An Examination of Accuracy and Elaborations for Character Traits in a Narrative

When people read a story, they often form a highly detailed representation known as a situation model. The event-indexing model (Zwaan, Langston, & Graesser, 1995) proposes that situation models are constructed along several indices, one of which is protagonist or character. While much research has been devoted to the study of tracking and forming trait-based models of fictional characters, little attention has been paid to the representation of characters’ external attributes. In Experiment 1, participants read a short story containing various characters and their attributes. Participants were then asked to recall the characters and their attributes, either according to their memory of the text or their imagined mental representation. Comparisons were also made across several types of cues (i.e., free recall, cued recall, multiple-choice). The results showed that when participants were explicitly probed for certain attributes, they were generally able to follow instructions; the memory group made fewer contradictions and elaborations than the imagination group in both the cued recall and multiple-choice conditions. Moreover, when characters were not well-described – as was the case with the minor characters – participants readily generated elaborations for the missing attributes. In Experiment 2, participants read new versions of the same story, this time with greater experimental control over the distribution of attributes among the characters. Again, comparisons were made across recall instruction condition (i.e., memory vs. imagination) and cue type (i.e., free recall, cued recall, multiple-choice). As in Experiment 1, participants showed an ability to differentiate between textual information and imagined traits, with the memory group producing fewer elaborations. Additionally, a strong preference for the principal/major characters was observed; participants were most accurate for those characters, regardless of description level, and elaborations were highest in the stories in which those characters were less than fully described. Taken together, the results from these two experiments suggest that readers may be constructing mental representations of characters on two levels: one sourced from the text and one embellished by the reader’s imagination. Additionally, the evidence suggests that elaboration is a natural process occurring whenever characters are not completely described, though there appears to be a bias towards principal/major characters over lesser characters

Vaccines against Human Carcinomas: Strategies to Improve Antitumor Immune Responses

Multiple observations in preclinical and clinical studies support a role for the immune system in controlling tumor growth and progression. Various components of the innate and adaptive immune response are able to mediate tumor cell destruction; however, certain immune cell populations can also induce a protumor environment that favors tumor growth and the development of metastasis. Moreover, tumor cells themselves are equipped with various mechanisms that allow them to evade surveillance by the immune system. The goal of cancer vaccines is to induce a tumor-specific immune response that ultimately will reduce tumor burden by tipping the balance from a protumor to an antitumor immune environment. This review discusses common mechanisms that govern immune cell activation and tumor immune escape, and some of the current strategies employed in the field of cancer vaccines aimed at enhancing activation of tumor-specific T-cells with concurrent reduction of immunosuppression

Nabokov y un recuerdo de infancia.

El presente trabajo se propone indagar los alcances del concepto de infancia como experiencia y formación en la literatura moderna. Para ello se analizan las relaciones existentes entre formación sensible y forma artística de autopercepción en las relaciones infancia-mundo, infanciaintimidad. El trabajo se centrar en el análisis de las escenas-encubridoras del discurso autobiográfico montado por Nabokov en Habla, memoria, lo cual posibilita pensar una subjetividad de la infancia que, de algún modo, es un leguaje de la patria recuperada como Baudelaire ya en 1850 lo pensara respecto a una moral del juguete, y que Agamben nombrara como “historia mayor”.The present work intends to investigate the scope of the concept of childhood as experience and training in modern literature. To this end, the relationships between sensitive formation and artistic self-perception in childhood-world relationships, childhood-intimacy, are analyzed. The work focuses on the analysis of the scenes-concealing of the autobiographical discourse mounted by Nabokov in Speak, memory, which makes it possible to think of a subjectivity of childhood that, in a way, is a language of the country recovered as Baudelaire as early as 1850 he will think about a toy moral, and that Agamben will name it as a “major story”.Fil: Surghi, Carlos. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; Argentina

Landscapes to Learnscapes: Exploring Schoolyard-based Education

This thesis explores schoolyard-based education as a viable and necessary method for rectifying the shortcomings within the American public school system and the Nature-deficit Disorder epidemic. We argue that schoolyard-based education should be fully integrated into the school system, not in the sole form of popularized school gardens, but as a standard teaching method. We show this using extensive research and a case study of three elementary schools in Claremont, California

Rethinking Our Mobility: Supporting Our Patrons Where They Live

In anticipation of the release of a mobile VPN to access the George Washington University wireless network, the Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library began developing materials and services to provide support to patrons. This poster is an outline of the mobile services that were implemented to reach patrons where they live

Brachyury as a potential modulator of androgen receptor activity and a key player in therapy resistance in prostate cancer

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most commonly diagnosed neoplasm and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men. Acquisition of resistance to conventional therapy is a major problem for PCa patient management. Several mechanisms have been described to promote therapy resistance in PCa, such as androgen receptor (AR) activation, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), acquisition of stem cell properties and neuroendocrine transdifferentiation (NEtD). Recently, we identified Brachyury as a new biomarker of PCa aggressiveness and poor prognosis. In the present study we aimed to assess the role of Brachyury in PCa therapy resistance. We showed that Brachyury overexpression in prostate cancer cells lines increased resistance to docetaxel and cabazitaxel drugs, whereas Brachyury abrogation induced decrease in therapy resistance. Through ChiP-qPCR assays we further demonstrated that Brachyury is a direct regulator of AR expression as well as of the biomarker AMACR and the mesenchymal markers Snail and Fibronectin. Furthermore, in vitro Brachyury was also able to increase EMT and stem properties. By in silico analysis, clinically human Brachyury-positive PCa samples were associated with biomarkers of PCa aggressiveness and therapy resistance, including PTEN loss, and expression of NEtD markers, ERG and Bcl-2. Taken together, our results indicate that Brachyury contributes to tumor chemotherapy resistance, constituting an attractive target for advanced PCa patients

The relationship between complications, common knowledge details and self-handicapping strategies and veracity: a meta-analysis

Practitioners frequently inform us that variable ‘total details’ is not suitable for lie detection purposes in real life interviews. Practitioners cannot count the number of details in real time and the threshold of details required to classify someone as a truth teller or a lie teller is unknown. The authors started to address these issues by examining three new verbal veracity cues: complications, common knowledge details, and self-handicapping strategies. We present a meta-analysis regarding these three variables and compared the results with ‘total details’. Truth tellers reported more details (d = 0.28 to d = 0.45) and more complications (d = 0.51 to d = 0.62) and fewer common knowledge details (d = -0.40 to d = -0.46) and self-handicapping strategies (d = -0.37 to d = -0.50) than lie tellers. Complications was the best diagnostic veracity cue. The findings were similar for the initial free recall and the second recall in which only new information was examined. Four moderators (scenario, motivation, modality, and interview technique) did not affect the results. As a conclusion, complications in particular appear to be a good veracity indicator but more research is required. We included suggestions for such research