Leveling the Field: Talking Levels in Cognitive Science

Talk of levels is everywhere in cognitive science. Whether it is in terms of adjudicating longstanding debates or motivating foundational concepts, one cannot go far without hearing about the need to talk at different ‘levels’. Yet in spite of its widespread application and use, the concept of levels has received little sustained attention within cognitive science. This paper provides an analysis of the various ways the notion of levels has been deployed within cognitive science. The paper begins by introducing and motivating discussion via four representative accounts of levels. It then turns to outlining and relating the four accounts using two dimensions of comparison. The result is the creation of a conceptual framework that maps the logical space of levels talk, which offers an important step toward making sense of levels talk within cognitive science

Volcanic smog and cardiometabolic health: Hawaiian hypertension?

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149349/1/jch13500.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149349/2/jch13500_am.pd

Arm Position During Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring: A Review of the Evidence and Clinical Guidelines

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106696/1/jch12255.pd

Breeding Season Survival of Female Lesser Scaup in the Northern Boreal Forest

One hypothesis advanced to explain the decline in lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) populations during the past 20 years is that adult female survival has decreased. However, no survival probability estimates exist for the boreal forest, the region where most scaup breed. We captured and radio-marked female lesser scaup (n = 42) near Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, just before the breeding season in 1999 and 2000. Constant weekly survival probability was estimated using a Cormack-Jolly- Seber model (0.96). We extrapolate this rate to estimate survival probability for the nesting season (0.80, SE = 0.09), the period when females are at greatest risk of predation. Recent estimates of annual mortality (42%) suggest that about 50% of annual female mortality occurs during the breeding season, a result similar to recent conclusions from studies of prairie-nesting lesser scaup. Further, our survival estimate provides information required to produce preliminary models of population dynamics for boreal lesser scaup, a step that could greatly improve our understanding of decline in this species.Une hypothèse qui a été avancée pour expliquer le déclin des populations du petit fuligule (Aythya affinis) au cours des 20 dernières années est que la survie de la femelle adulte a baissé. Il n’existe cependant aucune estimation de la probabilité de survie pour la forêt boréale, région où se reproduisent la plupart des fuligules. Juste avant la saison de reproduction en 1999 et 2000, on a capturé, près de Yellowknife dans les Territoires du Nord-Ouest, des fuligules femelles (n = 42) qu’on a équipées de radio-émetteurs. À l’aide du modèle de Cormack-Jolly-Seber, on a estimé la probabilité de survie hebdomadaire (0,96) sur une base constante. On a extrapolé ce taux pour estimer la probabilité de survie pour la saison de reproduction (0,80, erreur-type = 0,09), période qui représente pour les femelles le plus grand risque de prédation. De récentes estimations de la mortalité annuelle (42 %) suggèrent qu’environ 50 % de cette dernière chez la population femelle se produit durant la saison de reproduction, ce qu’on retrouve aussi dans les résultats d’études récentes sur le fuligule nichant dans la prairie. De plus, notre estimation de la survie offre des renseignements qui sont nécessaires à l’élaboration de modèles préliminaires de la dynamique des populations chez le fuligule boréal, une étape qui permettrait d’améliorer considérablement notre compréhension du déclin de l’espèce

The 2017 ACC/AHA Hypertension Guidelines: Should they have included proven nonpharmacological blood pressure‐lowering strategies such as Transcendental Meditation?

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148410/1/jch13488_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148410/2/jch13488.pd

Impacts of a flaring star-forming disc and stellar radial mixing on the vertical metallicity gradient

Using idealized N-body simulations of a Milky Way-sized disc galaxy, we qualitatively study how the metallicity distributions of the thin disc star particles are modified by the formation of the bar and spiral arm structures. The thin disc in our numerical experiments initially has a tight negative radial metallicity gradient and a constant vertical scaleheight. We show that the radial mixing of stars drives a positive vertical metallicity gradient in the thin disc. On the other hand, if the initial thin disc is flared, with vertical scaleheight increasing with galactocentric radius, the metal-poor stars, originally in the outer disc, become dominant in regions above the disc plane at every radii. This process can drive a negative vertical metallicity gradient, which is consistent with the current observed trend. This model mimics a scenario where the star-forming thin disc was flared in the outer region at earlier epochs. Our numerical experiment with an initial flared disc predicts that the negative vertical metallicity gradient of the mono-age relatively young thin disc population should be steeper in the inner disc, and the radial metallicity gradient of the mono-age population should be shallower at greater heights above the disc plane. We also predict that the metallicity distribution function of mono-age young thin disc populations above the disc plane would be more positively skewed in the inner disc compared to the outer disc