Effects of syntactic context on eye movements during reading

Previous research has demonstrated that properties of a currently fixated word and of adjacent words influence eye movement control in reading. In contrast to such local effects, little is known about the global effects on eye movement control, for example global adjustments caused by processing difficulty of previous sentences. In the present study, participants read text passages in which voice (active vs. passive) and sentence structure (embedded vs. non-embedded) were manipulated. These passages were followed by identical target sentences. The results revealed effects of previous sentence structure on gaze durations in the target sentence, implying that syntactic properties of previously read sentences may lead to a global adjustment of eye movement control

Low dose influenza virus challenge in the ferret leads to increased virus shedding and greater sensitivity to oseltamivir

Ferrets are widely used to study human influenza virus infection. Their airway physiology and cell receptor distribution makes them ideal for the analysis of pathogenesis and virus transmission, and for testing the efficacy of anti-influenza interventions and vaccines. The 2009 pandemic influenza virus (H1N1pdm09) induces mild to moderate respiratory disease in infected ferrets, following inoculation with 106 plaque-forming units (pfu) of virus. We have demonstrated that reducing the challenge dose to 102 pfu delays the onset of clinical signs by 1 day, and results in a modest reduction in clinical signs, and a less rapid nasal cavity innate immune response. There was also a delay in virus production in the upper respiratory tract, this was up to 9-fold greater and virus shedding was prolonged. Progression of infection to the lower respiratory tract was not noticeably delayed by the reduction in virus challenge. A dose of 104 pfu gave an infection that was intermediate between those of the 106 pfu and 102 pfu doses. To address the hypothesis that using a more authentic low challenge dose would facilitate a more sensitive model for antiviral efficacy, we used the well-known neuraminidase inhibitor, oseltamivir. Oseltamivir-treated and untreated ferrets were challenged with high (106 pfu) and low (102 pfu) doses of influenza H1N1pdm09 virus. The low dose treated ferrets showed significant delays in innate immune response and virus shedding, delayed onset of pathological changes in the nasal cavity, and reduced pathological changes and viral RNA load in the lung, relative to untreated ferrets. Importantly, these observations were not seen in treated animals when the high dose challenge was used. In summary, low dose challenge gives a disease that more closely parallels the disease parameters of human influenza infection, and provides an improved pre-clinical model for the assessment of influenza therapeutics, and potentially, influenza vaccines

Skilled deaf readers have an enhanced perceptual span in reading

Recent evidence suggests that, compared with hearing people, deaf people have enhanced visual attention to simple stimuli viewed in the parafovea and periphery. Although a large part of reading involves processing the fixated words in foveal vision, readers also utilize information in parafoveal vision to preprocess upcoming words and decide where to look next. In the study reported here, we investigated whether auditory deprivation affects low-level visual processing during reading by comparing the perceptual span of deaf signers who were skilled and less-skilled readers with the perceptual span of skilled hearing readers. Compared with hearing readers, the two groups of deaf readers had a larger perceptual span than would be expected given their reading ability. These results provide the first evidence that deaf readers' enhanced attentional allocation to the parafovea is used during complex cognitive tasks, such as reading

Anti-Stokes laser cooling in bulk Erbium-doped materials

We report the first observation of anti-Stokes laser-induced cooling in the Er^{3+}:KPb_{2}Cl_{5} crystal and in the Er^{3+}:CNBZn (CdF_{2}-CdCl_{2}-NaF-BaF_{2}-BaCl_{2}-ZnF_{2}) glass. The internal cooling efficiencies have been calculated by using photothermal deflection spectroscopy. Thermal scans acquired with an infrared thermal camera proved the bulk cooling capability of the studied samples. Implications of these results are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. The figures enclosed with this submission are low quality ones. Versions of this paper with high quality figures are available upon reques

Individual variation in levels of haptoglobin-related protein in children from Gabon

Background: Haptoglobin related protein (Hpr) is a key component of trypanosome lytic factors (TLF), a subset of highdensity lipoproteins (HDL) that form the first line of human defence against African trypanosomes. Hpr, like haptoglobin (Hp) can bind to hemoglobin (Hb) and it is the Hpr-Hb complexes which bind to these parasites allowing uptake of TLF. This unique form of innate immunity is primate-specific. To date, there have been no population studies of plasma levels of Hpr, particularly in relation to hemolysis and a high prevalence of ahaptoglobinemia as found in malaria endemic areas. Methods and Principal Findings: We developed a specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to measure levels of plasma Hpr in Gabonese children sampled during a period of seasonal malaria transmission when acute phase responses (APR), malaria infection and associated hemolysis were prevalent. Median Hpr concentration was 0.28 mg/ml (range 0.03-1.1). This was 5-fold higher than that found in Caucasian children (0.049 mg/ml, range 0.002-0.26) with no evidence of an APR. A general linear model was used to investigate associations between Hpr levels, host polymorphisms, parasitological factors and the acute phase proteins, Hp, C-reactive protein (CRP) and albumin. Levels of Hpr were associated with Hp genotype, decreased with age and were higher in females. Hpr concentration was strongly correlated with that of Hp, but not CRP

Enhanced warming over the global subtropical western boundary currents

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature Climate Change 2 (2012): 161-166, doi:10.1038/nclimate1353.Subtropical western boundary currents are warm, fast flowing currents that form on the western side of ocean basins. They carry warm tropical water to the mid-latitudes and vent large amounts of heat and moisture to the atmosphere along their paths, affecting atmospheric jet streams and mid-latitude storms, as well as ocean carbon uptake. The possibility that these highly energetic and nonlinear currents might change under greenhouse gas forcing has raised significant concerns, but detecting such changes is challenging owing to limited observations. Here, using reconstructed sea surface temperature datasets and newly developed century-long ocean and atmosphere reanalysis products, we find that the post-1900 surface ocean warming rate over the path of these currents is two to three times faster than the global mean surface ocean warming rate. The accelerated warming is associated with a synchronous poleward shift and/or intensification of global subtropical western boundary currents in conjunction with a systematic change in winds over both hemispheres. This enhanced warming may reduce ocean's ability to absorb anthropogenic carbon dioxide over these regions. However, uncertainties in detection and attribution of these warming trends remain, pointing to a need for a long-term monitoring network of the global western boundary currents and their extensions.This work is supported by China National Key Basic Research Project (2007CB411800) and National Natural Science Foundation Projects (40788002, 40921004). WC is supported by the Australian Climate Change Science program and the Southeast Australia Climate Initiative. HN is supported in part by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology through Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas #2205 and by the Japanese Ministry of Environment through Global Environment Research Fund (S-5). MJM is supported by NOAA’s Climate Program Office.2012-07-2

The programming of sequences of saccades

Saccadic eye movements move the high-resolution fovea to point at regions of interest. Saccades can only be generated serially (i.e., one at a time). However, what remains unclear is the extent to which saccades are programmed in parallel (i.e., a series of such moments can be planned together) and how far ahead such planning occurs. In the current experiment, we investigate this issue with a saccade contingent preview paradigm. Participants were asked to execute saccadic eye movements in response to seven small circles presented on a screen. The extent to which participants were given prior information about target locations was varied on a trial-by-trial basis: participants were aware of the location of the next target only, the next three, five, or all seven targets. The addition of new targets to the display was made during the saccade to the next target in the sequence. The overall time taken to complete the sequence was decreased as more targets were available up to all seven targets. This was a result of a reduction in the number of saccades being executed and a reduction in their saccade latencies. Surprisingly, these results suggest that, when faced with a demand to saccade to a large number of target locations, saccade preparation about all target locations is carried out in paralle