Doing, seeing, or both: effects of learning condition on subsequent action perception.

It has been proposed that common codes for vision and action emerge from associations between an individual's production and simultaneous observation of actions. This typically first-person view of one's own action subsequently transfers to the third-person view when observing another individual. We tested vision-action associations and the transfer from first-person to third-person perspective by comparing novel hand-action sequences that were learned under three conditions: first, by being performed and simultaneously viewed from a first-person perspective; second, by being performed but not seen; and third, by being seen from a first-person view without being executed. We then used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the response to these three types of learned action sequences when they were presented from a third-person perspective. Visuomotor areas responded most strongly to sequences that were learned by simultaneously producing and observing the action sequences. We also note an important asymmetry between vision and action: Action sequences learned by performance alone, in the absence of vision, facilitated the emergence of visuomotor responses, whereas action sequences learned by viewing alone had comparably little effect. This dominance of action over vision supports the notion of forward/predictive models of visuomotor systems

Dual-Route Model of the Effect of Head Orientation on Perceived Gaze Direction

This work is supported by Australian Research Council Discovery Project [DP120102589] to Colin Clifford and Andrew Calder; Colin Clifford is supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship; Andrew Calder is supported by the Medical Research Council, United Kingdom [grant ref. MC_US_A060_5PQ50]

Urine alkalization facilitates uric acid excretion

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Increase in the incidence of hyperuricemia associated with gout as well as hypertension, renal diseases and cardiovascular diseases has been a public health concern. We examined the possibility of facilitated excretion of uric acid by change in urine pH by managing food materials.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Within the framework of the Japanese government's health promotion program, we made recipes which consist of protein-rich and less vegetable-fruit food materials for H⁺-load (acid diet) and others composed of less protein but vegetable-fruit rich food materials (alkali diet). Healthy female students were enrolled in this consecutive 5-day study for each test. From whole-day collected urine, total volume, pH, organic acid, creatinine, uric acid and all cations (Na⁺,K⁺,Ca²⁺,Mg²⁺,NH₄⁺) and anions (Cl^-,SO₄^2-,PO₄^-) necessary for the estimation of acid-base balance were measured.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Urine pH reached a steady state 3 days after switching from ordinary daily diets to specified regimens. The amount of acid generated ([SO₄^2-] +organic acid-gut alkai) were linearly related with those of the excretion of acid (titratable acidity+ [NH₄⁺] - [HCO₃^-]), indicating that H⁺in urine is generated by the metabolic degradation of food materials. Uric acid and excreted urine pH retained a linear relationship, where uric acid excretion increased from 302 mg/day at pH 5.9 to 413 mg/day at pH 6.5, despite the fact that the alkali diet contained a smaller purine load than the acid diet.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We conclude that alkalization of urine by eating nutritionally well-designed food is effective for removing uric acid from the body.</p

Optimal measurement of visual motion across spatial and temporal scales

Sensory systems use limited resources to mediate the perception of a great variety of objects and events. Here a normative framework is presented for exploring how the problem of efficient allocation of resources can be solved in visual perception. Starting with a basic property of every measurement, captured by Gabor's uncertainty relation about the location and frequency content of signals, prescriptions are developed for optimal allocation of sensors for reliable perception of visual motion. This study reveals that a large-scale characteristic of human vision (the spatiotemporal contrast sensitivity function) is similar to the optimal prescription, and it suggests that some previously puzzling phenomena of visual sensitivity, adaptation, and perceptual organization have simple principled explanations.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figures, 2 appendices; in press in Favorskaya MN and Jain LC (Eds), Computer Vision in Advanced Control Systems using Conventional and Intelligent Paradigms, Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Springer-Verlag, Berli

Neurocognitive function in HIV infected patients on antiretroviral therapy

OBJECTIVE To describe factors associated with neurocognitive (NC) function in HIV-positive patients on stable combination antiretroviral therapy. DESIGN We undertook a cross-sectional analysis assessing NC data obtained at baseline in patients entering the Protease-Inhibitor-Monotherapy-Versus-Ongoing-Triple therapy (PIVOT) trial. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE NC testing comprised of 5 domains. Raw results were z-transformed using standard and demographically adjusted normative datasets (ND). Global z-scores (NPZ-5) were derived from averaging the 5 domains and percentage of subjects with test scores >1 standard deviation (SD) below population means in at least two domains (abnormal Frascati score) calculated. Patient characteristics associated with NC results were assessed using multivariable linear regression. RESULTS Of the 587 patients in PIVOT, 557 had full NC results and were included. 77% were male, 68% Caucasian and 28% of Black ethnicity. Mean (SD) baseline and nadir CD4+ lymphocyte counts were 553(217) and 177(117) cells/µL, respectively, and HIV RNA was <50 copies/mL in all. Median (IQR) NPZ-5 score was -0.5 (-1.2/-0) overall, and -0.3 (-0.7/0.1) and -1.4 (-2/-0.8) in subjects of Caucasian and Black ethnicity, respectively. Abnormal Frascati scores using the standard-ND were observed in 51%, 38%, and 81%, respectively, of subjects overall, Caucasian and Black ethnicity (p<0.001), but in 62% and 69% of Caucasian and Black subjects using demographically adjusted-ND (p = 0.20). In the multivariate analysis, only Black ethnicity was associated with poorer NPZ-5 scores (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS In this large group of HIV-infected subjects with viral load suppression, ethnicity but not HIV-disease factors is closely associated with NC results. The prevalence of abnormal results is highly dependent on control datasets utilised. TRIAL REGISTRY ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01230580

Human papillomavirus infection in Shenyang City, People's Republic of China: a population-based study

To investigate the prevalence of, and risk factors for, cervical infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) in Shenyang City, People's Republic of China, we interviewed and obtained cervical cell samples from 685 women aged 15–59 years enumerated from local population lists. Human papillomavirus DNA was detected in cervical cell samples using a GP5+/6+-based PCR assay for 44 HPV types. Human papillomavirus prevalence was 16.8% overall and 13.6% among women without cervical abnormalities (16.6% and 12.4%, respectively, age-standardised to the world standard population), with no significant trends in HPV prevalence by age group. Of the 32 types identified, high-risk HPV types predominated in all age groups, HPV16 being the most common (3.4% of all women), followed by HPV52 (2.5%) and 58 (1.9%). Multiple-type infections accounted for 31.3% of all infected women. Not being married, reporting multiple sexual partners and husband's extramarital sexual relationships were all significantly associated with being HPV-positive. The disclosure of a relatively high HPV prevalence in Shenyang, in comparison with other worldwide populations, raises important questions concerning the prevention of cervical cancer in China, especially given the promising efficacy of prophylactic HPV vaccines

Madness decolonized?: Madness as transnational identity in Gail Hornstein’s Agnes’s Jacket

The US psychologist Gail Hornstein’s monograph Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness (2009) is an important intervention in the identity politics of the mad movement. Hornstein offers a resignified vision of mad identity that embroiders the central trope of an “anti-colonial” struggle to reclaim the experiential world “colonized” by psychiatry. A series of literal and figurative appeals make recourse to the inner world and (corresponding) cultural world of the mad, as well as to the ethno-symbolic cultural materials of dormant nationhood. This rhetoric is augmented by a model in which the mad comprise a diaspora without an origin, coalescing into a single transnational community. The mad are also depicted as persons displaced from their metaphorical homeland, the “inner” world “colonized” by the psychiatric regime. There are a number of difficulties with Hornstein’s rhetoric, however. Her “ethnicity-and-rights” response to the oppression of the mad is symptomatic of Western parochialism, while her proposed transmutation of putative psychopathology from limit upon identity to parameter of successful identity is open to contestation. Moreover, unless one accepts Hornstein’s porous vision of mad identity, her self-ascribed insider status in relation to the mad community may present a problematic “re-colonization” of mad experience

Preferential risk of HPV16 for squamous cell carcinoma and of HPV18 for adenocarcinoma of the cervix compared to women with normal cytology in The Netherlands

We present the type-distribution of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) types in women with normal cytology (n=1467), adenocarcinoma in situ (ACIS) (n=61), adenocarcinoma (n=70), and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (n=83). Cervical adenocarcinoma and ACIS were significantly more frequently associated with HPV18 (ORMH 15.0; 95% CI 8.6–26.1 and 21.8; 95% CI 11.9–39.8, respectively) than normal cytology. Human papillomavirus16 was only associated with adenocarcinoma and ACIS after exclusion of HPV18-positive cases (ORMH 6.6; 95% CI 2.8–16.0 and 9.4; 95% CI 2.8–31.2, respectively). For SCC, HPV16 prevalence was elevated (ORMH 7.0; 95% CI 3.9–12.4) compared to cases with normal cytology, and HPV18 prevalence was only increased after exclusion of HPV16-positive cases (ORMH 4.3; 95% CI 1.6–11.6). These results suggest that HPV18 is mainly a risk factor for the development of adenocarcinoma whereas HPV16 is associated with both SCC and adenocarcinoma