Man’s Underground Best Friend: Domestic Ferrets, Unlike the Wild Forms, Show Evidence of Dog-Like Social-Cognitive Skills

Recent research has shown that dogs’ possess surprisingly sophisticated human-like social communication skills compared to wolves or chimpanzees. The effects of domestication on the emergence of socio-cognitive skills, however, are still highly debated. One way to investigate this is to compare socialized individuals from closely related domestic and wild species. In the present study we tested domestic ferrets (Mustela furo) and compared their performance to a group of wild Mustela hybrids and to domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). We found that, in contrast to wild Mustela hybrids, both domestic ferrets and dogs tolerated eye-contact for a longer time when facing their owners versus the experimenter and they showed a preference in a two-way choice task towards their owners. Furthermore, domestic ferrets, unlike the wild hybrids, were able to follow human directional gestures (sustained touching; momentary pointing) and could reach the success rate of dogs. Our study provides the first evidence that domestic ferrets, in a certain sense, are more dog-like than their wild counterparts. These findings support the hypothesis that domestic species may share basic socio-cognitive skills that enable them to engage in effectively orchestrated social interactions with humans

Oxytocin and social pretreatment have similar effects on processing of negative emotional faces in healthy adult males

Oxytocin has been shown to affect several aspects of human social cognition, including facial emotion processing. There is also evidence that social stimuli (such as eye-contact) can effectively modulate endogenous oxytocin levels. In the present study we directly tested whether intranasal oxytocin administration and pre-treatment with social stimuli had similar effects on face processing at the behavioral level. Subjects (N = 52 healthy adult males) were presented with a set of faces with expressions of different valence (negative, neutral, positive) following different types of pretreatment (oxytocin—OT or placebo—PL and social interaction—Soc or no social interaction—NSoc, N = 13 in each) and were asked to rate all faces for perceived emotion and trustworthiness. On the next day subjects' recognition memory was tested on a set of neutral faces and additionally they had to again rate each face for trustworthiness and emotion. Subjects in both the OT and the Soc pretreatment group (as compared to the PL and to the NSoc groups) gave higher emotion and trustworthiness scores for faces with negative emotional expression. Moreover, 24 h later, subjects in the OT and Soc groups (unlike in control groups) gave lower trustworthiness scores for previously negative faces, than for faces previously seen as emotionally neutral or positive. In sum these results provide the first direct evidence of the similar effects of intranasal oxytocin administration and social stimulation on the perception of negative facial emotions as well as on the delayed recall of negative emotional information

The effect of the owner’ s personality on the behaviour of owner-dog dyads

We describe the relationships between dog owners’ personality attributes (assessed via questionnaire), their behaviours and the dog’s behaviours observed during brief dog-owner and dog-stranger interactions (N = 78). Interactions comprised the owner commanding the dog to sit, and the stranger showing a ball to the restrained dog and then hiding it. Owners scoring higher on neuroticism and openness used more commands (gestural and verbal) when asking the dog to sit, and the dogs of owners higher on neuroticism obeyed with a longer latency and spent more time looking at the stranger. More extraverted owners praised their dog more, and it took longer for their dogs to look at the stranger but they spent more time looking at the stranger, whereas dogs of more agreeable owners spent more time looking at the ball. Based on these results we conclude that some aspects of owners’ personality appear to be tied to their dog’s attentional concerns

Consistent Poverty across the EU

This paper investigates consistent poverty defined as living at the risk of both income poverty and material deprivation. Using EU-SILC data from 2012, we analyze patterns of consistent poverty across EU member states and in the main individual and household-level factors predicting this status. According to our results, consistent poverty is present in all Member States, although its extent displays fairly large cross-country differences. The share of those living in consistent poverty is highest in the New Member States and the Southern countries. Living in consistent poverty is associated with several household characteristics. Those living in consistent poverty are more likely than those in severe material deprivation or income poverty to live in bigger families, to have lower levels of education, and to have weak or non-existent links to the labor market. In addition, they evaluate their financial circumstances as being worse, ceteris paribus

Kutya, ember, csimpánz: Kognitív szempontok a fajok kommunikációs eltéréseinek értelmezésében

Az emberré válás evolúciós folyamatának egyik kulcsfontosságú tényezője, hogy a változó környezeti feltételek között fellépő alkalmazkodási kényszerek a hominidák szociális és kognitív képességeit olyan speciális fejlődési pályára állították (Csányi 2003), amelynek egyenes következménye volt egy szociális, fejlett kommunikációra és nyelvhasználatra képes faj, a Homo sapiens megjelenése (Szathmáry–Számadó 2008; Topál 2010). Annak érdekében, hogymegtudjuk, kommunikációs rendszerünk és egyéb kognitív képességeink mely aspektusai azok, amelyek specifikusan az emberi evolúció folyamán jelentek meg, elengedhetetlen az összehasonlító megközelítés, amely filogenetikai rokonainkat, a csimpánzokat (és más főemlősöket) vizsgálja. Továbbá fontos egy, az emberi környezetben élő és ahhoz evolúciós léptékben alkalmazkodott faj, amilyen a kutya, vizsgálata is, amely rávilágít, hogy ökológiai környezetünk és az ezzel járó szelekciós hatások milyen képességekmegjelenéséhez vezetnek

Temperature characteristics over the Carpathian Basin ‐ projected changes of climate indices at regional and local scale based on bias‐adjusted CORDEX simulations

The present research focuses on temperature change signals over the Carpathian Basin with a special focus on selected lowland and mountainous subregions. High-resolution (0.11 degrees) EURO-and Med-CORDEX regional climate model (RCM) simulations of near-surface air temperature are analysed based on raw and bias-adjusted data. The mini-ensemble consists of eight RCM simulations driven by five different general circulation models for the period 1976-2099 under the high-end RCP8.5 scenario. The high-resolution, homogenized and quality controlled CARPATCLIM was used as a reference dataset. The selected subregions cover eight municipalities located at diverse altitudes: Bratislava, Budapest, Brassov, Debrecen, Hoverla, Novi Sad, Pecs and Poprad. The following climate indices are assessed: summer days, ice days, frost days, tropical nights, the coldest day, the warmest day, the coldest night and the warmest night. In general, for the reference period (1976-2005) bias adjusted RCM data showed almost perfect match with observations. Accordingly, no best performing RCM is found for all indices. The ensemble mean of the bias-adjusted RCM simulations projects an increase (decrease) of 32% and 112% (18% and 25%) in the annual number of summer days and tropical nights (frost days and ice days) for the period 2021-2050. For 2070-2099 we can expect more frequent tropical nights (about five times) with respect to the reference period and the frequency of frost days can be halved. Profound warming manifests in the increase of the warmest temperature of day of up to 2-3 degrees C by the near future and of 5-7 degrees C by the end of the 21st century, which means the absolute maximum temperature can reach 44-47 degrees C for the period 2070-2099. Our results also highlight the need for bias-adjusted data adapted by different sectors (human health, agriculture, transport, disaster management, heritage conservation) under the national adaptation strategies

Differences in dogs’ event-related potentials in response to human and dog vocal stimuli; a non-invasive study

Recent advances in the field of canine neuro-cognition allow for the non-invasive research of brain mechanisms in family dogs. Considering the striking similarities between dog's and human (infant)'s socio-cognition at the behavioural level, both similarities and differences in neural background can be of particular relevance. The current study investigates brain responses of n = 17 family dogs to human and conspecific emotional vocalizations using a fully non-invasive event-related potential (ERP) paradigm. We found that similarly to humans, dogs show a differential ERP response depending on the species of the caller, demonstrated by a more positive ERP response to human vocalizations compared to dog vocalizations in a time window between 250 and 650 ms after stimulus onset. A later time window between 800 and 900 ms also revealed a valence-sensitive ERP response in interaction with the species of the caller. Our results are, to our knowledge, the first ERP evidence to show the species sensitivity of vocal neural processing in dogs along with indications of valence sensitive processes in later post-stimulus time periods.publishedVersio

Light Generation and Harvesting in a Van der Waals Heterostructure

Two-dimensional (2D) materials are a new type of materials under intense study because of their interesting physical properties and wide range of potential applications from nanoelectronics to sensing and photonics. Monolayers of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides MoS2 or WSe2 have been proposed as promising channel materials for field-effect transistors (FETs). Their high mechanical flexibility, stability and quality coupled with potentially inexpensive production methods offer potential advantages compared to organic and crystalline bulk semiconductors. Due to quantum mechanical confinement, the band gap in monolayer MoS2 is direct in nature, leading to a strong interaction with light that can be exploited for building phototransistors and ultrasensitive photodetectors. Here, we report on the realization of light-emitting diodes based on vertical heterojunctions composed of n-type monolayer MoS2 and p-type silicon. Careful interface engineering allows us to realize diodes showing rectification and light emission from the entire surface of the heterojunction. Electroluminescence spectra show clear signs of direct excitons related to the optical transitions between the conduction and valence bands. Our pn diodes can also operate as solar cells, with typical external quantum efficiency exceeding 4%. Our work opens up the way to more sophisticated optoelectronic devices such as lasers and heterostructure solar cells based on hybrids of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors and silicon.Comment: Submitted versio