Conceptual priming in perceptual identification for patients with Alzheimer's disease and a patient with right occipital lobectomy.

Two experiments examined explicit recognition memory and perceptual and conceptual contributions to implicit perceptual-identification repetition priming for patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Patient M.S. with right-occipital lobectomy. Participants read words (perceptual encoding) and generated words (conceptual encoding) from a definition and letter cue (e.g., "a vehicle for moving the injured—a"). AD patients demonstrated impaired explicit and intact implicit memory for both perceptually and conceptually encoded words. M.S. demonstrated the opposite pattern: intact explicit and impaired implicit memory in both encoding conditions. The double dissociation between AD and M.S. on implicit and explicit memory tasks is discussed in terms of a putative visual memory mechanism in the right-occipital cortex that interacts with lexical mechanisms to yield perceptual-identification priming after perceptual and conceptual encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conflictual independence, mood regulation, and generalized self-efficacy: Test of a model of late-adolescent identity.

A model for predicting college students' identity was proposed and tested that sequentially considered information on students' reported conflictual independence from parents and their current mood states and generalized (i.e., cross-situational) self-efficacy. Separate hierarchical regressions of identity scores were conducted for the full sample (N?=?224) and for male (n?=?81) and female (n?=?143) students. Results indicated that, whereas the proposed model explained significant variance in the criterion measure for both men and women, the respective contributions of the model components varied according to the student's gender. The counseling and theory-related implications of these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Regular Sets of Descendants by Leftmost Strategy

For a constructor-based rewrite system R, a regular set of ground terms E, and assuming some additional restrictions, we build a finite tree automaton that recognizes the descendants of E, i.e. the terms issued from E by rewriting, according to leftmost strategy.     

High-performance liquid chromatography separation and quantitation of methylprednisolone from rat brain

A sensitive, reliable method for the extraction, separation, and quantitation of methylprednisolone from rat brain is reported. The method can accurately quantitate methylprednisolone levels between 9.8 and 2500 ng/injection using a two-step HPLC separation and monitoring absorbance at 254 nm. A 90% extraction recovery of methylprednisolone (interday variation of 9.0% and an intraday variation of 0.0 to 7.7%) from rat cortex was obtained with a double extraction method using low toxicity solvents. These solvents are known to quantitatively extract the neutral lipids and phospholipids from brain. Combined with the ability to separate the neutral lipid and methylprednisolone fractions for further separation, and the ability to separate all phospholipid classes in the first run, this method offers great utility combined with the reliable, high extraction recovery and sensitive quantitation of methylprednisolone.     

Le statut socio-économique de la famille et le développement cognitif dans la première année de vie.

Children's cognitive development is related to the quality of the environment in which they grow up. Family socioeconomic status (SES) can be used as a proxy measure for the quality of that environment. To date, no epidemiological study has yet looked at the cognitive development of children under two years of age in relation to SES. The purpose of this study is to evaluate, in a cohort of 2,223 five-month-old infants from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD), the relationship between specific aspects of SES and a key acquisition of the sensorimotor stage, i.e. the ability to coordinate the schemata of vision and prehension in order to grasp an object within reach. In addition to family income and parental level of education, maternal and paternal age at the time of the study, family type, number of children in the family, immigration status of the mother and her age at the birth of her first child were considered in SES. Latent class analyses were performed to estimate the infants' level of cognitive development, then submitted to loglinear modeling to account for the association between the various aspects of SES and cognitive development. Infants of approximately five months of age within the Quebec population differed amongst themselves in terms of their ability to coordinate vision and prehension, although these differences were unrelated to gender. Infants who had the fewest number of siblings, and whose mothers were younger and non-immigrant, were more likely to coordinate vision and prehension at five months, regardless of gender. These results suggest that a significant variation in the rate of cognitive development during the first year of life is associated with certain aspects of family SES. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Importance of retronasal and orthonasal olfaction for odor aversion memory in rats.

The role of odors in food memory formation, especially for aversions, has long been considered secondary to taste. However, the importance of odor ingestion in conditioned odor aversion (COA) has recently challenged this assumption (B. M. Slotnick, F. Westbrook, & F. M. C. Darling, 1997). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the respective role of orthonasal and retronasal olfactory experience in COA acquisition, long-term retention, extinction, and spontaneous recovery. To this end, the odor was presented either close to the drinking spout (orthonasal stimulation) or close to and mixed with the drinking water (eliciting both orthonasal and retronasal stimulation). The authors brought evidence that odor ingestion was crucial for COA acquisition, especially when odor presentation and gastric malaise were separated by long delays. On the contrary, once formed, a distal (orthonasal) odor recognition was sufficient for COA to be retrieved. COA was odor specific and long lasting (more than 50 days). Moreover, results brought evidence for a spontaneous recovery of odor aversion tested 57 days after its extinction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing and characterization of high temperature superconductor films formed by spin-on coating and rapid thermal annealing

A simple method has been developed to fabricate oxide high temperature superconductor (HTS) films of Y---Ba---Cu---O (YBCO) and Bi---Sr---Ca---Cu---O (BSCCO) compounds. Using spin-on coating and rapid thermal annealing (RTA), high T_c films on MgO and copper substrates have been demonstrated. Of the various solvents employed, we have achieved the best results utilizing nitric acid. The use of this solvent coupled with annealing in oxygen at 960–990 °C for 30–60 s by RTA has produced polycrystalline films with grain sizes of 5–10 μm, as indicated by scanning electron microscopy. Auger electron spectroscopy of the films shows that the stoichiometric ratio has been maintained during the transition from precursor to film. X-ray diffraction patterns of YBCO films show that the films mainly contain 123 phase. Superconductivity with zero resistance temperatures above 77 K was observed from both YBCO and BSCCO films. When copper substrates are used, a buffer layer of silver is coated between the substrate and the film so as to prevent interface reaction. The simple spin-on method combined with the short and intense heating of the RTA process may prove to be a simple and rapid method of manufacturing HTS films for large-scale electrical applications.     

More accurate size contrast judgments in the Ebbinghaus Illusion by a remote culture.

The Ebbinghaus (Titchener) illusion was examined in a remote culture (Himba) with no words for geometric shapes. The illusion was experienced less strongly by Himba compared with English participants, leading to more accurate size contrast judgments in the Himba. The study included two conditions of inducing stimuli. The illusion was weaker when the inducing stimuli were dissimilar (diamonds) to the target (circle) compared with when they were similar (circles). However, the illusion was weakened to the same extent in both cultures. It is argued that the more accurate size judgments of the Himba derive from their tendency to prioritize the analysis of local details in visual processing of multiple objects, and not from their impoverished naming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Small Baseline Stereovision

This paper presents a study of small baseline stereovision. It is generally admitted that because of the finite resolution of images, getting a good precision in depth from stereovision demands a large angle between the views. In this paper, we show that under simple and feasible hypotheses, small baseline stereovision can be rehabilitated and even favoured. The main hypothesis is that the images should be band limited, in order to achieve sub-pixel precisions in the matching process. This assumption is not satisfied for common stereo pairs. Yet, this becomes realistic for recent spatial or aerian acquisition devices. In this context, block-matching methods, which had become somewhat obsolete for large baseline stereovision, regain their relevance. A multi-scale algorithm dedicated to small baseline stereovision is described along with experiments on small angle stereo pairs at the end of the paper.