM residents (35.3%). 84.8% (67/79) gave positive qualitative feedback on the sessions, citing points such as the beneficial practice opportunities, quality of instruction, and utility of the models. Updated surveys (N = 26) used a 5-point Likert scale (1 = disagree strongly; 5 strongly agree) in addition to qualitative feedback. Participants indicated that sessions were valuable, and informative (M = 4.692, SD = 0.462; M = 4.270, SD = 0.710). They reported increased understanding of procedures discussed, and they were likely to recommend the session (M = 4.301, SD = 0.606; M = 4.808, SD = 0.394). Conclusion: The ongoing evaluation of our mentor guided hands-on low-fidelity and hybrid simulation-based procedural skills sessions facilitates meaningful programmatic changes to best meet the needs of EM learners. Sessions also provide a forum for EM resident mentorship of junior learners. Feedback indicates learners enjoyed the sessions and found this to be an engaging and effective instructional modality.

A stream of recent judgments by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice has shed light on the procedures that govern treaty-making by the European Union. This article explores how this case law approaches the principle of institutional balance and the duty of cooperation between the institutions. It argues that the former is construed in a balanced manner on the basis of a literal interpretation of primary law that promotes strict compliance with procedural rules and does not favour a particular institution. As for the duty of cooperation, whilst its procedural dimension is strengthened, its scope remains somewhat elusive. The analysis identifies a pragmatic streak in the Court's balanced approach, and argues that there is an inherent limit to the impact of constitutional law on inter-institutional disputes. Ultimately, the less time and energy the institutions waste on turf wars about their procedural powers, the greater their contribution to inceasing the efficiency of the Union's treaty-making practice.

New procedures are put in place in order to facilitate the dissemination of new mineral names into the public arena. Authors will get the opportunity to select whether the Commission will release the new mineral name upon successful approval in the Commission's monthly newsletter, which will be published in Mineralogical Magazine. Authors are also entitled to have the name not released until final publication, i.e. to retain the status quo. This will enable citations to be made using the new mineral name until the full description is published. Modifications to the existing rules, on the two-year time frame for new mineral publication, are also outlined.

The aim of this section is to expand and accelerate advances in curriculum developments and in methods of teaching bioethics.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyze the experience of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in identifying new procedures entering the United Kingdom (UK) healthcare system, for assessment and publication of recommendations on their use. This system is designed to provide guidance in an area where regulation is lacking worldwide.

Methods: Retrospective analysis of all procedures notified to the Interventional Procedures Programme (NICE) between 2002 and 2012. Notifications were analyzed year by year for their source (who notified them), clinical specialties involved, and whether guidance was subsequently published.

Results: A total of 1,094 procedures were notified by clinicians (51 percent), and by others, including hospitals (6 percent), horizon scanners (5 percent), patients (4 percent), private health insurers (4 percent), and medical device manufacturers (3 percent). Guidance was published on 44 percent of procedures notified to the program. There was a decrease in the numbers of procedures notified during 2003–2012 (p = .049). There were notifications across all specialties, with the largest numbers in general surgery (125), urology (104), orthopedics (99), interventional radiology (93), cardiology (82), and obstetrics and gynecology (82).

Conclusions: The “open” NICE Web portal allows anyone to notify new procedures, aiming to maximize the opportunity of identifying all those procedures entering clinical practice. This has resulted in identification of large numbers of procedures from across the whole range of medical specialties. The fact that similar proportions of procedures notified from diverse sources have been selected for assessment and publication of practice recommendations suggests that this inclusive approach is worthwhile.

Background: Keeping clinical practice recommendations up-to-date with a continually evolving evidence base presents challenges. Resources required to update recommendations compete with those needed to evaluate newer treatments.

Methods: We describe an approach developed by the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for updating clinical practice recommendations for new interventional procedures and we evaluate relevant initial experience of using this system. Depending on whether evidence for a procedure is judged adequate or inadequate for safety and efficacy, use in clinical practice is usually recommended with either “normal” or “special” arrangements for patient consent, data collection and institutional oversight, respectively. We examined whether differences in the state of the evidence at the initial and the updated appraisal of procedures were associated with changed recommendations.

Results: Since 2008, updating of recommendations focuses on procedures with initially inadequate evidence. “Special arrangements” recommendations about eleven procedures were updated after 3.3–6.5 years (median, 5.3 years), and recommendations for six were changed to “normal arrangements.” Overall, procedures with changed (“special-to-normal”) recommendations had a greater increase in the number of patients included in observational studies published since the initial guidance.

Conclusions: Procedures with changed (“special-to-normal”) recommendations generally had greater increases in their evidence base. Although uncertainties about optimal methods for keeping evidence-based recommendations up-to-date remain, this experience should be useful to policy makers in developing processes for prioritizing scarce resources for updating clinical practice recommendations. Further studies are needed about the value placed on “updated” recommendations by clinicians, policy-makers, and patients.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to identify and compare health technology assessments of the same new interventional procedures produced in different countries.

Methods: We selected five new interventional procedures and studied related assessments produced in different countries.

Results: There were twenty assessments (range, 3–5 per procedure) from nine countries—fourteen from Australia, Canada, and United Kingdom. The number of primary RCTs cited by the assessments ranged from 0 to 13. In the assessment reports, “headline” statements about the strength of evidence for efficacy (73 percent) were made more frequently than for safety (53 percent). These statements were scored for their apparent judgment of the strength of the evidence—1 (poor) to 5 (strong)—and received scores of 3 or less in all but four cases. Recommendations about additional research were included in 55 percent of the assessments. Statements in assessments about other aspects of use of the procedures were included more infrequently—in 35 percent for patient selection, in 20 percent for consent issues, and in 15 percent for types of clinical teams. Recommendations about appropriate healthcare settings, or about operator training, were included only in assessments produced by a single organization.

Conclusion: There was a only small number of assessments world-wide, for a range of new procedures with potentially high impact. Where available, assessments were produced on a relatively poor evidence base. International collaboration in evidence appraisal and review, and in the gathering of new data through research or registers, could improve the advice available to healthcare systems worldwide about the adoption of new interventional procedures.