Patterns of lexical processing in a nonnative language.

In three experiments, native Cantonese speakers were asked to read words aloud, name pictures, and translate words. In the study, subjects with different degrees of proficiency in their nonnative language were used (i.e., proficient subjects, adult beginners, and second- and fourth-grade child beginners). The results show that all subjects were more efficient in reading words than in naming pictures when responding in their native language. When the response was in the nonnative language, the proficient subjects were equally efficient in both translating and picture-naming tasks. For the adult beginners, however, translating was faster than picture naming, whereas naming was faster than translating for the child beginners. These results were consistent with the idea that proficient subjects could directly access the meanings of words in the nonnative language, whereas beginners tended to use either corresponding words in the native language (i.e., the adult beginners) or pictorial representations (i.e., the child beginners) as media for such end. These results thus suggest that the proficiency of the nonnative language and the age or method of acquisition of the language are important determinants for the pattern of lexical processing in the nonnative language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

SHAPE GENERALIZED ISOTHERMAL EFFECTIVENESS FACTOR FOR FIRST-ORDER KINETICS

A generalized effectiveness factor equation (Eq. (32)), in terms of modified Bessel functions, is derived for a catalyst pellet of arbitrary shape. The derivation is based on utilizing an appropriate one-dimensional approximation for the Laplacian in an arbitrary shaped body subjected to a uniform external concentration field. The comparison of the result with the available expressions for various geometries is highly satisfactory. It unifies the expressions for the three fundamental shapes, viz., infinite slab, infinite cylinder and sphere, and also compares very well with the exact solutions for finite shapes over the entire range of the Thiele modulus.     

Artefactual cleavage of E coli H-NS by OmpT

In the bacterium Escherichia coli, H-NS-(H1, H1a) is a heat-stable protein with a molecular mass of 15.5 kDa involved in nucleoid organisation and gene regulation linked to certain signal transduction pathways. We have shown that, following addition of preparations of everted inner membrane vesicles, heat-stable cleavage products of approximately 10 kDa of H-NS are formed in vitro from newly synthesised, radio-labelled H-NS and from purified H-NS. The 15.5 kDa protein and its cleavage products were also recovered from a minicell system. These results raised the possibility that cleavage of H-NS is physiologically significant. However, the cleavage of H-NS observed appears to occur during cell breakage and to depend on the method of protein extraction and the presence of the outer membrane protease, OmpT. Nevertheless, the results indicate that H-NS may contain at least two separate domains with cleavage occurring between these domains at a preferred OmpT site. Failure to take account of H-NS cleavage in sample preparation and analysis can lead to serious underestimation of H-NS levels.     

Potentiation of the time-dependent, antidepressant-induced changes in the agonistic behaviour of resident rats by the 5-HT1A receptor antagonist, WAY-100635

Acute and chronic antidepressant drug treatments respectively decrease and increase the aggressive behaviour of resident rats during encounters with unfamiliar conspecifics. We have now examined the effect of the 5-hydroxytryptamine1A receptor antagonist, WAY-100635, on fluoxetine-, paroxetine- or venlafaxine-induced changes in aggression. WAY-100635 (0.1 mg/kg), which did not modify behaviour when given alone, potentiated the venlafaxine (5.54 mg/kg)-induced reduction in aggression after acute treatment and, during chronic treatment, accelerated the fluoxetine (0.34 mg/kg/day)-induced increase in aggression, from day 5 to day 2. A similar change in time course was seen with paroxetine (0.33 mg/kg/day), although the increase in aggression was smaller. Venlafaxine (5.54 mg/kg/day, alone or co-administered with WAY-100635) increased aggression by day 2. During chronic treatment, therefore, venlafaxine, at the dose used, had a more rapid onset of action than either fluoxetine or paroxetine, whereas the fluoxetine- and paroxetine-, but not the venlafaxine-, induced increase in aggression was accelerated by WAY-100635. These studies further support the hypothesis that selective blockade of the 5-hydroxytryptamine1A receptor augments the effects of antidepressant drugs in an animal model predictive of antidepressant activity, presumably by concomitant blockade of the somatodendritic 5-hydroxytryptamine1A autoreceptor-mediated negative feedback system of serotonergic neurones.     

Adaptive weighted outer-product learning associative memory

Associative-memory neural networks with adaptive weighted outer-product learning are proposed in this paper. For the correct recall of a fundamental memory (FM), a corresponding learning weight is attached and a parameter called signal-to-noise-ratio-gain (SNRG) is devised. The sufficient conditions for the learning weights and the SNRG's are derived. It is found both empirically and theoretically that the SNRG's have their own threshold values for correct recalls of the corresponding FM's. Based on the gradient-descent approach, several algorithms are constructed to adaptively find the optimal learning weights with reference to global- or local-error measure.     

用奇异模型描述的受限机器人的学习控制

本文了一类受限机器人的迭代学习控制方案，控制器的设计是基于机器人模型的降阶形式。在存在有界未知干扰的情况下，对末端操纵器受线性、无摩擦约束面的受限机器人。本文给出的控制方案保证了机器人系统的完全运动跟踪，同时保证了力跟踪误差有界的，且界的大小是可调节的。