¿Existen asociaciones entre sociabilidad, aprendizaje y comunicación entre perros y personas?

Domestic dogs have a close bond with people; and some traits, such as sociability and learning rate, can modulate the communication between the two species. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the presence of correlations between sociability, gaze duration toward the human face when food is unavailable, and an inhibitory learning task consisting in inhibit a non-social behavior (approach a source of food) to deploy a social response (reply to the call from an unknown person). For this, the sociability test was previously validated, measuring the stability of the trait through a test-retest evaluation of the subjects. The results suggest the stability of sociability over time. Furthermore, significant correlations between sociability and gaze duration, but not with the inhibitory learning task, were observed. Both, sociability and gaze responses seem to be essential to the development of different kinds of training.Los perros mantienen un estrecho vínculo con las personas; y algunos rasgos, como la sociabilidad y la velocidad de aprendizaje, podrían modular la comunicación entre ambas especies. El objetivo del presente estudio fue indagar la existencia de correlaciones entre la sociabilidad, durabilidad de la mirada espontánea a la cara humana cuando la comida no esta disponible y una tarea de aprendizaje inhibitorio consistente en inhibir una conducta no social (acercarse a una fuente de comida) para desplegar una respuesta social (acudir al llamado de una persona desconocida). Para ello, previamente se validó la prueba utilizada para medir sociabilidad, evaluando la estabilidad de dicho rasgo a través de una evaluación-reevaluación de los sujetos. Los resultados sugieren la estabilidad de la sociabilidad a través del tiempo. A su vez, se hallaron correlaciones significativas entre la sociabilidad y la mirada como respuesta comunicativa, pero no con la tarea de aprendizaje inhibitorio. Tanto la sociabilidad como la respuesta de mirada son fundamentales para el desarrollo de diversas clases de entrenamiento

Cross-modal discrimination of human gender by domestic dogs

No description supplie

Fibro-Vascular Coupling in the Control of Cochlear Blood Flow

Transduction of sound in the cochlea is metabolically demanding. The lateral wall and hair cells are critically vulnerable to hypoxia, especially at high sound levels, and tight control over cochlear blood flow (CBF) is a physiological necessity. Yet despite the importance of CBF for hearing, consensus on what mechanisms are involved has not been obtained.We report on a local control mechanism for regulating inner ear blood flow involving fibrocyte signaling. Fibrocytes in the super-strial region are spatially distributed near pre-capillaries of the spiral ligament of the albino guinea pig cochlear lateral wall, as demonstrably shown in transmission electron microscope and confocal images. Immunohistochemical techniques reveal the inter-connected fibrocytes to be positive for Na+/K+ ATPase β1 and S100. The connected fibrocytes display more Ca(2+) signaling than other cells in the cochlear lateral wall as indicated by fluorescence of a Ca(2+) sensor, fluo-4. Elevation of Ca(2+) in fibrocytes, induced by photolytic uncaging of the divalent ion chelator o-nitrophenyl EGTA, results in propagation of a Ca(2+) signal to neighboring vascular cells and vasodilation in capillaries. Of more physiological significance, fibrocyte to vascular cell coupled signaling was found to mediate the sound stimulated increase in cochlear blood flow (CBF). Cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) was required for capillary dilation.The findings provide the first evidence that signaling between fibrocytes and vascular cells modulates CBF and is a key mechanism for meeting the cellular metabolic demand of increased sound activity

Behavioural responses to unexpected changes in reward quality

Successive negative contrast (SNC) effects are changes in anticipatory or consummatory behaviour when animals unexpectedly receive a lower value reward than they have received previously. SNC effects are often assumed to reflect frustration and appear to be influenced by background affective state. However, alternative explanations of SNC, such as the functional-search hypothesis, do not necessarily imply an aversive affective state. We tested 18 dogs in a SNC paradigm using a patch foraging task. Dogs were tested in two conditions, once with the low value reward in all of five trials (unshifted) and once when reward value was altered between high and low (shifted). Following a reward downshift, subjects showed a SNC effect by switching significantly more often between patches compared to the unshifted condition. However, approach latency, foraging time and quantity consumed did not differ between conditions, suggesting non-affective functional search behaviour rather than frustration. There was no relationship between strength of SNC and anxiety-related behaviours as measured in a novel object test and a personality questionnaire (C-BARQ). However, associations with the C-BARQ scores for Trainability and Stranger directed aggression suggest a possible link with behavioural flexibility and coping style. While reward quality clearly affects incentive motivation, the relationship between SNC, frustration and background affective state requires further exploration

Computer Vision Based Measurement of Wildfire Smoke Dynamics

This article presents a novel method for measurement of wildfire smoke dynamics based on computer vision and augmented reality techniques. The aspect of smoke dynamics is an important feature in video smoke detection that could distinguish smoke from visually similar phenomena. However, most of the existing smoke detection systems are not capable of measuring the real-world size of the detected smoke regions. Using computer vision and GIS-based augmented reality, we measure the real dimensions of smoke plumes, and observe the change in size over time. The measurements are performed on offline video data with known camera parameters and location. The observed data is analyzed in order to create a classifier that could be used to eliminate certain categories of false alarms induced by phenomena with different dynamics than smoke. We carried out an offline evaluation where we measured the improvement in the detection process achieved using the proposed smoke dynamics characteristics. The results show a significant increase in algorithm performance, especially in terms of reducing false alarms rate. From this it follows that the proposed method for measurement of smoke dynamics could be used to improve existing smoke detection algorithms, or taken into account when designing new ones

¿Existen asociaciones entre sociabilidad, aprendizaje y comunicación entre perros y personas?

Domestic dogs have a close bond with people; and some traits, such as sociability and learning rate, can modulate the communication between the two species. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the presence of correlations between sociability, gaze duration toward the human face when food is unavailable, and an inhibitory learning task consisting in inhibit a non-social behavior (approach a source of food) to deploy a social response (reply to the call from an unknown person). For this, the sociability test was previously validated, measuring the stability of the trait through a test-retest evaluation of the subjects. The results suggest the stability of sociability over time. Furthermore, significant correlations between sociability and gaze duration, but not with the inhibitory learning task, were observed. Both, sociability and gaze responses seem to be essential to the development of different kinds of training.Los perros mantienen un estrecho vínculo con las personas; y algunos rasgos, como la sociabilidad y la velocidad de aprendizaje, podrían modular la comunicación entre ambas especies. El objetivo del presente estudio fue indagar la existencia de correlaciones entre la sociabilidad, durabilidad de la mirada espontánea a la cara humana cuando la comida no esta disponible y una tarea de aprendizaje inhibitorio consistente en inhibir una conducta no social (acercarse a una fuente de comida) para desplegar una respuesta social (acudir al llamado de una persona desconocida). Para ello, previamente se validó la prueba utilizada para medir sociabilidad, evaluando la estabilidad de dicho rasgo a través de una evaluación-reevaluación de los sujetos. Los resultados sugieren la estabilidad de la sociabilidad a través del tiempo. A su vez, se hallaron correlaciones significativas entre la sociabilidad y la mirada como respuesta comunicativa, pero no con la tarea de aprendizaje inhibitorio. Tanto la sociabilidad como la respuesta de mirada son fundamentales para el desarrollo de diversas clases de entrenamiento

¿Existen asociaciones entre sociabilidad, aprendizaje y comunicación entre perros y personas?

Los perros mantienen un estrecho vínculo con las personas; y algunos rasgos, como la sociabilidad y la velocidad de aprendizaje, podrían modular la comunicación entre ambas especies. El objetivo del presente estudio fue indagar la existencia de correlaciones entre la sociabilidad, durabilidad de la mirada espontánea a la cara humana cuando la comida no esta disponible y una tarea de aprendizaje inhibitorio consistente en inhibir una conducta no social (acercarse a una fuente de comida) para desplegar una respuesta social (acudir al llamado de una persona desconocida). Para ello, previamente se validó la prueba utilizada para medir sociabilidad, evaluando la estabilidad de dicho rasgo a través de una evaluación -reevaluación de los sujetos. Los resultados sugieren la estabilidad de la sociabilidad a través del tiempo. A su vez, se hallaron correlaciones significativas entre la sociabilidad y la mirada como respuesta comunicativa, pero no con la tarea de aprendizaje inhibitorio. Tanto la sociabilidad como la respuesta de mirada son fundamentales para el desarrollo de diversas clases de entrenamiento

Sudden bilateral hearing loss in gastric cancer as the only symptom of disease

Zoran Rakusic,1 Ana Misir Krpan,1 Darija Stupin Polancec,2 Antonia Jakovcevic,3 Vesna Bisof1 1Department of Oncology, University Hospital Center Zagreb, 2Fidelta Ltd for Research and Development, 3Department of Pathology, University Hospital Center Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia Abstract: This paper reports a case of sudden bilateral deafness as the first symptom of gastric cancer, an extremely rare and atypical clinical situation. Because common signs of stomach cancer were absent, the patient was first evaluated in the Department of Otolaryngology, University Hospital Center, Zagreb. Only after expanded diagnostic evaluation and rapid progression of the disease in such a case is a malignant tumor suspected. Treatment is mostly ineffective. The unusual presentation of the disease and the rapid course may indicate a hereditary predisposition. Inactivation of tumor suppressor gene DFNA5 was found in 50% of gastric cancers, but of a non-metastasized phenotype. Inactivated DFNA5, otherwise described in hereditary bilateral deafness, perhaps favors the development of deafness in patients with gastric cancer. Our patient had a positive multiple viral antibody titer in serum, inactivated DFNA5 in both gastric cancer tissues and cerebellar metastases, and a metastatic form of the disease. If sudden deafness occurs in elderly patients, the possibility of malignant tumor should be taken into consideration. The link between gastric cancer and the DFNA5 gene is unclear and requires further research. Keywords: deafness, gastric cancer, DFNA5 gene, meningeal carcinomatosi