The Second-Agent Effect: Communicative Gestures Increase the Likelihood of Perceiving a Second Agent

Background: Beyond providing cues about an agent’s intention, communicative actions convey information about the presence of a second agent towards whom the action is directed (second-agent information). In two psychophysical studies we investigated whether the perceptual system makes use of this information to infer the presence of a second agent when dealing with impoverished and/or noisy sensory input. Methodology/Principal Findings: Participants observed point-light displays of two agents (A and B) performing separate actions. In the Communicative condition, agent B’s action was performed in response to a communicative gesture by agent A. In the Individual condition, agent A’s communicative action was replaced with a non-communicative action. Participants performed a simultaneous masking yes-no task, in which they were asked to detect the presence of agent B. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether criterion c was lowered in the Communicative condition compared to the Individual condition, thus reflecting a variation in perceptual expectations. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the congruence between A’s communicative gesture and B’s response, to ascertain whether the lowering of c in the Communicative condition reflected a truly perceptual effect. Results demonstrate that information extracted from communicative gestures influences the concurrent processing of biological motion by prompting perception of a second agent (second-agent effect). Conclusions/Significance: We propose that this finding is best explained within a Bayesian framework, which gives

Abilities to explicitly and implicitly infer intentions from actions in adults with autism spectrum disorder

Previous research suggests that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) might be associated with impairments on implicit but not explicit mentalizing tasks. However, such comparisons are made difficult by the heterogeneity of stimuli and the techniques used to measure mentalizing capabilities. We tested the abilities of 34 individuals (17 with ASD) to derive intentions from others’ actions during both explicit and implicit tasks and tracked their eye-movements. Adults with ASD displayed explicit but not implicit mentalizing deficits. Adults with ASD displayed typical fixation patterns during both implicit and explicit tasks. These results illustrate an explicit mentalizing deficit in adults with ASD, which cannot be attributed to differences in fixation patterns

The Early Data Release of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

\ua9 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) completed its 5 month Survey Validation in 2021 May. Spectra of stellar and extragalactic targets from Survey Validation constitute the first major data sample from the DESI survey. This paper describes the public release of those spectra, the catalogs of derived properties, and the intermediate data products. In total, the public release includes good-quality spectral information from 466,447 objects targeted as part of the Milky Way Survey, 428,758 as part of the Bright Galaxy Survey, 227,318 as part of the Luminous Red Galaxy sample, 437,664 as part of the Emission Line Galaxy sample, and 76,079 as part of the Quasar sample. In addition, the release includes spectral information from 137,148 objects that expand the scope beyond the primary samples as part of a series of secondary programs. Here, we describe the spectral data, data quality, data products, Large-Scale Structure science catalogs, access to the data, and references that provide relevant background to using these spectra

Kinetics and Thermal Properties of Crude and Purified beta-Galactosidase with Potential for the Production of Galactooligosaccharides

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)beta-Galactosidase is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of lactose. It has potential importance due to various applications in the food and dairy industries, involving lactose-reduced ingredients. The properties of two beta-galactosidase enzymes, crude and purified, from different sources, Kluyveromyces marxianus CCT 7082 and Kluyveromyces marxianus ATCC 16045, were analyzed. The pH and temperature optima, deactivation energy, thermal stability and kinetic and thermodynamic parameters were determined, as well as the ability to hydrolyze lactose and produce galactooligosaccharides. Purification process improved the properties of the enzymes, and the results showed that purified enzymes from both strains had a higher optimum temperature, and lower values of K-m, thus showing greater affinity for o-nitropheny1-beta-D-galactopiranoside than the crude enzymes. The production of galactooligosaccharides was also greater when using purified enzymes, increasing the synthesis by more than 30 % by both strains.5114552Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)FAPERGSCoordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Enzymatic synthesis of galactooligosaccharides using pressurised fluids as reaction medium

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)This work is focussed on the evaluation of enzymatic synthesis of galactooligosaccharides (GOS) catalysed by beta-galactosidase from permeabilized cell of Kluyveromyces marxianus in different compressed fluids. The experiments were performed in a batch mode reactor, where the effects of enzyme and lactose concentrations and system pressure were evaluated. Results showed significant differences in the maximum GOS concentration among the experimental conditions, where the lactose concentration and enzyme activity were found to be statistically significant. Comparing the GOS productions in the three reaction systems, the supercritical CO2 led to the best results, where the maximum production was 83 gl(-1) while, for propane and n-butane, values of 63.0 and 75.0 gl(-1) were verified, respectively. According to the kinetic results of GOS production in supercritical CO2, a promising route is noted for this system, since the competition between synthesis and hydrolysis was less pronounced compared to the other tested fluids. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.133414081413Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Effect of compressed fluids treatment on the activity, stability and enzymatic reaction performance of beta-galactosidase

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)The present work investigates as a first step the influences of pressure exposure time and depressurisation rate on the beta-galactosidase activity of permeabilized cells of Kluyveromyces marxianus CCT 7082 submitted to treatment with compressed carbon dioxide propane and n-butane In general results showed that the enzyme activity changes significantly depending on the experimental conditions investigated allowing the selection of proper operating conditions for advantageous application of this biocatalyst in hydrolysis reactions Further the stability of the enzyme after high-pressure pre-treatment was also experimentally monitored and the results demonstrated that the activities of this biocatalyst were always higher than those of the non-treated one Finally evaluation of synthesis of galactooligosaccharides (GOS) using beta galactosidase without treatment and after treatment in compressed fluids was carried out Results indicated promising possibilities since the use of n-butane-pre treated enzyme led to very satisfactory reaction conversions and selectivity (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved125412351240Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)FAPERGSConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)FEA/UNICAMPURI - Campus ErechimCoordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)CAPES [PROCAD/CAPES 0337/05-6

MAPLE deposition of methoxy Ge triphenylcorrole thin films

Methoxy Ge Triphenylcorrole [Ge(TPC)OCH3] has been recently synthesized and deposited as thin film by the Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation (MAPLE) technique. In the last few years, corroles have been the object of an increasing number of studies and MAPLE technique seems to be a very promising deposition method for organic and polymeric films, producing good results for applications in chemical gas sensing layers production. In this work Ge(TPC)OCH3 thin films were deposited by both spin coating and MAPLE techniques for comparison. The morphology of the films was investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), while their optical properties were analyzed by photoluminescence (PL) and UV-vis absorption measurements and were compared with the ones of the starting solution. The film absorption spectrum presented the same peaks with the same relative intensities of that recorded in solution. The luminescence spectra were acquired periodically to evaluate the aging effects and no detectable variations were recorded over a period of 1 month