Young children do not integrate visual and haptic information

Several studies have shown that adults integrate visual and haptic information (and information from other modalities) in a statistically optimal fashion, weighting each sense according to its reliability. To date no studies have investigated when this capacity for cross-modal integration develops. Here we show that prior to eight years of age, integration of visual and haptic spatial information is far from optimal, with either vision or touch dominating totally, even in conditions where the dominant sense is far less precise than the other (assessed by discrimination thresholds). For size discrimination, haptic information dominates in determining both perceived size and discrimination thresholds, while for orientation discrimination vision dominates. By eight-ten years, the integration becomes statistically optimal, like adults. We suggest that during development, perceptual systems require constant recalibration, for which cross-sensory comparison is important. Using one sense to calibrate the other precludes useful combination of the two sources

The Use of Phonetic Motor Invariants Can Improve Automatic Phoneme Discrimination

affiliation: Castellini, C (Reprint Author), Univ Genoa, LIRA Lab, Genoa, Italy. Castellini, Claudio; Metta, Giorgio; Tavella, Michele, Univ Genoa, LIRA Lab, Genoa, Italy. Badino, Leonardo; Metta, Giorgio; Sandini, Giulio; Fadiga, Luciano, Italian Inst Technol, Genoa, Italy. Grimaldi, Mirko, Salento Univ, CRIL, Lecce, Italy. Fadiga, Luciano, Univ Ferrara, DSBTA, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy. article-number: e24055 keywords-plus: SPEECH-PERCEPTION; RECOGNITION research-areas: Science & Technology - Other Topics web-of-science-categories: Multidisciplinary Sciences author-email: [email protected] funding-acknowledgement: European Commission [NEST-5010, FP7-IST-250026] funding-text: The authors acknowledge the support of the European Commission project CONTACT (grant agreement NEST-5010) and SIEMPRE (grant agreement number FP7-IST-250026). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. number-of-cited-references: 31 times-cited: 0 journal-iso: PLoS One doc-delivery-number: 817OO unique-id: ISI:000294683900024We investigate the use of phonetic motor invariants (MIs), that is, recurring kinematic patterns of the human phonetic articulators, to improve automatic phoneme discrimination. Using a multi-subject database of synchronized speech and lips/tongue trajectories, we first identify MIs commonly associated with bilabial and dental consonants, and use them to simultaneously segment speech and motor signals. We then build a simple neural network-based regression schema (called Audio-Motor Map, AMM) mapping audio features of these segments to the corresponding MIs. Extensive experimental results show that (a) a small set of features extracted from the MIs, as originally gathered from articulatory sensors, are dramatically more effective than a large, state-of-the-art set of audio features, in automatically discriminating bilabials from dentals; (b) the same features, extracted from AMM-reconstructed MIs, are as effective as or better than the audio features, when testing across speakers and coarticulating phonemes; and dramatically better as noise is added to the speech signal. These results seem to support some of the claims of the motor theory of speech perception and add experimental evidence of the actual usefulness of MIs in the more general framework of automated speech recognition

Sistemas de rotação de culturas para cevada, sob plantio direto, durante dez anos, em Guarapuava, PR.

bitstream/item/84002/1/CNPT-CIRCULAR-9-SISTEMAS-DE-ROTACAO-DE-CULTURAS-PARA-CEVADA-SOB-PLANTIO-DIRETO-DURANTE-DEZ-ANOS.pd

Ensaio nacional de aveias forrageiras, 1997: análise conjunta.

Com o objetivo de avaliar genotipos de aveias (brancas e pretas), nos diferentes ambientes do Sul do Brasil, para aptidao forrageira, conduziu-se um ensaio em rede em 13 locais (4 no Rio Grande do Sul, 3 em Santa Catarina, 5 no Parana e 1 em Sao Paulo)

Ensaio nacional de aveias forrageiras, 1997: análise conjunta.

Planta forrageira, Aveia, Ensaio nacional; Forage; Oat; Essay.Resumo

Ensaio nacional de aveias forrageiras, 1997: analise conjunta.

Resumo

Active vision gates ocular dominance plasticity in human adults

Primary visual cortex (V1) retains a form of plasticity in adult humans: a brief period of monocular deprivation induces an enhanced response to the deprived eye, which can stabilize into a consolidated plastic change1,2 despite unaltered thalamic input3. This form of homeostatic plasticity in adults is thought to act through neuronal competition between the representations of the two eyes, which are still separate in primary visual cortex4,5. During monocular occlusion, neurons of the deprived eye are thought to increase response gain given the absence of visual input, leading to the post-deprivation enhancement. If the decrease of reliability of the monocular response is crucial to establish homeostatic plasticity, this could be induced in several different ways. There is increasing evidence that V1 processing is affected by voluntary action, allowing it to take into account the visual effects of self-motion6, important for efficient active vision7. Here we asked whether ocular dominance homeostatic plasticity could be elicited without degrading the quality of monocular visual images but simply by altering their role in visuomotor control by introducing a visual delay in one eye while participants actively performed a visuomotor task; this causes a discrepancy between what the subject sees and what he/she expects to see. Our results show that homeostatic plasticity is gated by the consistency between the monocular visual inputs and a person's actions, suggesting that action not only shapes visual processing but may also be essential for plasticity in adults

Update on vaccination of preterm infants: a systematic review about safety and efficacy/effectiveness. Proposal for a position statement by Italian Society of Pediatric Allergology and Immunology jointly with the Italian Society of Neonatology

Preterm infants (PIs) are at increased risk of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs). However, delayed vaccination start and low vaccine coverage are still reported. Areas covered: This systematic review includes 37 articles on preterm vaccination published in 2008-2018 in PubMed. Both live attenuated and inactivated vaccines are safe and well tolerated in PIs. Local reactions, apnea, and reactivity changes are the most frequently reported adverse events. Lower gestational age and birth weight, preimmunization apnea, longer use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) are risk factors for apnea. The proportion of PIs who develop protective humoral and cellular immunity is generally similar to full terms although later gestational age is associated with increased antibody IgG concentrations (i.e. against certain pneumococcal serotypes, influenza, hepatitis B virus and poliovirus 1) and increased mononuclear cells proliferation (i.e. after inactivated poliovirus). Expert opinion: PIs can be safely and adequately protected by available vaccines with the same schedule used for full terms. Data at this regard have been retrieved by studies using a 3-dose primary series for pneumococcal and hexavalent vaccines. Further studies are needed regarding the 2 + 1 schedule. Apnea represents a nonspecific stress response in PIs, thus those hospitalized at 2 months should have cardio-respiratory monitoring after their first vaccination

Multivariate deep phenotyping reveals behavioral correlates of non-restorative sleep in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.

Converging evidence suggests that sleep disturbances can directly contribute to a transdiagnostic combination of behavior and neurocognitive difficulties characterizing most forms of psychopathology. However, it remains unclear how the growing comprehension of sleep neurophysiology should best inform sleep quality assessment in mental health patients. To address this fundamental question, we performed deep multimodal sleep and behavioral phenotyping in 37 individuals at high genetic risk for psychopathology due to 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (Mean age:19±8.17, M/F = 22/15) and 34 Healthy Controls (Mean age:17.06±6.87, M/F = 12/22). We implemented a multivariate analysis pipeline informed by the current neurobiological understanding of the behavioral consequences of sleep disruption. We detected multivariate patterns of disrupted sleep architecture consistently influenced by age and diagnosis across recordings and experimental settings. With high-density EEG polysomnography we detected atypical trajectories of Slow-Wave-Activity (SWA) reduction, influenced by age and sleep duration which, according to the Synaptic-Homeostasis-Hypothesis, could reflect combined alterations in neurodevelopmental and synaptic homeostasis mechanisms in 22q11DS. Blunted SWA reduction was linked with EEG markers of residual sleep pressure in morning-vs-evening EEG and with questionnaires estimating subjective somnolence in everyday life, potentially representing a clinically relevant signature of non-restorative sleep. Moreover, blunted SWA decline was linked to a transdiagnostic combination of behavioral difficulties, including negative psychotic symptoms, ADHD symptoms, and neurocognitive impairments in processing speed and inhibitory-control. These findings suggest that systematic screening and management of sleep disturbances could directly improve behavioral outcomes in 22q11DS. They highlight the potential of precision/multivariate phenotyping approaches for characterizing the role of sleep disturbances in developmental psychopathology