Music, Pleasure, and Meaning: The Hedonic and Eudaimonic Motivations for Music (HEMM) Scale

Many people listen to music that conveys challenging emotions such as sadness and anger, despite the commonly assumed purpose of media being to elicit pleasure. We propose that eudaimonic motivation, the desire to engage with aesthetic experiences to be challenged and facilitate meaningful experiences, can explain why people listen to music containing such emotions. However, it is unknown whether music containing violent themes can facilitate such meaningful experiences. In this investigation, three studies were conducted to determine the implications of eudaimonic and hedonic (pleasure-seeking) motivations for fans of music with violent themes. In Study 1, we developed and tested a new scale and showed that fans exhibit high levels of both types of motivation. Study 2 further validated the new scale and provided evidence that the two types of motivations are associated with different affective outcomes. Study 3 revealed that fans of violently themed music exhibited higher levels of eudaimonic motivation and lower levels of hedonic motivation than fans of non-violently themed music. Taken together, the findings support the notion that fans of music with violent themes are driven to engage with this music to be challenged and to pursue meaning, as well as to experience pleasure. Implications for fans’ well-being and future applications of the new measure are discussed.</p

Intrinsic Rewards for Maintenance, Approach, Avoidance and Achievement Goal Types

In reinforcement learning, reward is used to guide the learning process. The reward is often designed to be task-dependent, and it may require significant domain knowledge to design a good reward function. This paper proposes general reward functions for maintenance, approach, avoidance, and achievement goal types. These reward functions exploit the inherent property of each type of goal and are thus task-independent. We also propose metrics to measure an agent's performance for learning each type of goal. We evaluate the intrinsic reward functions in a framework that can autonomously generate goals and learn solutions to those goals using a standard reinforcement learning algorithm. We show empirically how the proposed reward functions lead to learning in a mobile robot application. Finally, using the proposed reward functions as building blocks, we demonstrate how compound reward functions, reward functions to generate sequences of tasks, can be created that allow the mobile robot to learn more complex behaviors

Staying well connected - Lithistid sponges on seamounts

Three species of lithistid sponges, Neoaulaxinia zingiberadix, Isabella mirabilis and Neoschrammeniella fulvodesmus were collected from deep seamounts off New Caledonia to address questions about their population structure, gene flow and the relative contribution of sexual and asexual reproductive strategies to their populations. The sponges were tested by sequencing the ITS (internal transcribed spacer) and CO1 regions of their genomes. These rare and presumably ancient sponges have a distribution restricted to seamounts in the south-western Pacific. Deep seamounts represent geographically separated islands. Although the sponges could be expected to have sexual reproduction restricted to near neighbours due to low sexual dispersal opportunities via larvae, this study found surprisingly high levels of gene flow between the seamounts. Amongst the specimens of N. zingiberadix taken from two seamounts there was no population structure;CO1 resulted in identical genotypes. For the population structure within N. fulvodesmus, as revealed by ITS, most of the variation was within each individual from the six seamounts on which it occurred and CO1 revealed no difference between individuals or seamounts. The third species I. mirabilis showed four genotypes based on CO1, which were distributed across all the seamounts. Indirect measures of different species showed a range of reproductive strategies from asexual to sexual, but with much higher connection between seamounts than previously thought. Individual seamounts did not show a separate population structure as one might expect from 'islands'. The conclusion must be that these sponges have mechanisms to attain greater dispersal than previously thought

Passion, music, and psychological well-being

Passionate music engagement is a defining feature of music fans worldwide. Although benefits to psychosocial well-being are often experienced by fans of music, some fans experience maladaptive outcomes from their music engagement. The Dualistic Model of Passion proposes that two types of passion—harmonious and obsessive—are associated with positive and negative outcomes of passionate engagement, respectively. This model has been employed in research on passion for a wide range of pursuits including music performers, but not for passionate listeners. The present study employed this model to investigate whether (1) harmonious passion for music is associated with positive music listening experiences and/or psychological well-being and (2) obsessive passion for music is associated with negative music listening experiences and/or psychological ill-being. Passionate fans (n = 197) of 40 different musical genres were surveyed about their experiences when listening to their favorite music. Measures included the passion scale, affective experiences with music, and psychological well-being and ill-being. Results supported the Dualistic Model of Passion. Structural equation modeling revealed that harmonious passion for music predicted positive affective experiences which, in turn, predicted psychological well-being. Conversely, obsessive passion for music predicted negative affective experiences which, in turn, predicted psychological ill-being. The findings suggest that the nature of passionate engagement with music has an integral role in the psychological impact of music engagement and implications for the well-being of music fans.</p

Hospitalization of Children with Down Syndrome

INTRODUCTION: Children with Down syndrome present with multiple medical problems in a higher prevalence compared with the general population, which may lead to hospitalizations. METHODS: Analysis of 560 hospitalizations of 162 children aged 0-16 years with Down syndrome at Hadassah Medical Center during the years 1988-2007 compared with data on children in the general population, hospitalized at the same period. Data was collected from patient files and statistical data from the Ministry of Health. RESULTS: Respiratory infections were the leading cause for hospitalization of children with Down syndrome. The number of hospitalizations of children with Down syndrome compared to the number of all children, who were hospitalized was surprisingly similar to their proportion in the general population. Eleven children died during their hospitalization (five heart failure, three sepsis, one respiratory tract infection, and one due to complication after surgery). Nine of the 11 had a congenital heart anomaly. CONCLUSION: Children with Down syndrome can present with complex medical issues and we support the concept of a multidisciplinary team that has experience and knowledge to serve as a one stop shop for these individuals and their families, with timely visits in which a comprehensive evaluation is performed, problems attended to and prevention plans applied. In this way, we may prevent morbidity, hospitalizations, and mortality

Topographical and seasonal trends in transpiration by two co-occurring Eucalyptus species during two contrasting years in a low rainfall environment

Understanding the strategies that confer resilience on natural woodlands in drought prone environments is important for the conservation of these and similar ecosystems. Our main aim in this 2-year study was to assess traits (sapwood area, sapwood density and leaf area index) that control transpiration in Eucalyptus camaldulensis and E. microcarpa in a natural forest in which topographical variation created surface soils of sandy clay in a depression (clay-zone) and of loamy sand underlain by a dense profile on the terraces (sand-zone). The clay-zone had a wetter profile due to extra water supply through subsurface lateral flow from the adjoining, topographically higher, sand-zone. In the clay-zone, the differences between the two tree species in their hydraulic attributes were large and rates of water use were widely divergent. Rates of transpiration per unit land area (Ec) and canopy conductance of E. camaldulensis that was dominant in the clay-zone were about 50% lower than those for E. microcarpa in the same zone. This was in marked contrast to the behavior of trees growing in the sand-zone where water availability was persistently low and variations in sapwood density, sapwood area and canopy conductance were narrow. This resulted in almost identical rates of water use for the two species in the sand-zone, despite E. microcarpa dominating the stand. Contrary to many previous studies, sapwood density was positively correlated with Ec in these eucalypt species, while the proportion of trunk area assigned to sapwood declined with sapwood density. Consequently in this low rainfall environment, with prolonged dry seasons, dense sapwood safeguards against turgor loss, and possibly xylem embolism, thereby allowing Ec to be sustained under extremely low soil-water availability. We concluded that variation in hydraulic traits is less likely where trees are under persistent water-stress than where the stress is short and relatively mild. We developed single functions for predicting Ec for the two species by integrating their responses to micrometeorological and soil-water conditions. © 2010

Substratum selection in coral reef sponges and their interactions with other benthic organisms

Substratum preferences and contact interactions among sessile organisms can be a major determinant of biotic gradients in the structure of benthic communities on coral reefs. Sponges are a substantial component of these communities, but their substratum requirements and interactions with other benthic taxa are poorly understood. Here, we quantified sponge substratum preferences and interactions from 838 randomly selected photo-quadrats across different depths (5, 10 and 15 m), exposure (sheltered and exposed), and substratum topography (horizontal, inclined and vertical surfaces) on coastal coral reefs in Kimbe Bay. A high proportion (55%) of sponge colonies were associated with dead coral, unconsolidated coral rubble (7%) and calcium carbonate rock (CaCO3 rock) (7%), even though they represented only 10%, 4% and 1% of the available substratum, respectively. Sponges interacted most frequently with algae (~ 34%), corals (~ 30%) and crustose coralline algae (CCA ~ 19%) that represented ~ 46%, ~ 18% and ~ 14% of the substratum cover, respectively. The microhabitat preferences of sponges and frequency of interactions with other taxa were mostly consistent across various exposure, depth and substratum topography conditions. Most interactions appeared to be “stand-offs” (71%) which are interactions with no clear winner or loser. However, when overgrowth occurred, sponges were usually winners, overgrowing corals (92%), CCA (81%) and macroalgae (65%). Three sponge species Dysidea sp1, Lamellodysidea cf. chlorea and Lamellodysidea chlorea accounted for 51% to 96% of the overgrowth of sponges over algae, corals and CCA, but there was no one species found to always win or lose. Our results suggest that sponges avoid other biological substrata by preferentially settling on dead coral, coral rubble and CaCO3 rock, but when they do come into contact with algae and corals, they frequently overgrow their spacial competitors

Photoluminescence spectroscopy of bandgap reduction in dilute InNAs alloys

Photoluminescence (PL) has been observed from dilute InNxAs1–x epilayers grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. The PL spectra unambiguously show band gap reduction with increasing N content. The variation of the PL spectra with temperature is indicative of carrier detrapping from localized to extended states as the temperature is increased. The redshift of the free exciton PL peak with increasing N content and temperature is reproduced by the band anticrossing model, implemented via a (5×5) k·p Hamiltonian

G-quadruplex DNA motifs in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum and their potential as novel antimalarial drug targets

G-quadruplexes are DNA or RNA secondary structures that can be formed from guanine-rich nucleic acids. These four-stranded structures, composed of stacked quartets of guanine bases, can be highly stable and have been demonstrated to occur in vivo in the DNA of human cells and other systems, where they play important biological roles, influencing processes such as telomere maintenance, DNA replication and transcription, or, in the case of RNA G-quadruplexes, RNA translation and processing. We report for the first time that DNA G-quadruplexes can be detected in the nuclei of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which has one of the most A/T-biased genomes sequenced and therefore possesses few guanine-rich sequences with the potential to form G-quadruplexes. We show that despite this paucity of putative G-quadruplex-forming sequences, P. falciparum parasites are sensitive to several G-quadruplex-stabilizing drugs, including quarfloxin, which previously reached phase 2 clinical trials as an anticancer drug. Quarfloxin has a rapid initial rate of kill and is active against ring stages as well as replicative stages of intraerythrocytic development. We show that several G-quadruplex-stabilizing drugs, including quarfloxin, can suppress the transcription of a G-quadruplex-containing reporter gene in P. falciparum but that quarfloxin does not appear to disrupt the transcription of rRNAs, which was proposed as its mode of action in both human cells and trypanosomes. These data suggest that quarfloxin has potential for repositioning as an antimalarial with a novel mode of action. Furthermore, G-quadruplex biology in P. falciparum may present a target for development of other new antimalarial drugs