Towards a conflict account of déjà vu : the role of memory errors and memory expectation conflict in the experience of déjà vu

This work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) [grant number BB/M010996/1].Déjà vu can be defined as conflict between a subjective evaluation of familiarity and a concurrent evaluation of novelty. Accounts of the déjà vu experience have not explicitly referred to a “conflict account of déjà vu” despite the acceptance of conflict-based definitions of déjà vu and relatively recent neuroimaging work that has implicated brain areas associated with conflict as underpinning the experience. Conflict monitoring functioning follows a similar age-related trajectory to déjà vu with a peak in young adulthood and a subsequent age-related decline. In this narrative review of the literature to date, we consider how déjà vu is defined and how this has influenced the understanding of déjà vu. We also review how déjà vu can be understood within theories of recognition memory and cognitive control. Finally, we summarise the conflict account of déjà vu and propose that this account of the experience may provide a coherent explanation as to why déjà vu experiences tend to decrease with age in the non-clinical population.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Changes in the relationship between self-reference and emotional valence as a function of dysphoria

The self-positivity bias is found to be an aspect of normal cognitive function. Changes in this bias are usually associated with changes in emotional states, such as dysphoria or depression. The aim of the present study was to clarify the role of emotional valence within self-referential processing. By asking non-dysphoric and dysphoric individuals to rate separately the emotional and self-referential content of a set of 240 words, it was possible to identify the differences in the relationship between self-reference and emotional valence, which are associated with dysphoria. The results support the existence of the self-positivity bias in non-dysphoric individuals. More interestingly, dysphoric individuals were able to accurately identify the emotional content of the word stimuli. They failed, however, to associate this emotional valence with self-reference. These findings are discussed in terms of attributional self-biases and their consequences for cognition

Credit bureaus between risk-management, creditworthiness assessment and prudential supervision

"This text may be downloaded for personal research purposes only. Any additional reproduction for other purposes, whether in hard copy or electronically, requires the consent of the author. If cited or quoted, reference should be made to the full name of the author, the title, the working paper or other series, the year, and the publisher."This paper discusses the role and operations of consumer Credit Bureaus in the European Union in the context of the economic theories, policies and law within which they work. Across Europe there is no common practice of sharing the credit data of consumers which can be used for several purposes. Mostly, they are used by the lending industry as a practice of creditworthiness assessment or as a risk-management tool to underwrite borrowing decisions or price risk. However, the type, breath, and depth of information differ greatly from country to country. In some Member States, consumer data are part of a broader information centralisation system for the prudential supervision of banks and the financial system as a whole. Despite EU rules on credit to consumers for the creation of the internal market, the underlying consumer data infrastructure remains fragmented at national level, failing to achieve univocal, common, or defined policy objectives under a harmonised legal framework. Likewise, the establishment of the Banking Union and the prudential supervision of the Euro area demand standardisation and convergence of the data used to measure debt levels, arrears, and delinquencies. The many functions and usages of credit data suggest that the policy goals to be achieved should inform the legal and institutional framework of Credit Bureaus, as well as the design and use of the databases. This is also because fundamental rights and consumer protection concerns arise from the sharing of credit data and their expanding use

Measuring Gravito-magnetic Effects by Multi Ring-Laser Gyroscope

We propose an under-ground experiment to detect the general relativistic effects due to the curvature of space-time around the Earth (de Sitter effect) and to rotation of the planet (dragging of the inertial frames or Lense-Thirring effect). It is based on the comparison between the IERS value of the Earth rotation vector and corresponding measurements obtained by a tri-axial laser detector of rotation. The proposed detector consists of six large ring-lasers arranged along three orthogonal axes. In about two years of data taking, the 1% sensitivity required for the measurement of the Lense-Thirring drag can be reached with square rings of 6 $m$ side, assuming a shot noise limited sensitivity ($20 prad/s/\sqrt{Hz}$). The multi-gyros system, composed of rings whose planes are perpendicular to one or the other of three orthogonal axes, can be built in several ways. Here, we consider cubic and octahedron structures. The symmetries of the proposed configurations provide mathematical relations that can be used to study the stability of the scale factors, the relative orientations or the ring-laser planes, very important to get rid of systematics in long-term measurements, which are required in order to determine the relativistic effects.Comment: 24 pages, 26 Postscript figure

Drugs in early clinical development for the treatment of osteosarcoma

Introduction: Osteosarcomas are the main malignant primary bone tumours found in children and young adults. Conventional treatment is based on diagnosis and resection surgery, combined with polychemotherapy. This is a protocol that was established in the 1970s. Unfortunately, this therapeutic approach has reached a plateau of efficacy and the patient survival rate has not improved in the last four decades. New therapeutic approaches are thus required to improve the prognosis for osteosarcoma patients. Areas covered: From the databases available and published scientific literature, the present review gives an overview of the drugs currently in early clinical development for the treatment of osteosarcoma. For each drug, a short description is given of the relevant scientific data supporting its development. Expert opinion: Multidrug targeted approaches are set to emerge, given the heterogeneity of osteosarcoma subtypes and the multitude of therapeutic responses. The key role played by the microenvironment in the disease increases the number of therapeutic targets (such as macrophages or osteoclasts), as well as the master proteins that control cell proliferation or cell death. Ongoing phase I/II trials are important steps, not only for identifying new therapies with greater safety and efficacy, but also for better defining the role played by the microenvironment in the pathogenesis of osteosarcoma

Measurement of χ c1 and χ c2 production with s√ = 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

The prompt and non-prompt production cross-sections for the χ c1 and χ c2 charmonium states are measured in pp collisions at s√ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using 4.5 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. The χ c states are reconstructed through the radiative decay χ c → J/ψγ (with J/ψ → μ + μ −) where photons are reconstructed from γ → e + e − conversions. The production rate of the χ c2 state relative to the χ c1 state is measured for prompt and non-prompt χ c as a function of J/ψ transverse momentum. The prompt χ c cross-sections are combined with existing measurements of prompt J/ψ production to derive the fraction of prompt J/ψ produced in feed-down from χ c decays. The fractions of χ c1 and χ c2 produced in b-hadron decays are also measured

Oxidative stress biomarkers and acetylcholinesterase activity in human erythrocytes exposed to clomazone (in vitro)

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of clomazone herbicide on oxidative stress biomarkers and acetylcholinesterase activity in human erythrocytes in in vitro conditions. The activity of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE), as well as the levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and reduced glutathione (GSH) were measured in human erythrocytes exposed (in vitro) to clomazone at varying concentrations in the range of 0, 100, 250 and 500 µg/L for 1 h at 37 °C.TBARS levels were significantly higher in erythrocytes incubated with clomazone at 100, 250 and 500 µg/L. However, erythrocyte CAT and AChE activities were decreased at all concentrations tested. SOD activity was increased only at 100 µg/L of clomazone. GSH levels did not change with clomazone exposure. These results clearly showed clomazone to induce oxidative stress and AChE inhibition in human erythrocytes (in vitro). We, thus, suggest a possible role of ROS on toxicity mechanism induced by clomazone in humans

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30