Perceptual bias, more than age, impacts on eye movements during face processing

Consistent with the right hemispheric dominance for face processing, a left perceptual bias (LPB) is typically demonstrated by younger adults viewing faces and a left eye movement bias has also been revealed. Hemispheric asymmetry is predicted to reduce with age and older adults have demonstrated a weaker LPB, particularly when viewing time is restricted. What is currently unclear is whether age also weakens the left eye movement bias. Additionally, a right perceptual bias (RPB) for facial judgments has less frequently been demonstrated, but whether this is accompanied by a right eye movement bias has not been investigated. To address these issues older and younger adults’ eye movements and gender judgments of chimeric faces were recorded in two time conditions. Age did not significantly weaken the LPB or eye movement bias; both groups looked initially to the left side of the face and made more fixations when the gender judgment was based on the left side. A positive association was found between LPB and initial saccades in the freeview condition and with all eye movements (initial saccades, number and duration of fixations) when time was restricted. The accompanying eye movement bias revealed by LPB participants contrasted with RPB participants who demonstrated no eye movement bias in either time condition. Consequently, increased age is not clearly associated with weakened perceptual and eye movement biases. Instead an eye movement bias accompanies an LPB (particularly under restricted viewing time conditions) but not an RPB

The effect of self-referential expectation on emotional face processing

The role of self-relevance has been somewhat neglected in static face processing paradigms but may be important in understanding how emotional faces impact on attention, cognition and affect. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of self-relevant primes on processing emotional composite faces. Sentence primes created an expectation of the emotion of the face before sad, happy, neutral or composite face photos were viewed. Eye movements were recorded and subsequent responses measured the cognitive and affective impact of the emotion expressed. Results indicated that primes did not guide attention, but impacted on judgments of valence intensity and self-esteem ratings. Negative self-relevant primes led to the most negative self-esteem ratings, although the effect of the prime was qualified by salient facial features. Self-relevant expectations about the emotion of a face and subsequent attention to a face that is congruent with these expectations strengthened the affective impact of viewing the face

Can abuse deterrent formulations make a difference? Expectation and speculation

It is critical that issues surrounding the abuse and misuse of prescription opioids be balanced with the need for these medications for the treatment of pain. One way to decrease the abuse of prescription opioid medications is to develop abuse deterrent formulations (or ADFs) that in some way prevent drug abusers from extracting out the active ingredient in order to employ alternate routes of administration, such as injection, snorting, and smoking. Several factors including the pharmacokinetic profile of the drug, the features of the drug formulation that make it attractive or unattractive for abuse, the type of drug abuser, the progression of one's addiction pathway, and one's social environment may all play a role in the abuse of prescription opioids and what methods are used to abuse these drugs. This paper will examine these factors in order to understand how they affect the abuse of prescription opioids and routes of administration, and how the development of ADFs may alter these patterns

Geikie's field researches and their geological controversies

All of us were introduced to the Moine Thrust Belt and its controversies by the late Mike Coward. We are indebted to him for instilling a passion for structural geology, challenging conventional wisdom and for tales of early protagonists. We also thank the late John Mendum, who kindly shared a copy of his notes on the Highlands Controversy, together with Robert Neller, Collections Officer at Haslemere Educational Museum, for facilitating access to Geikie’s field-notes and artwork.Peer reviewedPostprin

Functional factor VIII made with von Willebrand factor at high levels in transgenic milk

Background—Current manufacturing methods for recombinant human Factor VIII (rFVIII) within mammalian cell cultures are inefficient which limit the abundance needed for affordable, worldwide treatment of hemophilia A. However, rFVIII has been expressed at very high levels by the transgenic mammary gland of mice, rabbits, sheep and pigs. Unfortunately, it is secreted into milk with low specific activity due in part to the labile, heterodimeric structure that results from furin processing of its B domain. Objectives—To express biologically active rFVIII in the milk of transgenic mice through targeted bioengineering. Methods—Transgenic mice were made with a mammary specific FVIII gene (226/N6) bioengineered for efficient expression and stability containing a B domain with no furin cleavage sites. 226/N6 was expressed with and without von Willebrand Factor (VWF). 226/N6 was evaluated by ELISA, SDS-PAGE, Western blot, and one- and two-stage clotting assays. Hemostatic activity of immunoaffinity enriched 226/N6 was studied in vivo by infusion into hemophilia A knockout mice. Results and conclusions—With or without co-expression of VWF, 226/N6 was secreted into milk as a biologically active single chain molecule that retained high specific activity similar to therapeutic-grade FVIII. 226/N6 had \u3e450-fold higher IU/ml than previously reported in cell culture for rFVIII. 226/N6 exhibited similar binding to plasma-derived VWF as therapeutic-grade rFVIII and intravenous infusion of transgenic 226/N6 corrected the bleeding phenotype of hemophilia A mice. This provides proof-of-principle to study expression of 226/N6 and perhaps other single chain bioengineered rFVIII in the milk of transgenic livestock

Clebsch-Gordan Construction of Lattice Interpolating Fields for Excited Baryons

Large sets of baryon interpolating field operators are developed for use in lattice QCD studies of baryons with zero momentum. Operators are classified according to the double-valued irreducible representations of the octahedral group. At first, three-quark smeared, local operators are constructed for each isospin and strangeness and they are classified according to their symmetry with respect to exchange of Dirac indices. Nonlocal baryon operators are formulated in a second step as direct products of the spinor structures of smeared, local operators together with gauge-covariant lattice displacements of one or more of the smeared quark fields. Linear combinations of direct products of spinorial and spatial irreducible representations are then formed with appropriate Clebsch-Gordan coefficients of the octahedral group. The construction attempts to maintain maximal overlap with the continuum SU(2) group in order to provide a physically interpretable basis. Nonlocal operators provide direct couplings to states that have nonzero orbital angular momentum.Comment: This manuscript provides an anlytical construction of operators and is related to hep-lat/0506029, which provides a computational construction. This e-print version contains a full set of Clebsch-Gordan coefficients for the octahedral grou

Abuse risks and routes of administration of different prescription opioid compounds and formulations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Evaluation of tamper resistant formulations (TRFs) and classwide Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) for prescription opioid analgesics will require baseline descriptions of abuse patterns of existing opioid analgesics, including the relative risk of abuse of existing prescription opioids and characteristic patterns of abuse by alternate routes of administration (ROAs). This article presents, for one population at high risk for abuse of prescription opioids, the unadjusted relative risk of abuse of hydrocodone, immediate release (IR) and extended release (ER) oxycodone, methadone, IR and ER morphine, hydromorphone, IR and ER fentanyl, IR and ER oxymorphone. How relative risks change when adjusted for prescription volume of the products was examined along with patterns of abuse via ROAs for the products.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using data on prescription opioid abuse and ROAs used from 2009 Addiction Severity Index-Multimedia Version (ASI-MV^®) Connect assessments of 59,792 patients entering treatment for substance use disorders at 464 treatment facilities in 34 states and prescription volume data from SDI Health LLC, unadjusted and adjusted risk for abuse were estimated using log-binomial regression models. A random effects binary logistic regression model estimated the predicted probabilities of abusing a product by one of five ROAs, intended ROA (i.e., swallowing whole), snorting, injection, chewing, and other.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Unadjusted relative risk of abuse for the 11 compound/formulations determined hydrocodone and IR oxycodone to be most highly abused while IR oxymorphone and IR fentanyl were least often abused. Adjusting for prescription volume suggested hydrocodone and IR oxycodone were least often abused on a prescription-by-prescription basis. Methadone and morphine, especially IR morphine, showed increases in relative risk of abuse. Examination of the data without methadone revealed ER oxycodone as the drug with greatest risk after adjusting for prescription volume. Specific ROA patterns were identified for the compounds/formulations, with morphine and hydromorphone most likely to be injected.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Unadjusted risks observed here were consistent with rankings of prescription opioid abuse obtained by others using different populations/methods. Adjusted risk estimates suggest that some, less widely prescribed analgesics are more often abused than prescription volume would predict. The compounds/formulations investigated evidenced unique ROA patterns. Baseline abuse patterns will be important for future evaluations of TRFs and REMS.</p

Evidence for adult lung growth in humans

A 33-year-old woman underwent a right-sided pneumonectomy in 1995 for treatment of a lung adenocarcinoma. As expected, there was an abrupt decrease in her vital capacity, but unexpectedly, it increased during the subsequent 15 years. Serial computed tomographic (CT) scans showed progressive enlargement of the remaining left lung and an increase in tissue density. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with the use of hyperpolarized helium-3 gas showed overall acinar-airway dimensions that were consistent with an increase in the alveolar number rather than the enlargement of existing alveoli, but the alveoli in the growing lung were shallower than in normal lungs. This study provides evidence that new lung growth can occur in an adult human

Beyond recognition: the politics of encounter

The context for this paper is an attempt to think through the possibilities and challenges of nonviolent resistance, with the shadow of the Israel-Palestine conflict looming over it. Drawing on the work of Jessica Benjamin, I outline how a theory of recognition becomes one of acknowledgement through the inclusion of a notion of a witnessing ‘third’. This third is actively implicated in the injury caused by oppression and is called upon to do something about it. I go on to use Judith Butler’s account of the challenge of nonviolence to draw out some lessons on issues of vulnerability, cohabitation and justice. Finally, I return to the question of the kind of witnessing third that might make a difference