PTSD And Emotionally Augmented Perception: An Argument For Direct Realism

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) causes behavioral and emotional problems. The emotions associated with the disorder, research has shown, literally change and individual’s perception. Those who study the effects of emotion on perception generally accept an indirect theory of perception like representationalism. Yet, an indirect theory does not seem to be adequate to account for the immediacy and phenomenology of PTSD. Therefore, a theory that can better account for these is needed. I suggest a form of direct realism – the combined scientific-philosophical theory that combines John Campbell’s 3-place relation and James J. Gibson’s direct perception of information through ambient light – is such a theory. In addition, looking at the variability of normalcy may account for why there is not 100% attrition of PTSD across individuals exposed to the same or similar traumatic events

Las Vegas Academy Jazz Band III: A Celebration of Black History Month

Program listing performers and works performed

Avenues of future research in homotransplantation of the liver with particular reference to hepatic supportive procedures, antilymphocyte serum, and tissue typing

Three general areas of research which bear on the developing field of liver transplantation are reviewed. These are: (1) the prospects of obtaining better immunosuppression with particular reference to heterologous antilymphocyte serum; (2) the possible use of antigen matching technics as an advanced indicator of donorrecipient histocompatibility; (3) a simlified system of extracorporeal transplntation designed to provide teporary hepatic support. © 1966

How Knowledge Workers Think Generative AI Will (Not) Transform Their Industries

Generative AI is expected to have transformative effects in multiple knowledge industries. To better understand how knowledge workers expect generative AI may affect their industries in the future, we conducted participatory research workshops for seven different industries, with a total of 54 participants across three US cities. We describe participants' expectations of generative AI's impact, including a dominant narrative that cut across the groups' discourse: participants largely envision generative AI as a tool to perform menial work, under human review. Participants do not generally anticipate the disruptive changes to knowledge industries currently projected in common media and academic narratives. Participants do however envision generative AI may amplify four social forces currently shaping their industries: deskilling, dehumanization, disconnection, and disinformation. We describe these forces, and then we provide additional detail regarding attitudes in specific knowledge industries. We conclude with a discussion of implications and research challenges for the HCI community.Comment: 40 pages, 5 tables, 6 figure

Understanding the change and development of trust and the implications for new leaders

Leaders, particularly new leaders, seek to establish high levels of trust, as it has been associated with higher levels of effectiveness and group outcomes. This study is designed to understand how trust changes and develops for leaders in a new role and the implications of that change. Although calls for research on trust over time have been made for the past 2 decades, our knowledge of this phenomenon is still quite limited. The findings indicate that leader and unit performance is a function not only of absolute trust level, but is also affected by the direction and magnitude of change in trust across time periods, with the highest levels of effectiveness being associated with leaders who exhibited an increase in trust from the group over time. The data also suggest that the direction and rate at which trust grew was determined by initial expectations and transformational leadership behaviors.Peer reviewedBusines

The alternative receptor for complement component 5a, C5aR2, conveys neuroprotection in traumatic spinal cord injury

This study investigated the role of the alternative receptor for complement activation fragment C5a, C5aR2, in secondary inflammatory pathology after contusive spinal cord injury (SCI) in mice. C5ar2(-/-) mice exhibited decreased intraparenchymal tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin-6 acutely post-injury, but these reductions did not translate into improved outcomes. We show that loss of C5aR2 leads to increased lesion volumes, reduced myelin sparing, and significantly worsened recovery from SCI in C5ar2(-/-) animals compared to wild-type (WT) controls. Loss of C5aR2 did not alter leukocyte mobilization from the bone marrow in response to SCI, and neutrophil recruitment/presence at the lesion site was also not different between genotypes. Acute treatment of SCI mice with the selective C5aR1 antagonist, PMX205, improved SCI outcomes, compared to vehicle controls, and, importantly, fully alleviated the worsened recovery of C5ar2(-/-) mice compared to their WT counterparts. Collectively, these findings indicate that C5aR2 is neuroprotective and a novel target to restrain injurious C5a signaling after a major neurotraumatic event

Technology Advancement of the Visible Nulling Coronagraph

The critical high contrast imaging technology for the Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph (EPIC) mission concept is the visible nulling coronagraph (VNC). EPIC would be capable of imaging jovian planets, dust/debris disks, and potentially super-Earths and contribute to answering how bright the debris disks are for candidate stars. The contrast requirement for EPIC is 10(exp 9) contrast at 125 milli-arseconds inner working angle. To advance the VNC technology NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, in collaboration with Lockheed-Martin, previously developed a vacuum VNC testbed, and achieved narrowband and broadband suppression of the core of the Airy disk. Recently our group was awarded a NASA Technology Development for Exoplanet Missions to achieve two milestones: (i) 10(exp 8) contrast in narrowband light, and, (ii) 10(ecp 9) contrast in broader band light; one milestone per year, and both at 2 Lambda/D inner working angle. These will be achieved with our 2nd generation testbed known as the visible nulling testbed (VNT). It contains a MEMS based hex-packed segmented deformable mirror known as the multiple mirror array (MMA) and coherent fiber bundle, i.e. a spatial filter array (SFA). The MMA is in one interferometric arm and works to set the wavefront differences between the arms to zero. Each of the MMA segments is optically mapped to a single mode fiber of the SFA, and the SFA passively cleans the sub-aperture wavefront error leaving only piston, tip and tilt error to be controlled. The piston degree of freedom on each segment is used to correct the wavefront errors, while the tip/tilt is used to simultaneously correct the amplitude errors. Thus the VNT controls both amplitude and wavefront errors with a single MMA in closed-loop in a vacuum tank at approx.20 Hz. Herein we will discuss our ongoing progress with the VNT

The complement receptor C5aR controls acute inflammation and astrogliosis following spinal cord injury

This study investigated the role of the complement activation fragment C5a in secondary pathology following contusive spinal cord injury (SCI). C5ar(-/-) mice, which lack the signaling receptor for C5a, displayed signs of improved locomotor recovery and reduced inflammation during the first week of SCI compared with wild-type mice. Intriguingly, the early signs of improved recovery in C5ar(-/-) mice deteriorated from day 14 onward, with absence of C5aR ultimately leading to poorer functional outcomes, larger lesion volumes, reduced myelin content, and more widespread inflammation at 35 d SCI. Pharmacological blockade of C5aR with a selective antagonist (C5aR-A) during the first 7 d after SCI improved recovery compared with vehicle-treated mice, and this phenotype was sustained up to 35 d after injury. Consistent with observations made in C5ar(-/-) mice, these improvements were, however, lost if C5aR-A administration was continued into the more chronic phase of SCI. Signaling through the C5a-C5aR axis thus appears injurious in the acute period but serves a protective and/or reparative role in the post-acute phase of SCI. Further experiments in bone marrow chimeric mice suggested that the dual and opposing roles of C5aR on SCI outcomes primarily relate to its expression on CNS-resident cells and not infiltrating leukocytes. Additional in vivo and in vitro studies provided direct evidence that C5aR signaling is required during the postacute phase for astrocyte hyperplasia, hypertrophy, and glial scar formation. Collectively, these findings highlight the complexity of the inflammatory response to SCI and emphasize the importance of optimizing the timing of therapeutic interventions