Instance-based automaticity and aging: Acquisition, reacquisition, and long-term retention.

This research examined age differences in the acquisition and reacquisition of instance-based automaticity. In 2 experiments, young and older adults were trained to enumerate targets presented in otherwise empty displays or in displays that contained distractors. Experiment 1 revealed that older adults required more practice to reach asymptote than young adults. For both age groups, modifications of the identities and locations of targets produced substantial disruptions in performance, whereas modifications of the identities or locations of distractors produced little interference. However, no age differences in the representations of instances in memory were obtained in participants who reached asymptote. Experiment 2 revealed age deficits in the long-term retention and rate of reacquisition of instance-based automaticity 18 months after initial training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification of anti-α-enolase autoantibody as a novel serum marker for endometriosis

Diagnosis of endometriosis needs invasive maneuvers. New serum marker that possesses both high sensitivity and high specificity has long been desired. To establish novel serum marker for endometriosis, serum autoantibodies (autoAbs) were investigated using proteomic approach. AutoAbs in sera of endometriotic patients and healthy controls were analyzed using a mesothelial cell line, 2-DE and Western blotting. Proteins in reacted spots were identified using MALDI TOF-MS with MASCOT analysis. ELISAs were established using recombinant proteins and autoAb-titers were estimated in sera of endometriotic patients, disease and healthy controls. Several autoAbs were identified. Anti-α-enolase (Eno1)-autoAb levels in endometriotic patients were significantly elevated compared with both healthy and disease controls. Sensitivity and specificity of serum anti-Eno1-autoAb was nearly comparable to serum CA125. When anti-Eno1-autoAb and CA125 assays were combined, diagnostic sensitivity and accuracy improved. Serum anti-Eno1-autoAb can be a new serum endometriotic marker and it is useful as a supplement assay for CA125. This study validates further clinical evaluation of this novel marker.     

Performance of schizophrenia and bipolar patients on verbal and figural working memory tasks.

Working memory (WM) was studied in 82 healthy volunteers, 43 schizophrenia patients, and 81 bipolar patients. Schizophrenia patients were impaired on verbal and figural WM tasks that possessed similar test discriminating power. Bipolar patients performed similarly to healthy volunteers. A mathematical model of WM performance revealed a primary role for reduced WM span in accounting for the impaired verbal WM of schizophrenia patients and a primary role for diminished attention in accounting for impaired figural WM. Although WM impairment in schizophrenia is due neither to the general effects of severe mental illness nor to the specific type of material studied, the microarchitecture of abnormal WM in schizophrenia may depend on the stimulus material presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics of Air Force personnel who choose pharmacological aids for smoking cessation following an involuntary tobacco ban and tobacco control program.

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare characteristics of smokers who did and did not report use of cessation aids as part of a tobacco control program in a military setting (n = 8994). Design: The study is a longitudinal epidemiological study where the relationship between smoking status at follow-up and use of pharmacologic aids to quit smoking were assessed. Main Outcome Measures: Smoking cessation, post baseline use of cessation aids to quit smoking. Results and Conclusions: Individuals remaining abstinent were 70% less likely to have used NRT/pharmacological aids compared to those that relapsed. NRT/pharmacological aid users were more likely to report plans to smoke after military training, to have friends who smoke, and to accept a cigarette from a friend. NRT/pharmacological aid users were more likely to believe that using NRT was safer than smoking and to have engaged in harm reduction strategies. Our findings suggest that selection bias related to such characteristics may explain some of the discrepancies between effect sizes reported in efficacy compared to effectiveness studies of NRT and smoking outcomes currently reported in the literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mining the low molecular weight proteome of blood

Serum and plasma are composed of highly complex protein/peptide mixtures resulting from the systemic monitoring of every biological process in a living organism. Some of these sentinel changes are extremely short-lived while others produce more stable by-products. In addition, since biological events occur simultaneously and with overlapping physiological demands, separating the desired ones from "background" changes is an exceptional challenge. In this review, we outline a definition of the "low molecular weight proteome" as a valuable subcomponent of the blood proteome. We make a case that this derivative proteome is as information rich and equally complex as the parent proteome. We discuss some of the technical challenges in the analysis of the low molecular weight proteome with an emphasis on MS-based analytical approaches. With specific example of several reported methodologies we attempt to frame the current state-of-the-art in study design as a guide to future efforts.     

Rate-adaptive weighted fair queueing for energy-aware scheduling

In this paper we study energy-aware scheduling that trades energy consumption against a traditional performance measure of delay. We use the power-rate function f(x)=c+x^α$f(x)=c+x^{\alpha }$ for x>0$x>0$ and f(0)=0$f(0)=0$ to model the power consumption, where c>0$c>0$ represents the base power. We give a definition of a rate-adaptive version of the Weighted Fair Queueing scheduling algorithm, and prove its energy consumption is within a bounded factor of the best possible when the algorithm guarantees the classic end-to-end delay for every connection.     

Exact learning of DNF formulas using DNF hypotheses

We show the following: (a) For any ε>0, log^(3+ε)n-term DNF cannot be polynomial-query learned with membership and strongly proper equivalence queries. (b) For sufficiently large t, t-term DNF formulas cannot be polynomial-query learned with membership and equivalence queries that use t^1+ε-term DNF formulas as hypotheses, for some ε<1 (c) Read-thrice DNF formulas are not polynomial-query learnable with membership and proper equivalence queries. (d) logn-term DNF formulas can be polynomial-query learned with membership and proper equivalence queries. (This complements a result of Bshouty, Goldman, Hancock, and Matar that -term DNF can be so learned in polynomial time.)Versions of (a)-(c) were known previously, but the previous versions applied to polynomial-time learning and used complexity theoretic assumptions. In contrast, (a)-(c) apply to polynomial-query learning, imply the results for polynomial-time learning, and do not use any complexity-theoretic assumptions.     

初识MOCAP

“人心散了,队伍不好带了!”当黎叔吐露这样的心声时,一些技术团队的领导者也隐约感受到,快速增长的研发团队带来管理问题。公司的发展需要一个越来越庞大的人员体系结构,然而在人员迅速膨胀的同时,管理问题也暴露得日趋严重。在取得整个团队认同的同时,各司其职、各尽其用的理想需要团队的领导者采用各种各样的方式来逐步实现。     

A model of metacognition for bushfire fighters

Large-scale bushfires are complex or macrocognitive decision environments (Klein et al.). They involve many people, such as incident management teams, firefighting crews, and resident communities. Those people can also be geographically dispersed. This means that they need to coordinate their bushfire response efforts and manage multiple, often competing, cognitive demands. To do this, bushfire responders need to use metacognitive skills to regulate their thinking, particularly under stressful high cognitive load conditions. We explored these types of issues with career and volunteer bushfire fighters (Frye and Wearing in J Cogn Technol 16(2): 33–44, 2011). We found that rule-based procedures can sometimes reduce errors, and increase safety, because they reduce cognitive load (e.g., ‘you just do it’). However, fixation on other rules and procedures can increase errors, and erode safety, because people fail to adapt to the current situation (e.g., ‘you really need to think about that’). In this paper we use a model of metacognition to describe how experts regulate their thinking and thus avoid errors associated with cognitive overload (such as tunnel vision and goal fixation) during large-scale bushfires. The implications for bushfire training and procedures are discussed.     

Future-event schemas and certainty about the future: Automaticity in depressives' future-event predictions.

Tested the proposition that depressives make predictions about the future based on a pessimistic future-event schema. Participants varying in depression predicted whether positive and negative events would happen to them (or to an average person) in the future by pressing yes or no at a computer terminal as quickly as possible, either under a concurrent attentional load or under no such load. As hypothesized, depressives predicted more negative events and fewer positive events than did mild depressives or nondepressives and showed greater automaticity in their predictions. That is, the attentional load did not increase depressives' response latencies for either negative or positive events, even though it did so reliably for both mildly depressed and nondepressed individuals. Depressives may thus possess a highly developed future-event schema that operates efficiently in enabling future-event predictions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)