Behavioural Dissociation between Exogenous and Endogenous Temporal Orienting of Attention

BACKGROUND: In the current study we compared the effects of temporal orienting of attention based on predictions carried by the intrinsic temporal structure of events (rhythm) and by instructive symbolic cues; and tested the degree of cognitive, strategic control that could be exerted over each type of temporal expectation. The experiments tested whether the distinction between exogenous and endogenous orienting made in spatial attention may extend to the temporal domain. TASK DESIGN AND MAIN RESULTS: In this task, a ball moved across the screen in discrete steps and disappeared temporarily under an occluding band. Participants were required to make a perceptual discrimination on the target upon its reappearance. The regularity of the speed (rhythmic cue) or colour (symbolic cue) of the moving stimulus could predict the exact time at which a target would reappear after a brief occlusion (valid trials) or provide no temporal information (neutral trials). The predictive nature of rhythmic and symbolic cues was manipulated factorially in a symmetrical and orthogonal fashion. To test for the effects of strategic control over temporal orienting based on rhythmic or symbolic cues, participants were instructed either to "attend-to-speed" (rhythm) or "attend-to-colour". Our results indicated that both rhythmic and symbolic (colour) cues speeded reaction times in an independent fashion. However, whilst the rhythmic cueing effects were impervious to instruction, the effects of symbolic cues were contingent on the instruction to attend to colour. FINAL CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our results provide evidence for the existence of qualitatively separable types of temporal orienting of attention, akin to exogenous and endogenous mechanisms

Lifetime Socioeconomic Position and Twins' Health: An Analysis of 308 Pairs of United States Women Twins

BACKGROUND: Important controversies exist about the extent to which people's health status as adults is shaped by their living conditions in early life compared to adulthood. These debates have important policy implications, and one obstacle to resolving them is the relative lack of sufficient high-quality data on childhood and adult socioeconomic position and adult health status. We accordingly compared the health status among monozygotic and dizygotic women twin pairs who lived together through childhood (until at least age 14) and subsequently were discordant or concordant on adult socioeconomic position. This comparison permitted us to ascertain the additional impact of adult experiences on adult health in a population matched on early life experiences. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Our study employed data from a cross-sectional survey and physical examinations of twins in a population-based twin registry, the Kaiser Permanente Women Twins Study Examination II, conducted in 1989 to 1990 in Oakland, California, United States. The study population was composed of 308 women twin pairs (58% monozygotic, 42% dizygotic); data were obtained on childhood and adult socioeconomic position and on blood pressure, cholesterol, post-load glucose, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, physical activity, and self-rated health. Health outcomes among adult women twin pairs who lived together through childhood varied by their subsequent adult occupational class. Cardiovascular factors overall differed more among monozygotic twin pairs that were discordant compared to concordant on occupational class. Moreover, among the monozygotic twins discordant on adult occupational class, the working class twin fared worse and, compared to her professional twin, on average had significantly higher systolic blood pressure (mean matched difference = 4.54 mm Hg; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.10–8.97), diastolic blood pressure (mean matched difference = 3.80 mm Hg; 95% CI, 0.44–7.17), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (mean matched difference = 7.82 mg/dl; 95% CI, 1.07–14.57). By contrast, no such differences were evident for analyses based on educational attainment, which does not capture post-education socioeconomic position. CONCLUSION: These results provide novel evidence that lifetime socioeconomic position influences adult health and highlight the utility of studying social plus biological aspects of twinship

A transcranial magnetic stimulation study on the role of the left intraparietal sulcus in temporal orienting of attention

likely to occur. Temporal orienting of attention has been consistently associated with activation of the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in prior fMRI studies. However, a direct test of its causal involvement in temporal orienting is still lacking. The present study tackled this issue by transiently perturbing left IPS activity with either online (Experiment 1) or offline (Experiment 2) transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In both experiments, participants performed a temporal orienting task, alternating between blocks in which a temporal cue predicted when a subsequent target would appear and blocks in which a neutral cue provided no information about target timing. In Experiment 1 we used an online TMS protocol, aiming to interfere specifically with cue-related temporal processes, whereas in Experiment 2 we employed an offline protocol whereby participants performed the temporal orienting task before and after receiving TMS. The right IPS and/or the vertex were stimulated as active control regions. While results replicated the canonical pattern of temporal orienting effects on reaction time, with faster responses for temporal than neutral trials, these effects were not modulated by TMS over the left IPS (as compared to the right IPS and/or vertex regions) regardless of the online or offline protocol used. Overall, these findings challenge the causal role of the left IPS in temporal orienting of attention inviting further research on its underlying neural substratesFrench National Research Agency (ANR) ANR-18-CE28-0009-01MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 PID2021- 128696NA-I00"ERDF A way of making Europe"Spanish GovernmentEuropean Union Next GenerationMinistry of Economy, Knowledge, EnterpriseUniversities of AndalusiaMinistry of Science and Innovation, Spain (MICINN) Spanish Government PSI2017-88136EDER-Junta de AndaluciaUniversidad de Granada/CBU

Feasibility study into a scientific self-sampling programme for the pelagic sector : FIS020

Publisher PD

Impacts of Census Differential Privacy for Small-Area Disease Mapping to Monitor Health Inequities

The US Census Bureau will implement a new privacy-preserving disclosure avoidance system (DAS), which includes application of differential privacy, on publicly-released 2020 census data. There are concerns that the DAS may bias small-area and demographically-stratified population counts, which play a critical role in public health research, serving as denominators in estimation of disease/mortality rates. Employing three DAS demonstration products, we quantify errors attributable to reliance on DAS-protected denominators in standard small-area disease mapping models for characterizing health inequities. We conduct simulation studies and real data analyses of inequities in premature mortality at the census tract level in Massachusetts and Georgia. Results show that overall patterns of inequity by racialized group and economic deprivation level are not compromised by the DAS. While early versions of DAS induce errors in mortality rate estimation that are larger for Black than non-Hispanic white populations in Massachusetts, this issue is ameliorated in newer DAS versions

Chemical Characterization and Source Apportionment of Household Fine Particulate Matter in Rural, Peri-urban, and Urban West Africa

Household air pollution in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions is an important cause of disease burden. Little is known about the chemical composition and sources of household air pollution in sub-Saharan Africa, and how they differ between rural and urban homes. We analyzed the chemical composition and sources of fine particles (PM2.5) in household cooking areas of multiple neighborhoods in Accra, Ghana, and in peri-urban (Banjul) and rural (Basse) areas in The Gambia. In Accra, biomass burning accounted for 39–62% of total PM2.5 mass in the cooking area in different neighborhoods; the absolute contributions were 10–45 μg/m3. Road dust and vehicle emissions comprised 12–33% of PM2.5 mass. Solid waste burning was also a significant contributor to household PM2.5 in a low-income neighborhood but not for those living in better-off areas. In Banjul and Basse, biomass burning was the single dominant source of cooking-area PM2.5, accounting for 74–87% of its total mass; the relative and absolute contributions of biomass smoke to PM2.5 mass were larger in households that used firewood than in those using charcoal, reaching as high as 463 μg/m3 in Basse homes that used firewood for cooking. Our findings demonstrate the need for policies that enhance access to cleaner fuels in both rural and urban areas, and for controlling traffic emissions in cities in sub-Saharan Africa

Neural Substrates of Mounting Temporal Expectation

A cognitive and neuroanatomical perspective on how timing and expectation are represented in the human brain

Mortality Risk Associated with Short-Term Exposure to Traffic Particles and Sulfates

BACKGROUND: Many studies have shown that airborne particles are associated with increased risk of death, but attention has more recently focused on the differential toxicity of particles from different sources. Geographic information system (GIS) approaches have recently been used to improve exposure assessment, particularly for traffic particles, but only for long-term exposure. OBJECTIVES: We analyzed approximately 100,000 deaths from all, cardiovascular, and respiratory causes for the years 1995–2002 using a case–crossover analysis. METHODS: Estimates of exposure to traffic particles were geocoded to the address of each decedent on the day before death and control days, with these estimates derived from a GIS-based exposure model incorporating deterministic covariates, such as traffic density and meteorologic factors, and a smooth function of latitude and longitude. RESULTS: We estimate that an IQR increase in traffic particle exposure on the day before death is associated with a 2.3% increase [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.2 to 3.4%] in all-cause mortality risk. Stroke deaths were particularly elevated (4.4%; 95% CI, −0.2 to 9.3%), as were diabetes deaths (5.7%; 95% CI, −1.7 to 13.7%). Sulfate particles are spatially homogeneous, and using a central monitor, we found that an IQR increase in sulfate levels on the day before death is associated with a 1.1% (95% CI, 0.1 to 2.0%) increase in all-cause mortality risk. CONCLUSIONS: Both traffic and powerplant particles are associated with increased deaths in Boston, with larger effects for traffic particles

The Effect of wake Turbulence Intensity on Transition in a Compressor Cascade

Direct numerical simulations of separating flow along a section at midspan of a low-pressure V103 compressor cascade with periodically incoming wakes were performed. By varying the strength of the wake, its influence on both boundary layer separation and bypass transition were examined. Due to the presence of small-scale three-dimensional fluctuations in the wakes, the flow along the pressure surface undergoes bypass transition. Only in the weak-wake case, the boundary layer reaches a nearly-separated state between impinging wakes. In all simulations, the flow along the suction surface was found to separate. In the simulation with the strong wakes, separation is intermittently suppressed as the periodically passing wakes managed to trigger turbulent spots upstream of the location of separation. As these turbulent spots convect downstream, they locally suppress separation. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht