Self-prioritization and perceptual matching: The effects of temporal construal.

Recent research has revealed that self-referential processing enhances perceptual judgments - the so-called self-prioritization effect. The extent and origin of this effect remains unknown, however. Noting the multifaceted nature of the self, here we hypothesized that temporal influences on self-construal (i.e., past/future-self continuity) may serve as an important determinant of stimulus prioritization. Specifically, as representations of the self increase in abstraction as a function of temporal distance (i.e., distance from now), self-prioritization may only emerge when stimuli are associated with the current self. The results of three experiments supported this prediction. Self-relevance only enhanced performance in a standard perceptual-matching task when stimuli (i.e., geometric shapes) were connected with the current self; representations of the self in the future (Expts. 1 & 2) and past (Expt. 3) failed to facilitate decision making. To identify the processes underlying task performance, data were interrogated using a hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) approach. Results of these analyses revealed that self-prioritization was underpinned by a stimulus bias (i.e., rate of information uptake). Collectively, these findings elucidate when and how self-relevance influences decisional processing

Inferring MicroRNA Activities by Combining Gene Expression with MicroRNA Target Prediction

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play crucial roles in a variety of biological processes via regulating expression of their target genes at the mRNA level. A number of computational approaches regarding miRNAs have been proposed, but most of them focus on miRNA gene finding or target predictions. Little computational work has been done to investigate the effective regulation of miRNAs.We propose a method to infer the effective regulatory activities of miRNAs by integrating microarray expression data with miRNA target predictions. The method is based on the idea that regulatory activity changes of miRNAs could be reflected by the expression changes of their target transcripts measured by microarray. To validate this method, we apply it to the microarray data sets that measure gene expression changes in cell lines after transfection or inhibition of several specific miRNAs. The results indicate that our method can detect activity enhancement of the transfected miRNAs as well as activity reduction of the inhibited miRNAs with high sensitivity and specificity. Furthermore, we show that our inference is robust with respect to false positives of target prediction.A huge amount of gene expression data sets are available in the literature, but miRNA regulation underlying these data sets is largely unknown. The method is easy to be implemented and can be used to investigate the miRNA effective regulation underlying the expression change profiles obtained from microarray experiments

Mine or mother’s? Exploring the self-ownership effect across cultures

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Automatic tracking measurement system on human lumbar vertebral motion

An automated tracking system was developed to measure the flexion-extension motion of lumbar vertebrae using the algorithm of Sequential Important Resampling Particle Filter. In vitro validity was performed in 10 samples under digitized video fluoroscopy. Each sample was taken 2 full flexion-extension cycles under a special guide device in fixed speed, while the calibration model of lumbar vertebrae was fixed on a metal base. The trajectories are recorded by real-time depiction of the vertebral body with rigid fixation pens when the digitized video fluoroscopy collection is finished. A special system that can perform automatic tracking on the motion of lumbar vertebrae was developed. Reliability of the measurement was evaluated by a saw bone model experiment. In comparing with real-time motion recording, the correlation coefficient of test-retest and the accuracy were calculated, which showed satisfactory stability and consistency. The results suggested this new developed automatic tracking system could be a reliable tool to monitor the dynamic lumbar motion; to analyze the translation and rotational angle of vertebral from video-fluoroscopic images automatically and accurately. The proposed system may have a potential value in the evaluation of spinal medical application.link_to_subscribed_fulltex