The role of automaticity and attention in neural processes underlying empathy for happiness, sadness, and anxiety.

Although many studies have examined the neural basis of empathy, relatively little is known about how empathic processes are affected by different attentional conditions. Thus, we examined whether instructions to empathize might amplify responses in empathy-related regions and whether cognitive load would diminish the involvement of these regions. Thirty-two participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging session assessing empathic responses to individuals experiencing happy, sad, and anxious events. Stimuli were presented under three conditions: watching naturally, actively empathizing, and under cognitive load. Across analyses, we found evidence for a core set of neural regions that support empathic processes (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, DMPFC; medial prefrontal cortex, MPFC; temporoparietal junction, TPJ; amygdala; ventral anterior insula, AI; and septal area, SA). Two key regions-the ventral AI and SA-were consistently active across all attentional conditions, suggesting that they are automatically engaged during empathy. In addition, watching vs. empathizing with targets was not markedly different and instead led to similar subjective and neural responses to others' emotional experiences. In contrast, cognitive load reduced the subjective experience of empathy and diminished neural responses in several regions related to empathy and social cognition (DMPFC, MPFC, TPJ, and amygdala). The results reveal how attention impacts empathic processes and provides insight into how empathy may unfold in everyday interactions

The Balancing Act: Ecological Interventions and Decision Tradeoffs to Preserve Wilderness Character

Global climate change, land use intensification and increasing development are impacting federal wildernesses in new and unprecedented ways. Ecological restoration is one tool that that wilderness managers are using to combat degradation, though the decision to intervene in wilderness is complicated by the Wilderness Act’s legal mandate to preserve wilderness character and demonstrate managerial restraint. The purpose of this study is to document a baseline of ecological interventions that have occurred in the NWPS over the last five years, and to understand how wilderness managers make decisions related to ecological interventions. I sent a quantitative survey to over five hundred wilderness units to understand the type and degree of interventions taken, and used semi-structured interviews with twelve managers to understand intervention decision-making processes. This is the first study to document the breadth and depth of ecological interventions currently being implemented across the NWPS, and to reveal details about specific intervention proposals including the factors that influenced the decision, the efficacy of the intervention, and the proposer of the project. Results show that wilderness managers are tentative and conflicted about intervening in wilderness, yet management inertia leads to the acceptance of intervention as a wilderness preservation tool. Ecological interventions occurred in 37% of the wilderness units sampled, with the greatest proportion of interventions by agency from the National Park Service. This research highlights a need for consistent approaches to vetting ecological intervention proposals, and for greater agency accountability in documenting interventions. A publically-accessible collection of case studies could create a community of practice for wilderness stewards, while emphasizing best practices for interventions in wilderness

Reflections and Legacies

Adjustment to old age poses special problems. It requires an acceptance of being old and restructuring one\u27s life around decreasing energy and body resources. Old age is neither inherently miserable nor inherently sublime - like every stage of life, it has problems, joys, fears, and potentials. 1 What is it like for an older woman as she experiences physical, emotional, and social changes? For purposes of this study, twenty-five women ranging in age from 67 through 88 were interviewed either individually, in dyads, or in groups. Each woman was presented with the same basic information: the author was interested in and doing a study about what it means to be an older woman. They were asked to comment on body image, feelings, community changes, relationship patterns with friends and spouse, and any other experiences both positive and negative in their past, present, or future as they anticipate it

Carbon fiber plume sampling for large scale fire tests at Dugway Proving Ground

Carbon fiber sampling instruments were developed: passive collectors made of sticky bridal veil mesh, and active instruments using a light emitting diode (LED) source. These instruments measured the number or number rate of carbon fibers released from carbon/graphite composite material when the material was burned in a 10.7 m (35 ft) dia JP-4 pool fire for approximately 20 minutes. The instruments were placed in an array suspended from a 305 m by 305 m (1000 ft by 1000 ft) Jacob's Ladder net held vertically aloft by balloons and oriented crosswind approximately 140 meters downwind of the pool fire. Three tests were conducted during which released carbon fiber data were acquired. These data were reduced and analyzed to obtain the characteristics of the released fibers including their spatial and size distributions and estimates of the number and total mass of fibers released. The results of the data analyses showed that 2.5 to 3.5 x 10 to the 8th power single carbon fibers were released during the 20 minute burn of 30 to 50 kg mass of initial, unburned carbon fiber material. The mass released as single carbon fibers was estimated to be between 0.1 and 0.2% of the initial, unburned fiber mass

Non-adiabatic pumping in an oscillating-piston model

We consider the prototypical "piston pump" operating on a ring, where a circulating current is induced by means of an AC driving. This can be regarded as a generalized Fermi-Ulam model, incorporating a finite-height moving wall (piston) and non trivial topology (ring). The amount of particles transported per cycle is determined by a layered structure of phase-space. Each layer is characterized by a different drift velocity. We discuss the differences compared with the adiabatic and Boltzmann pictures, and highlight the significance of the "diabatic" contribution that might lead to a counter-stirring effect.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, improved versio