Taste-potentiated odor aversion learning: Role of the amygdaloid basolateral complex and central nucleus.

Examined the relative contributions of the amygdaloid basolateral complex (ABL) and central nucleus (CN) to taste-potentiated odor aversion (TPOA) learning, an associative learning task that is dependent on information processing in 2 sensory modalities. In Exp 1, rats with neurotoxic lesions of these systems were trained on the TPOA task by presenting a compound taste–odor conditioned stimulus (CS), which was followed by LiCl administration. Results showed that ABL damage caused an impairment in potentiated odor aversion learning but no deficit in the conditioned taste aversion. In contrast, rats with CN damage learned both tasks. Exp 2 examined the effects of ABL damage on TPOA and odor discrimination learning. The odor discrimination procedure used a place preference task to demonstrate normal processing of olfactory information. Results indicated that although ABL-lesioned animals were impaired on TPOA, there was no deficit in odor discrimination learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generic operations and capabilities in the JR concurrent programming language

The JR concurrent programming language extends Java with additional concurrency mechanisms, which are built upon JR's operations and capabilities. JR operations generalize methods in how they can be invoked and serviced. JR capabilities act as reference to operations. Recent changes to the Java language and implementation, especially generics, necessitated corresponding changes to the JR language and implementation. This paper describes the new JR language features (known as JR2) of generic operations and generic capabilities. These new features posed some interesting implementation challenges. The paper describes our initial implementation (JR21) of generic operations and capabilities, which works in many, but not all, cases. It then describes the approach our improved implementation (JR24) uses to fully implement generic operations and capabilities. The paper also describes the benchmarks used to assess the compilation and execution time performances of JR21 and JR24. The JR24 implementation reduces compilation times, mainly due to reducing the number of files generated during JR program translation, without noticeably impacting execution times.     

Impairments in conditioned stimulus processing and conditioned responding after combined selective removal of hippocampal and neocortical cholinergic input.

Previous studies indicated that changes in attentional processing of conditioned stimuli (CSs) are regulated by the basal forebrain (BF) cholinergic system. In those studies, destruction of BF innervation of the neocortex interfered with enhancements in CS processing, and destruction of BF innervation of the hippocampus prevented reductions in CS processing. In the current experiments, the performance of rats with 192 IgG-saporin lesions of both hippocampal and neocortical cholinergic input was examined. These combined lesions disrupted both enhancements and reductions in CS processing. Lesioned rats also showed more general impairments in conditioned responding. These results indicate that, although the neural systems for increasing and decreasing attentional processing may be largely independent, combined loss of hippocampal and neocortical cholinergic input may produce behavioral impairments that are not apparent after either lesion alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived susceptibility to breast cancer moderates the effect of gain- and loss-framed messages on use of screening mammography.

Objective: This study examined the role of three distinct beliefs about risk (risks associated with screening, construal of the function of screening as health-affirming or illness-detecting, and perceived susceptibility to breast cancer) in moderating women's responses to framed messages that promote mammography. Design: Three hundred fifty-five women recruited from an inner city hospital, nonadherent to guidelines for receiving annual screening mammograms,were randomly assigned to view a gain- or loss-framed video message about the importance of mammography. Main Outcome Measure: Mammography screening was self-reported at a 3-month follow-up. Results: Only perceived susceptibility to breast cancer significantly moderated the effect of message framing on screening. Women with average and higher levels of perceived susceptibility for breast cancer were significantly more likely to report screening after viewing a loss-framed message compared to a gain-framed message. No effects of framing on reported screening were observed for women with lower levels of perceived susceptibility. Conclusion: The study identifies a key role for perceived susceptibility in shaping responses to framed messages that promote cancer screenings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A family of compact genetic algorithms for intrinsic evolvable hardware

For many evolvable hardware applications, small size and power efficiency are critical design considerations. One manner in which significant memory, and thus, power and space savings can be realized in a hardware-based evolutionary algorithm is to represent populations of candidate solutions as probability vectors rather than as sets of bit strings. The compact genetic algorithm (CGA) is a probability vector-based evolutionary algorithm that can be efficiently and elegantly implemented in digital hardware. Unfortunately, the CGA is a very weak, first order, evolutionary algorithm that is unlikely to possess sufficient search power to enable intrinsic evolvable hardware applications. In this paper, we further develop a number of modifications to the basic CGA that significantly improve its search efficacy without substantially increasing the size and complexity of its hardware implementation. The paper provides both benchmark results demonstrating increased efficacy and a conceptual data path/microcontroller design suitable for implementation in digital hardware. Following, it demonstrates efficient implementation by making a head-to-head comparison of field programmable gate array implementations of both the classic CGA and a member of our family of modifications. The paper concludes with a discussion of future research, including several additional extensions that we expect will further increase search efficacy without increasing implementation cost.     

High spatial resolution burn severity mapping of the New Jersey Pine Barrens with WorldView-3 near-infrared and shortwave infrared imagery

The WorldView-3 (WV-3) sensor, launched in 2014, is the first high-spatial resolution scanner to acquire imagery in the shortwave infrared (SWIR). A spectral ratio of the SWIR combined with the near-infrared (NIR) can potentially provide an effective differentiation of wildfire burn severity. Previous high spatial resolution sensors were limited to data from the visible and NIR for mapping burn severity, for example using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Drawing on a study site in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, USA, we investigate optimal processing methods for analysing WV-3 data, with a focus on the pre-fire minus post-fire differenced normalized burn ratio (dNBR). Although the imagery, originally acquired with a 3.7 m instantaneous field of view, was aggregated to 7.5 m pixels by DigitalGlobe due to current licensing constraints, a slight additional smoothing of the data was nevertheless found to help reduce noise in the multi-temporal dNBR imagery. The highest coefficient of determination (R²) of the regressions of dNBR with the field-based composite burn index was obtained with a dNBR ratio produced with the NIR1 and SWIR6 bands. Only a very small increase in R² was found when dNBR was calculated using the average of NIR1 and NIR2 for the NIR bands, and SWIR5 to SWIR8 for the SWIR bands. dNBR calculated using SWIR1 as the NIR band produced notably lower R² values than when either NIR1 or NIR2 were used. Differenced NDVI data was found to produce models with a much lower R² than dNBR, emphasizing the importance of the shortwave infrared region for monitoring fire severity. High spatial resolution dNBR data from WV-3 can potentially provide valuable information on finer details regarding burn severity patterns than can be obtained from Landsat 30 m data.     

Hegel and the extended mind

We examine the theory of the extended mind, and especially the concept of the “parity principle” (Clark and Chalmers in Analysis 58.1:7–19, 1998), in light of Hegel’s notion of objective spirit. This unusual combination of theories raises the question of how far one can extend the notion of extended mind and whether cognitive processing can supervene on the operations of social practices and institutions. We raise some questions about putting this research to critical use.     

Using landscape topology to compare continuous metaheuristics: a framework and case study on EDAs and ridge structure

In this paper we extend a previously proposed randomized landscape generator in combination with a comparative experimental methodology to study the behavior of continuous metaheuristic optimization algorithms. In particular, we generate two-dimensional landscapes with parameterized, linear ridge structure, and perform pairwise comparisons of algorithms to gain insight into what kind of problems are easy and difficult for one algorithm instance relative to another. We apply this methodology to investigate the specific issue of explicit dependency modeling in simple continuous estimation of distribution algorithms. Experimental results reveal specific examples of landscapes (with certain identifiable features) where dependency modeling is useful, harmful, or has little impact on mean algorithm performance. Heat maps are used to compare algorithm performance over a large number of landscape instances and algorithm trials. Finally, we perform a meta-search in the landscape parameter space to find landscapes which maximize the performance between algorithms. The results are related to some previous intuition about the behavior of these algorithms, but at the same time lead to new insights into the relationship between dependency modeling in EDAs and the structure of the problem landscape. The landscape generator and overall methodology are quite general and extendable and can be used to examine specific features of other algorithms.