Obituaries: Roger Todd Davis (1926-2000).

Reports the death of Roger Todd Davis (1926-2002) and how he contributed to the post-WWII development of primatology and primate laboratories, which are important precursors to the study of modern cognition and cognitive neuroscience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expertise and category-based induction.

The authors examined inductive reasoning among experts in a domain. Three types of tree experts (landscapers, taxonomists, and parks maintenance personnel) completed 3 reasoning tasks. In Experiment 1, participants inferred which of 2 novel diseases would affect "more other kinds of trees" and provided justifications for their choices. In Experiment 2, the authors used modified instructions and asked which disease would be more likely to affect "all trees." In Experiment 3, the conclusion category was eliminated altogether, and participants were asked to generate a list of other affected trees. Among these populations, typicality and diversity effects were weak to nonexistent. Instead, experts' reasoning was influenced by "local" coverage (extension of the property to members of the same folk family) and causal-ecological factors. The authors concluded that domain knowledge leads to the use of a variety of reasoning strategies not captured by current models of category-based induction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Native Mind: Biological Categorization and Reasoning in Development and Across Cultures.

This article describes cross-cultural and developmental research on folk biology: that is, the study of how people conceptualize living kinds. The combination of a conceptual module for biology and cross-cultural comparison brings a new perspective to theories of categorization and reasoning. From the standpoint of cognitive psychology, the authors find that results gathered from standard populations in industrialized societies often fail to generalize to humanity at large. For example, similarity-driven typicality and diversity effects either are not found or pattern differently when one moves beyond undergraduates. From the perspective of folk biology, standard populations may yield misleading results because they represent examples of especially impoverished experience with nature. Certain phenomena are robust across populations, consistent with notions of a core module. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toxicity of vancomycin on corneal endothelium in rabbits

PURPOSE: To evaluate the toxic effect of vancomycin on the corneal endothelium related to concentrations of vancomycin. METHODS: The toxic effect is assessed with a weighing method that gives a measure of endothelial function. Thirty-three rabbit corneas were divided into four groups. Three groups of seven corneas each were exposed to concentrations of 1.0 mg/ml, 3.0 mg/ml and 5.0 mg/ml vancomycin, respectively. The fourth group of twelve corneas served as a control group. RESULTS: The corneas exposed to 1.0 mg/ml vancomycin showed no significant weight increase, while the corneas exposed to 3.0 mg/ml and 5.0 mg/ml showed a significant weight increase as compared to the control corneas. The weight increase was significantly larger in the group of corneas exposed to 5.0 mg/ml as compared to 3.0 mg/ml. CONCLUSIONS: In the interval of tested concentrations there is a dose response relationship between vancomycin concentrations and endothelial toxicity. This experiment shows that vancomycin in the concentration of 1.0 mg/ml is non-toxic to the endothelium, while 3.0 mg/ml and 5.0 mg/ml increasingly impair endothelial function.     

Concepts and conceptual structure.

Research and theory on categorization and conceptual structure have recently undergone two major shifts. The first shift is from the assumption that concepts have defining properties (the classical view) to the idea that concept representations may be based on properties that are only characteristic or typical of category examples (the probabilistic view). Both the probabilistic view and the classical view assume that categorization is driven by similarity relations. A major problem with describing category structure in terms of similarity is that the notion of similarity is too unconstrained to give an account of conceptual coherence. The second major shift is from the idea that concepts are organized around theories. In this article, the evidence and rationale associated with these shifts are described, and one means of integrating similarity-based and theory-driven categorization is outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teleradiology by two different concepts. Technical note

Two different teleradiology concepts are described. Their advantages, disadvantages and costs are discussed.     

Inter-observer variation in masked and unmasked images for quality evaluation of clinical radiographs

PURPOSE: To investigate the influence of masking on the inter-observer variation in image quality evaluation of clinical radiographs of chest and lumbar spine. BACKGROUND: Inter-observer variation is a big problem in image quality evaluation since this variation is often much bigger than the variation in image quality between, for example, two radiographic systems. In this study, we have evaluated the effect of masking on the inter-observer variation. The idea of the masking was to force every observer to view exactly the same part of the image and to avoid the effect of the overall 'first impression' of the image. A discussion with a group of European expert radiologists before the study indicated that masking might be a good way to reduce the inter-observer variation. METHODS: Five chest and five lumbar spine radiographs were collected together with detailed information regarding exposure conditions. The radiographs were digitised with a high-performance scanner and five different manipulations were performed, simulating five different exposure conditions. The contrast, noise and spatial resolution were manipulated by this method. The images were printed onto the film and the individual masks were produced for each film, showing only the parts of the images that were necessary for the image quality evaluation. The quality of the images was evaluated on ordinary viewing boxes by a large group of experienced radiologists. The images were examined with and without the masks with a set of image criteria (if fulfilled, 1 point; and not fulfilled, 0 point), and the mean score was calculated for each simulated exposure condition. RESULTS: The results of this study indicate that-contrary to what was supposed-the inter-observer variation increased when the images were masked. In some cases, especially for chest, this increase was statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results of this study, image masking in studies of fulfilment of image criteria cannot be recommended.     

Simulation of Stationary Shock Waves in Porous Copper with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

High Temperature - The parameters of the shock adiabat of a porous material are calculated in the mesoscopic setting with the developed method of a moving window. The porous material is considered...     

Indirect electrosynthesis ofp-methoxybenzaldehyde

High current efficiency and selectivity were obtained in the indirect electrochemical oxidation ofp-methoxytoluene top-methoxybenzaldehyde with Ce⁴⁺/Ce³⁺ as redox mediator system. Platinized titanium anodes can be used for oxidant regeneration. Selectivity ofp-methoxybenzaldehyde synthesis has been optimized up to 98% by Plackett-Burman and factorial design of experiments. The kinetics ofp-methoxytoluene oxidation by Ce⁴⁺ with CH₂Cl₂ as organic solvent has been found to be of mixed mass transfer and kinetic control.Nomenclature a _p specific interfacial area (cm^–1) - A _p interfacial area (cm²) - Ar aryl group - c concentration (moll^–1) - d diffusion layer thickness (cm) - E variable effect - E _A activation energy (kJ mol^–1) - j material flux (mol s^–1) - k mass transfer coefficient (cm s^–1) - n molar amount (mol) - n ⁰ starting molar amount (mol) - n ^rel relative molar amount - Q _r relative amount of charge - Q _th theoretical amount of charge - r reaction rate (moll^–1 s^–1) - r ⁰ initial reaction rate (moll^–1 s^–1) - S overall selectivity - T temperature (K) - X fractional conversion - v stoichiometric coefficient - ^e current efficiency - overall operational yield - dim dimerization product ofp-MT