Short-Term Memory Maintenance of Object Locations during Active Navigation: Which Working Memory Subsystem Is Essential?

The goal of the present study was to examine the extent to which working memory supports the maintenance of object locations during active spatial navigation. Participants were required to navigate a virtual environment and to encode the location of a target object. In the subsequent maintenance period they performed one of three secondary tasks that were designed to selectively load visual, verbal or spatial working memory subsystems. Thereafter participants re-entered the environment and navigated back to the remembered location of the target. We found that while navigation performance in participants with high navigational ability was impaired only by the spatial secondary task, navigation performance in participants with poor navigational ability was impaired equally by spatial and verbal secondary tasks. The visual secondary task had no effect on navigation performance. Our results extend current knowledge by showing that the differential engagement of working memory subsystems is determined by navigational ability

Visuospatial working memory in children and adolescents with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome; an fMRI study

22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is a genetic disorder associated with a microdeletion of chromosome 22q11. In addition to high rates of neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, children with 22q11DS have a specific neuropsychological profile with particular deficits in visuospatial and working memory. However, the neurobiological substrate underlying these deficits is poorly understood. We investigated brain function during a visuospatial working memory (SWM) task in eight children with 22q11DS and 13 healthy controls, using fMRI. Both groups showed task-related activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and bilateral parietal association cortices. Controls activated parietal and occipital regions significantly more than those with 22q11DS but there was no significant between-group difference in DLPFC. In addition, while controls had a significant age-related increase in the activation of posterior brain regions and an age-related decrease in anterior regions, the 22q11DS children showed the opposite pattern. Genetically determined differences in the development of specific brain systems may underpin the cognitive deficits in 22q11DS, and may contribute to the later development of neuropsychiatric disorders

Progress and Research Needs of Plant Biomass Degradation by Basidiomycete Fungi

Peer reviewe

From short-term store to multicomponent working memory: The role of the modal model

The term “modal model” reflects the importance of Atkinson and Shiffrin’s paper in capturing the major developments in the cognitive psychology of memory that were achieved over the previous decade, providing an integrated framework that has formed the basis for many future developments. The fact that it is still the most cited model from that period some 50 years later has, we suggest, implications for the model itself and for theorising in psychology more generally. We review the essential foundations of the model before going on to discuss briefly the way in which one of its components, the short-term store, had influenced our own concept of a multicomponent working memory. This is followed by a discussion of recent claims that the concept of a short-term store be replaced by an interpretation in terms of activated long-term memory. We present several reasons to question these proposals. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of the longevity of the modal model for styles of theorising in cognitive psychology

Invariant means and actions of semitopological semigroups on completely regular spaces and applications

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S000497271200033

Impact of the Digitization of Teaching on Undergraduate Students as the Result of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Transitioning to Online Learning

The novel coronavirus pandemic has disrupted everyday life infrastructure andgreatly impacted educational systems worldwide in many ways. More specifically,Covid-19 confinement has significantly impacted students’ learning abilities andtheir academic performance as they adapt to remote learning. There are significantdifferences between online learning and a traditional face-to-face format. Pandemicinduced remote-learning negatively impacted students’ access to education, mostnotably, low-income minority students. This research study aimed to examine thechallenges students faced and the strategies they utilized to overcome them duringthe covid-19 transitioning to online learning. The investigation took place at theCity College of New York, an urban, minority-serving institute. The number ofresearch participants was 156 and our method of data collection comprised asurvey made up of Likert-type and open-ended questions. Our findings suggest thatstudents faced many challenges as a result of moving to online learning due tohousehold distractions, technology issues, lack of socialization and interaction withpeers and instructors, decreased motivation, increased feelings of isolation, andhigher difficulty level of assignments and examinations. We should highlight thatstudents found that online learning negatively impacted their mental health andincreased their anxiety levels around science courses. However, students alsoreported positive aspects of transitioning to online learning

Implementação de recursos computacionais para apoio ao processo logístico de coleta em castanhais.

Os agroextrativistas enfrentam dificuldades de locomoção e transporte por trabalharem coletando frutos em floresta natural, principalmente quando se trata de castanheiras. Para facilitar essa atividade, podem ser usados cabos aéreos móveis presos a árvores, possibilitando, assim, transportar os frutos sem a necessidade de força humana para carregá-los por longas distâncias. No entanto, ainda falta a disseminação e popularização das instruções e cálculos envolvidos. Com base nisso, foi proposto e desenvolvido um protótipo para dispositivos móveis com sistema operacional Android, usando a linguagem Dart e o framework Flutter, com o objetivo de fornecer informações referentes ao processo da ancoragem e realizar cálculos dos pontos de ancoragem com base nas coordenadas fornecidas manualmente no padrão UTM e Datum SIRGAS 2000

Osteophytes in the Cervical Vertebral Bodies (C3–C7)—Demographical Perspectives

Vertebral osteophytes are an age-dependent manifestation of degenerative changes in the spine. We aimed to determine the prevalence and severity of cervical osteophytosis in a large study population. To do so, we developed a grading system for osteophytosis, enabling the assessment of their presence and severity in the cervical spine, and applied it to the analysis of dried cervical vertebral bodies (C3?C7) from 273 individuals. Statistical analyses were carried out per motion segment, while testing for the effect of age, sex, and ethnicity. The highest prevalence of osteophytes was found in motion segment C5/C6 (48.2%), followed by C4/C5 (44.1%), and last C6/C7 and C3/C4 (40.5%). Severe osteophytes are most commonly seen in motion segment C5/C6. In all motion segments, the inferior discal surface of the upper vertebra manifests more osteophytes than the superior discal surface of the lower one. Osteophytes prevalence is sex-dependent only in the upper cervical vertebrae (C3?C4), and age- and ethnicity-dependent for all vertebrae