Effect of distance from the Cagayan de Oro, Philippines, dumpsite on the groundwater quality of shallow dug wells

Abstract: Leachate from dumpsites is generated as a result of the contact of water, during precipitation, with solid wastes. In this study, selected physical and chemical parameters of water were compared in the areas near and far from the dumpsite. Findings showed that the proportion of sampled wells that yielded poor in color was not significantly different in both near and far from the dumpsite areas; but, the levels of turbidity were observed to be significantly poor in the areas far from the dumpsite. On the chemical parameters of water, the proportion of sampled wells that yielded poor in TDS was significantly higher in the areas far from the dumpsite compared to the areas near the dumpsite. The chemical parameters pH, sulfate, chloride, and nitrate of the groundwater in wells were within the permissible limits of Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water (PNSDW). With these assessments of groundwater quality understudied, it is recommended that further study, with an appropriate plan and design, on the hydrogeological formation of the dumpsite be conducted and trace the flow of leachate

Separable Neural Components in the Processing of Black and White Faces

In a study of the neural components of automatic and controlled social evaluation, White participants viewed Black and White faces during event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. When the faces were presented for 30 ms, activation in the amygdala—a brain region associated with emotion—was greater for Black than for White faces. When the faces were presented for 525 ms, this difference was significantly reduced, and regions of frontal cortex associated with control and regulation showed greater activation for Black than White faces. Furthermore, greater race bias on an indirect behavioral measure was correlated with greater difference in amygdala activation between Black and White faces, and frontal activity predicted a reduction in Black-White differences in amygdala activity from the 30-ms to the 525-ms condition. These results provide evidence for neural distinctions between automatic and more controlled processing of social groups, and suggest that controlled processes may modulate automatic evaluation.Psycholog

Global change and conservation triage on National Wildlife Refuges

National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) in the United States play an important role in the adaptation of social-ecological systems to climate change, land-use change, and other global-change processes. Coastal refuges are already experiencing threats from sea-level rise and other change processes that are largely beyond their ability to influence, while at the same time facing tighter budgets and reduced staff. We engaged in workshops with NWR managers along the U.S. Atlantic coast to understand the problems they face from global-change processes and began a multidisciplinary collaboration to use decision science to help address them. We are applying a values-focused approach to base management decisions on the resource objectives of land managers, as well as those of stakeholders who may benefit from the goods and services produced by a refuge. Two insights that emerged from our workshops were a conspicuous mismatch between the scale at which management can influence outcomes and the scale of environmental processes, and the need to consider objectives related to ecosystem goods and services that traditionally have not been explicitly considered by refuges (e.g., protection from storm surge). The broadening of objectives complicates the decision-making process, but also provides opportunities for collaboration with stakeholders who may have agendas different from those of the refuge, as well as an opportunity for addressing problems across scales. From a practical perspective, we recognized the need to (1) efficiently allocate limited staff time and budgets for short-term management of existing programs and resources under the current refuge design and (2) develop long-term priorities for acquiring or protecting new land/habitat to supplement or replace the existing refuge footprint and thus sustain refuge values as the system evolves over time. Structuring the decision-making problem in this manner facilitated a better understanding of the issues of scale and suggested that a long-term solution will require a significant reassessment of objectives to better reflect the comprehensive values of refuges to society. We discuss some future considerations to integrate these two problems into a single framework by developing novel optimization approaches for dynamic problems that account for uncertainty in future conditions

A brief thought can modulate activity in extrastriate visual areas: Top–down effects of refreshing just-seen visual stimuli.

Current models of executive function hold that the internal representations of stimuli used during reflective thought are maintained in the same posterior cortical regions initially activated during perception, and that activity in such regions is modulated by top-down signals originating in prefrontal cortex. In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we presented participants with two pictures simultaneously, a face and a scene, immediately followed either by a repetition of one of the pictures (perception) or by a cue to think briefly of one of the just-seen, but no longer present, pictures (refreshing, a reflective act). Refreshing faces and scenes modulated activity in the fusiform face area (FFA) and parahippocampal place area (PPA), respectively, as well as other regions exhibiting relative perceptual selectivity for either faces or scenes. Four scene-selective regions (lateral precuneus, retrosplenial cortex, PPA, and middle occipital gyrus) showed an anatomical gradient of responsiveness to top-down reflective influences versus bottom-up perceptual influences. These results demonstrate that a brief reflective act can modulate posterior cortical activity in a stimulus-specific manner, suggesting that such modulatory mechanisms are engaged even during transient ongoing thought. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that refreshing is a component of more complex modulatory operations such as working memory and mental imagery, and that refresh-related activity may thus contribute to the common activation patterns seen across different cognitive tasks

Cerebral Palsy:Early Markers of Clinical Phenotype and Functional Outcome

The Prechtl General Movement Assessment (GMA) has become a cornerstone assessment in early identification of cerebral palsy (CP), particularly during the fidgety movement period at 3-5 months of age. Additionally, assessment of motor repertoire, such as antigravity movements and postural patterns, which form the Motor Optimality Score (MOS), may provide insight into an infant's later motor function. This study aimed to identify early specific markers for ambulation, gross motor function (using the Gross Motor Function Classification System, GMFCS), topography (unilateral, bilateral), and type (spastic, dyskinetic, ataxic, and hypotonic) of CP in a large worldwide cohort of 468 infants. We found that 95% of children with CP did not have fidgety movements, with 100% having non-optimal MOS. GMFCS level was strongly correlated to MOS. An MOS > 14 was most likely associated with GMFCS outcomes I or II, whereas GMFCS outcomes IV or V were hardly ever associated with an MOS > 8. A number of different movement patterns were associated with more severe functional impairment (GMFCS III-V), including atypical arching and persistent cramped-synchronized movements. Asymmetrical segmental movements were strongly associated with unilateral CP. Circular arm movements were associated with dyskinetic CP. This study demonstrated that use of the MOS contributes to understanding later CP prognosis, including early markers for type and severity

Set-shifting as a component process of goal-directed problem-solving

In two experiments, we compared secondary task interference on Tower of London performance resulting from three different secondary tasks. The secondary tasks were designed to tap three different executive functions, namely set-shifting, memory monitoring and updating, and response inhibition. Previous work using individual differences methodology suggests that, all other things being equal, the response inhibition or memory tasks should result in the greatest interference. However, this was not found to be the case. Rather, in both experiments the set-shifting task resulted in significantly more interference on Tower of London performance than either of the other secondary tasks. Subsequent analyses suggest that the degree of interference could not be attributed to differences in secondary task difficulty. Results are interpreted in the light of related work which suggests that solving problems with non-transparent goal/subgoal structure requires flexible shifting between subgoals – a process that is held to be impaired by concurrent performance of a set-shifting task