Facial expression of pain: an evolutionary account.

This paper proposes that human expression of pain in the presence or absence of caregivers, and the detection of pain by observers, arises from evolved propensities. The function of pain is to demand attention and prioritise escape, recovery, and healing; where others can help achieve these goals, effective communication of pain is required. Evidence is reviewed of a distinct and specific facial expression of pain from infancy to old age, consistent across stimuli, and recognizable as pain by observers. Voluntary control over amplitude is incomplete, and observers can better detect pain that the individual attempts to suppress rather than amplify or simulate. In many clinical and experimental settings, the facial expression of pain is incorporated with verbal and nonverbal vocal activity, posture, and movement in an overall category of pain behaviour. This is assumed by clinicians to be under operant control of social contingencies such as sympathy, caregiving, and practical help; thus, strong facial expression is presumed to constitute and attempt to manipulate these contingencies by amplification of the normal expression. Operant formulations support skepticism about the presence or extent of pain, judgments of malingering, and sometimes the withholding of caregiving and help. To the extent that pain expression is influenced by environmental contingencies, however, "amplification" could equally plausibly constitute the release of suppression according to evolved contingent propensities that guide behaviour. Pain has been largely neglected in the evolutionary literature and the literature on expression of emotion, but an evolutionary account can generate improved assessment of pain and reactions to it

The growing utility of microbial genome sequences (Meeting Report)

© 2000 GenomeBiology.comA report from the Genome Biology session of the 4th annual conference on microbial genomes, Virginia, February 12-15, 2000

Learning fuzzy inference systems using an adaptive membership function scheme

An adaptive membership function scheme for general additive fuzzy systems is proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme can adapt a proper membership function for any nonlinear input-output mapping, based upon a minimum number of rules and an initial approximate membership function. This parameter adjustment procedure is performed by computing the error between the actual and the desired decision surface. Using the proposed adaptive scheme for fuzzy system, the number of rules can be minimized. Nonlinear function approximation and truck backer-upper control system are employed to demonstrate the viability of the proposed method

Tests of time-invariance

Quantiles provide a comprehensive description of the properties of a variable and tracking changes in quantiles over time using signal extraction methods can be informative. It is shown here how stationarity tests can be generalized to test the null hypothesis that a particular quantile is constant over time by using weighted indicators. Corresponding tests based on expectiles are also proposed; these might be expected to be more powerful for distributions that are not heavy-tailed. Tests for changing dispersion and asymmetry may be based on contrasts between particular quantiles or expectiles. We report Monte Carlo experiments investigating the effectiveness of the proposed tests and then move on to consider how to test for relative time invariance, based on residuals from fitting a time-varying level or trend. Empirical examples, using stock returns and U.S. inflation, provide an indication of the practical importance of the tests

Planned Adaptation in Design and Testing of Critical Infrastructure: The Case of Flood Safety in The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, dykes and other primary water defence works are assets that are essential to keep the society and economy functioning, by protecting against flooding from sea and rivers due to extreme events. Given that 55% of the country is at risk of flooding, primary water defence works belong to its critical infrastructure. Many factors influence the risk and impact of flooding. Besides physical factors (e.g., landscape design, climate change) also socio-economic factors (e.g., population, assets) are important. Given that these factors change and feature complex and uncertain behaviour in past and future, the design and regulation of this critical infrastructure will have to be flexible enough to be able to deal with such changes. ‘Planned Adaptation’ refers to regulatory programmes that plan for future changes in knowledge by producing new knowledge and revising rules at regular intervals. This study describes the emergence of the next generation of Dutch primary water defence infrastructure, which through the stepwise implementation of Planned Adaptation for design and testing of primary water defence works in the mid-1990s has moved beyond the Delta Works approach of 1953 and subsequent unplanned adaptations. This has prepared the ground for the recent introduction of Adaptive Delta Management, which makes an integral part of the new Delta Plan for the Netherlands that was published on 16 September 2014 and which is also analysed in this study

Orthotopic liver transplantation for fulminant and subacute hepatic failure

Fulminant and subacute hepatitis are conditions characterized by rapid liver failure, which can lead to death in 80 to more than 95% of the cases with medical supportive care only. The etiology can be viral, drug-, or other chemical-induced, metabolic, etc. Orthotopic liver transplantation emerged during the 1980s as a powerful means for dealing with these diseases. The existence of this therapeutic modality has brought about major changes in the diagnosis, patient selection, treatment, and outlook for fulminant/subacute liver failure. The authors present the results of orthotopic liver transplantation for the treatment of 47 cases of acute/subacute hepatic insufficiency at the University of Pittsburgh between March 1980 and July 1987. The results of this series demonstrate that liver transplantation is the most effective means for treating this condition