Exploration and Exploitation of Victorian Science in Darwin's Reading Notebooks

Search in an environment with an uncertain distribution of resources involves a trade-off between exploitation of past discoveries and further exploration. This extends to information foraging, where a knowledge-seeker shifts between reading in depth and studying new domains. To study this decision-making process, we examine the reading choices made by one of the most celebrated scientists of the modern era: Charles Darwin. From the full-text of books listed in his chronologically-organized reading journals, we generate topic models to quantify his local (text-to-text) and global (text-to-past) reading decisions using Kullback-Liebler Divergence, a cognitively-validated, information-theoretic measure of relative surprise. Rather than a pattern of surprise-minimization, corresponding to a pure exploitation strategy, Darwin's behavior shifts from early exploitation to later exploration, seeking unusually high levels of cognitive surprise relative to previous eras. These shifts, detected by an unsupervised Bayesian model, correlate with major intellectual epochs of his career as identified both by qualitative scholarship and Darwin's own self-commentary. Our methods allow us to compare his consumption of texts with their publication order. We find Darwin's consumption more exploratory than the culture's production, suggesting that underneath gradual societal changes are the explorations of individual synthesis and discovery. Our quantitative methods advance the study of cognitive search through a framework for testing interactions between individual and collective behavior and between short- and long-term consumption choices. This novel application of topic modeling to characterize individual reading complements widespread studies of collective scientific behavior.Comment: Cognition pre-print, published February 2017; 22 pages, plus 17 pages supporting information, 7 pages reference

Desarrollo del modelo aerodinámico de un cohete supersónico

Este trabajo presenta el diseño aerodinámico del cohete Theros III, que participó en la competencia Spaceport America Cup. Las estructuras aerodinámicas fueron diseñadas en base a información de la literatura y corregidas con datos del simulador OpenRocket en un proceso iterativo que incluyó el diseño y selección del motor del lanzador. La telemetría obtenida en vuelo permitió concluir que las estimaciones del coeficiente de arrastre del lanzador, realizadas con OpenRocket empleando el método de Barrowman, fueron en exceso. La implementación de un modelo de mecánica de fluidos computacional permitió obtener coeficientes de arrastre menores a los previstos por OpenRocket y similares a los estimados por Aerolab, simulador que emplea datos experimentales para sus predicciones.Facultad de Ingenierí

Stem similarity modulates infants' acquisition of phonological alternations

Phonemes have variant pronunciations depending on context. For instance, in American English, the [t] in pat [pæt] and the [d] in pad [pæd] are both realized with a tap [ɾ] when the –ing suffix is attached, [pæɾɪŋ]. We show that despite greater distributional and acoustic support for the [t]-tap alternation, 12-month-olds successfully relate taps to stems with a perceptually-similar final [d], not the dissimilar final-[t]. Thus, distributional learning of phonological alternations is constrained by infants' preference for the alternation of perceptually-similar segments. Further, the ability to relate variant surface forms emerges between 8- and 12-months. Our findings of biased learning provide further empirical support for a role for perceptual similarity in the acquisition of linguistically-relevant categories. We discuss the implications of our findings for phonological theory, language acquisition and models of the mental lexicon

Self-reported sleep quality, weight status and depression in young adult twins and siblings

BACKGROUND: Research supporting relationships between sleep quality, weight, depression and anxiety has typically examined the relationships separately rather than simultaneously, potentially hampering insights into the characteristics of reported links. This study aimed to fill this gap in the research to provide further insight into the factors associated with sleep. METHODS: Data from wave 4 of the G1219 cohort were used in cross-sectional analyses. The sample comprised 1392 adult twins and siblings aged 18-27 years. Participants completed a self-report questionnaire which included the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index as a measure of sleep quality, the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire as a measure of depression symptoms and the Revised Symptoms of Anxiety Scale as a measure of anxiety symptoms. Participants were asked to self-report general health and weight and height so researchers could derive weight status from measures of body mass index. RESULTS: An analysis of covariance including weight status, depression, anxiety and general health as predictors and sleep quality as the outcome revealed main effects of depression (F(3,1163) = 10.93, p < 0.001) and general health (F(4,1163) = 5.72, p < 0.001) only. CONCLUSIONS: A direct relationship between weight and sleep should not be assumed as it is possible that the relationship is at least in part accounted for by depression symptoms or general health. Depression symptoms and general health may also account for the association between sleep quality and anxiety symptoms in young adults

Parental obesity and risk factors for cardiovascular disease among their offspring in mid-life: findings from the 1958 British Birth Cohort Study

Background:Few studies have investigated whether parental adiposity is associated with offspring cardiovascular health or the underlying pathways. Studying these associations may help to illuminate the paradox of increasing prevalence of obesity and declining trends in cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, which may be partially explained by beneficial adaptations to an obesogenic environment among people exposed to such environments from younger ages.Objective:To investigate associations between parental body mass index (BMI) and risk factors for CVD among their offspring in mid-life and to test whether associations of offspring BMI with CVD risk factors were modified by parental BMI.Methods:Data from parents and offspring in the 1958 British birth cohort were used (N=9328). Parental BMI was assessed when offspring were aged 11 years; offspring BMI, waist circumference and CVD risk factors (lipid levels, blood pressure, glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c) and inflammatory and haemostatic markers) were measured at 44-45 years.Results:Higher parental BMI was associated with less favourable levels of offspring risk factors for CVD. Most associations were maintained after adjustment for offspring lifestyle and socioeconomic factors but were largely abolished or reversed after adjustment for offspring adiposity. For some CVD risk factors, there was evidence of effect modification; the association between higher BMI and an adverse lipid profile among offspring was weaker if maternal BMI had been higher. Conversely, offspring BMI was more strongly associated with HbA1c if parental BMI had been higher.Conclusions:Intergenerational influences may be important in conferring the effect of high BMI on CVD risk among offspring

La inteligencia emocional como herramienta para el trabajo social con grupos

109 p.il.El presente trabajo de sistematización tiene lugar dentro de la cátedra Seminario Orientador y de Sistematización de la Intervención. Dicha asignatura corresponde al quinto año de la carrera Licenciatura en Trabajo Social de la Escuela Universitaria de Trabajo Social, Universidad Católica de Salta. El contenido surge a partir de las prácticas pre-profesionales, desarrolladas en la cátedra Residencia e Intervención. El centro de residencia en el cual se desarrolló la práctica fue PROMEBA (Programa de Mejoramiento de Barrios) dentro del Proyecto de Fortalecimiento Del Capital Social y Humano (PFCSyH) Despertando Oportunidades. Dicho programa se operó en Barrio Libertad, zona sudeste de la Ciudad de Salta. La práctica pre-profesional se desarrolló junto a otras seis compañeras de la carrera. El área temática que se escogió fue el Trabajo Social de Grupo. El tema elegido es la Inteligencia Emocional como herramienta para el abordaje de grupo dentro del marco de las prácticas profesionales, teniendo como sujeto- objeto de intervención a un grupo de mujeres identificadas entre 19 a 53 años de edad...Fil: Calamaro, Pamela. Universidad Católica de Salta. Escuela Universitaria de Trabajo Social; Argentina