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Kids Emotions

Little kids can often tell how people are feeling, even if that person is wearing a face mask, a new study by the Academy found. There has been some concern that the face masks used at school during the pandemic may be hurting younger children’s development, but this research conducted by students of Pediatrics suggests that kids recognize emotions as well as they could without masks.

For this study, students of Pediatrics showed 90 pictures at random to nearly 300 children ages 3 to 6. The photos showed actors who expressed joy, anger, or sadness. In half of the images, actors wore masks. They were asked to either name the emotion, point to a card showing emoticons with these emotions, tell the students that they didn’t know the answer, or say that they wanted to quit the experiment.

The children got most of the answers right and were able to match the emotions to the picture on the card at a nearly identical rate, whether the figure was wearing a mask or not.
Kids described the correct emotion more than 70% of the time when the actor was maskless and got it right more than 67% of the time when the figure wore a mask. The older the kids, the more answers they got correct. About a quarter of preschoolers had a harder time distinguishing sadness from anger and about 21% occasionally confused joy for anger or sadness.

“Actual face masks depicted in static pictures were significantly associated with emotion recognition in healthy preschool children, although differences were small and effect sizes were weak,” the students said.

As developmental psychologists, our students think there are many more aspects of the pandemic that could hurt a child’s development, like the social isolation they’ve had from peers when they’ve had to stay at home from school or if a parent were to lose a job, for example. Masks are probably at the bottom of the list of things to be concerned about.

Molecular Genetics

On the 6th of January at 11 AM an online event was held on the MassARRAY® – mass spectrometric analyzer (Agena Bioscience, the USA) and its capabilities for solving medical problems. The event was essential for students interested in MassARRAY®, how it works and operates. It was a great opportunity to learn more about its usage for cancer treatment, profiling in solid tumors and fluid biopsies, and how it examines hereditary genetic diseases, and pharmacogenetics, and solves problems in other areas. Users from Ukraine, Portugal, Austria, and the USA shared their experiences and had a chance to ask the speaker all the additional questions.

The mass-spectrometric analyzer MassARRAY® (Agena Bioscience, the USA) is designed for the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), insertions, and deletions (indels), translocations, analysis of gene copies, as well as for assessing the level of DNA methylation. The principle of the system’s work is based on matrix-activated laser desorption ionization and measurement of the time of the molecules’ flight in a vacuum chamber (MALDI-ToF). Direct analysis of the mass of DNA molecules excludes the need for fluorescence or other labeling. This technology makes it possible to conduct large-scale studies on the genotyping of somatic mutations quickly and accurately, to provide the determination of clinically significant gene polymorphism in hereditary diseases, as well as to carry out works on the selection and analysis of the genetic diversity of crops of plants and animals.

Students’ Tourism

According to the Federal Program “The Development of Student Tourism 2022”, which was performed with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in the winter of 2022, Lyudmila Doronina, a student of the International Academy of Ecology and Medicine, visited the V.N. Karazin National University in Kharkiv. Lyudmila is a second-year university student with a Master’s Degree in “Culturology”.

15 universities joined the program, in terms of which, students from different cities were offered on-campus accommodation and interesting tourist and cultural educational programs. Students can travel both independently and as part of organized groups.

During her stay, Lyudmila was accompanied by Victoria Polina, a student of the Faculty of Ukrainian Philology and National Culture. For the guest from the Academy, the excursions were arranged around the main building of the V.N. Karazin National University in Kharkiv, the Kharkiv Historical Museum, and the Museum Of History And Technology Of The Southern Railway.

Lyudmila also got acquainted with the sights of Kharkiv, including Constitution Square, and the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The wonderful weather made it possible to walk through the main squares of the city and the forest park. The students also visited Hryhorii Skovoroda Literary Memorial Museum dedicating the time to get acquainted with the history of the great Ukrainian writer and philosopher.

Healthcare Development

On December 8th, The International Academy of Ecology and Medicine hosted a master class “PR in Business: How Can a Small Healthcare Company Become Recognizable? (first-hand experience)”. The speaker Aleksey Sadkov is an entrepreneur and owner of Lime women’s and men’s clothing stores. He was talking about all the features and pitfalls of promoting stores and retail chains.

If you dream to be an owner of a store, then you may understand that the main people here will be the buyers who would like to purchase your product. Alexey Sadkov, the owner of Lime women’s and men’s clothing stores, is ready to share his experience in opening and promoting a retail chain. He told students more about PR technologies in promoting trade business, the entrepreneur revealed the PR tools secrets that work for small companies in the B2C field (business to customer). The topic was definitely interesting and useful not only to PR representatives but also to those who are already in the medical business, as well as those who are just planning to start their own businesses, such as drug stores or internet healthcare e-commerce applications.

The meeting was held on December 8th, at 5 PM, in Classroom 412 of the Main Building of the International Academy of Ecology and Medicine. All participants had to register in advance, the face-mask requirements, and social distance were essential.