THE WHOLE PICTURE: BODY POSTURE RECOGNITION IN INFANCY

Holistic image processing is tied to expertise and is characteristic of face and body processing by adults. Infants process faces holistically, but it is unknown whether infants process body information holistically. In the present study, we examined whether infants discriminate changes in body posture holistically. Body posture is an important nonverbal cue that signals emotion, intention, and goals of others even from a distance. In the current study, infants were tested for discrimination between body postures that differ in limb orientations in three conditions: in the context of the whole body, with just the limbs that change orientation, or with the limbs in the context of scrambled body parts. Nine-month olds discriminated between whole body postures, but failed in the isolated parts and scrambled body conditions, indicating that they use holistic processes to discriminate body information. In contrast, 3.5-month olds failed to discriminate between whole body postures, therefore no conclusion can be drawn about their ability to process bodies holistically. These results indicate that infants process body information holistically during the first year of life, but there are developmental changes in the processing of body information from 3.5 to 9 months of age

PROCESSING OF SPATIAL INFORMATION IN SOCIAL AND NON-SOCIAL STIMULI BY OPIOID-EXPOSED AND NON-EXPOSED NEWBORNS

The ability to process information from faces is important for effective social functioning. Adults are experts at this function. It has been suggested that the encoding of configural spatial relations among facial features (e.g., the distance between the eyes) contributes to this expertise. I investigated the developmental origin of face processing expertise by studying typically developing newborns’ sensitivity to the distance between the eyes and between the nose and the mouth in face stimuli. Further, I investigated whether prenatal opioid exposure is associated with neonates’ processing of spatial information in social and non-social stimuli. Infants with prenatal opioid-exposure are at risk for several adverse neurobehavioral effects as well as attention and behavioral problems at school age. Research on both humans and animals converges to suggest that prenatal opioid exposure interferes with the development of proper cognitive functions, specifically, memory for spatial information and general attention. However, very little research has examined the association of prenatal opioid exposure to the development of human infants’ early cognitive functioning. The current studies use a visual paired-comparison procedure to investigate infants’ sensitivity to spatial information on face and non-face images. Both opioid-exposed and non-exposed (typical) infants discriminated subtle spacing changes in face stimuli. However, while non-exposed newborns processed spatial relational information between two non-face objects, opioid-exposed infants failed to exhibit similar sensitivity. Most critically, combined analyses of data of performance on both social and non-social stimuli indicate a general difference in performance such that opioid-exposed infants’ novelty preference scores are lower than non-exposed infants’ scores. These results indicate differences between opioid-exposed and non-exposed infants’ early development and suggests that spatial processing is a mechanism for the compromise of intellectual development

Factors relating to the uptake of interventions for smoking cessation amongst pregnant women: a systematic review and qualitative synthesis

Introduction The review had the aim of investigating factors enabling or discouraging the uptake of smoking cessation services by pregnant women smokers. Methods The literature was searched for papers relating to the delivery of services to pregnant or recently pregnant women who smoke. No restrictions were placed on study design. A qualitative synthesis strategy was adopted to analyse the included papers. Results Analysis and synthesis of the 23 included papers suggested ten aspects of service delivery that may have an influence on the uptake of interventions. These were: whether or not the subject of smoking is broached by a health professional; the content of advice and information provided; the manner of communication; having service protocols; follow-up discussion; staff confidence in their skills; the impact of time and resource constraints; staff perceptions of ineffectiveness; differences between professionals; and obstacles to accessing interventions. Discussion The findings suggest variation in practice between services and different professional groups, in particular regarding the recommendation of quitting smoking versus cutting down, but also in regard to procedural aspects such as recording status and repeat advice giving. These differences offer the potential for a pregnant woman to receive contradicting advice. The review suggests a need for greater training in this area and the greater use of protocols, with evidence of a perception of ineffectiveness/pessimism towards intervention amongst some service providers

Testing longwave radiation parameterizations under clear and overcast skies at Storglaciären, Sweden

Energy balance based glacier melt models require accurate estimates of incoming longwave radiation but direct measurements are often not available. Multi-year near-surface meteorological data from Storglaciären, Northern Sweden, were used to evaluate commonly used longwave radiation parameterizations in a glacier environment under clear-sky and all-sky conditions. Parameterizations depending solely on air temperature performed worse than those which include water vapor pressure. All models tended to overestimate incoming longwave radiation during periods of low longwave radiation, while incoming longwave was underestimated when radiation was high. Under all-sky conditions root mean square error (RMSE) and mean bias error (MBE) were 17 to 20 W m<sup>−2</sup> and −5 to 1 W m<sup>−2</sup>, respectively. Two attempts were made to circumvent the need of cloud cover data. First cloud fraction was parameterized as a function of the ratio, τ, of measured incoming shortwave radiation and calculated top of atmosphere radiation. Second, τ was related directly to the cloud factor (i.e. the increase in sky emissivity due to clouds). Despite large scatter between τ and both cloud fraction and the cloud factor, resulting calculations of hourly incoming longwave radiation for both approaches were only slightly more variable with RMSE roughly 3 W m<sup>−2</sup> larger compared to using cloud observations as input. This is promising for longwave radiation modeling in areas where shortwave radiation data are available but cloud observations are not

Mechanisms and Observations of Coronal Dimming for the 2010 August 7 Event

Coronal dimming of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) emission has the potential to be a useful forecaster of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). As emitting material leaves the corona, a temporary void is left behind which can be observed in spectral images and irradiance measurements. The velocity and mass of the CMEs should impact the character of those observations. However, other physical processes can confuse the observations. We describe these processes and the expected observational signature, with special emphasis placed on the differences. We then apply this understanding to a coronal dimming event with an associated CME that occurred on 2010 August 7. Data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory's (SDO) Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and EUV Variability Experiment (EVE) are used for observations of the dimming, while the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory's (SOHO) Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) and the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory's (STEREO) COR1 and COR2 are used to obtain velocity and mass estimates for the associated CME. We develop a technique for mitigating temperature effects in coronal dimming from full-disk irradiance measurements taken by EVE. We find that for this event, nearly 100% of the dimming is due to mass loss in the corona

Exploring the relationship between baseline physical activity levels and mortality reduction associated with increases in physical activity : a modelling study

Background Increasing physical activity (PA) levels among the general adult population of developed nations is important for reducing premature mortality and the burdens of preventable illness. Assessing how effective PA interventions are as health interventions often involves categorising participants as either ‘active’ or ‘sedentary’ after the interventions. A model was developed showing that doing this could significantly misestimate the health effect of PA interventions. Methods A life table model was constructed combining evidence on baseline PA levels with evidence indicating the non-linear relationship between PA levels and all-cause mortality risks. PA intervention scenarios were modelled which had the same mean increase in PA but different levels of take-up by people who were more active or more sedentary to begin with. Results The model simulations indicated that, compared with a scenario where already-active people did most of the additional PA, a scenario where the least active did the most additional PA was around a third more effective in preventing deaths between the ages of 50 and 60 years. The relationship between distribution of PA take-up and health effect was explored systematically and appeared non-linear. Conclusions As the health gains of a given PA increase are greatest among people who are most sedentary, smaller increases in PA in the least active may have the same health benefits as much larger PA increases in the most active. To help such health effects to be assessed, PA studies should report changes in the distribution of PA level between the start and end of the study

Development of an inducible mouse model of iRFP713 to track recombinase activity and tumour development in vivo

While the use of bioluminescent proteins for molecular imaging is a powerful technology to further our understanding of complex processes, fluorescent labeling with visible light fluorescent proteins such as GFP and RFP suffers from poor tissue penetration and high background autofluorescence. To overcome these limitations, we generated an inducible knock-in mouse model of iRFP713. This model was used to assess Cre activity in a Rosa Cre-ER background and quantify Cre activity upon different tamoxifen treatments in several organs. We also show that iRFP can be readily detected in 3D organoid cultures, FACS analysis and in vivo tumour models. Taken together we demonstrate that iRFP713 is a progressive step in in vivo imaging and analysis that widens the optical imaging window to the near-infrared spectrum, thereby allowing deeper tissue penetration, quicker image acquisition without the need to inject substrates and a better signal to background ratio in genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs)