Anticipatory adjustments to being picked up in infancy

Anticipation of the actions of others is often used as a measure of action understanding in infancy. In contrast to studies of action understanding which set infants up as observers of actions directed elsewhere, in the present study we explored anticipatory postural adjustments made by infants to one of the most common adult actions directed to them - picking them up. We observed infant behavioural changes and recorded their postural shifts on a pressure mat in three phases: (i) a prior Chat phase, (ii) from the onset of Approach of the mother's arms, and (iii) from the onset of Contact. In Study 1, eighteen 3-month-old infants showed systematic global postural changes during Approach and Contact, but not during Chat. There was an increase in specific adjustments of the arms (widening or raising) and legs (stiffening and extending or tucking up) during Approach and a decrease in thrashing/general movements during Contact. Shifts in postural stability were evident immediately after onset of Approach and more slowly after Contact, with no regular shifts during Chat. In Study 2 we followed ten infants at 2, 3 and 4 months of age. Anticipatory behavioural adjustments during Approach were present at all ages, but with greater differentiation from a prior Chat phase only at 3 and 4 months. Global postural shifts were also more phase differentiated in older infants. Moreover, there was significantly greater gaze to the mother's hands during Approach at 4 months. Early anticipatory adjustments to being picked up suggest that infants' awareness of actions directed to the self may occur earlier than of those directed elsewhere, and thus enable infants' active participation in joint actions from early in life

Electro-hydrometallurgy of ciulcoyyrites – vii an appraisal of ferric chloride leaching process

Importance of hydrometallurgical route for processing chalcopyrite recovery of copper is highlighted. Conditions for ferric chloride leaching process have been standardized involving the recovery of copper by galvanic cementation as well as electrolysis in diaphragm cell

Heavy landings of yellowfin tuna Thunnus albacares (Bonnaterre, 1788) by hooks and line off Chennai coast

Tunas are commercially important fish and widely but sparsely distributed throughout the oceans of the world, generally in tropical and temperate waters. They are grouped taxonomically in the family Scombridae, which includes about 50 species. The most important of these in commercial and recreational fisheries are yellowfin (Thunnus albacares) (Fig. 1), skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis), bluefin tuna (T. tonggol), frigate tuna (Auxis thazard) mackerel tuna (Euthynnus affinis) and striped bonito (T. orientalis). They are exploited mainly by hooks and line, mechanised gillnets and trawlnets in India

Heavy landing of juvenile seerfish Scomberomorus commerson (Lacepede, 1800) along Chennai coast

After the fishing ban (15th April - 30th May, 2011), heavy landings of juvenile seerfish Scomberomorus commerson (Lacepede, 1800) was observed along Chennai coast. During the period from April to August 2011, young ones of S. commerson were landed continuously by gillnet (Pannuvalai). The nets were operated near the shore in 5-10 m depth. The average catch per boat was 15-50 kg dail

चेन्नई तट में काँटा डोरियों द्वारा पीत पख टूयूना थन्नस अल्बाकारेस (बोन्नाटेरे, 1788) का भारी अवरण

कृपया पूरा लेखा पढ

Occurrence of a rare species of red crab, Ranina ranina (Linnaeus 1758) along Chennai coast

The red frog crab otherwise called spanner crab is a coastal water species and single representative of genus Ranina under family Raninidea. They prefer to inhabit in bare sandy areas of intertidal and coastal waters of more than 100m depth. Distribution of this crab is confined to tropical and sub topical coastal waters of Indian and Pacific oceans, from the coast of South Africa to Hawaii and the Great Barrier Reef. Occurrence of this species is very sparse in Indian waters and has been recorded once in Gulf of Mannar (Kasinathan et al., 2007)

Femtosecond Photoexcited Carrier Dynamics in Reduced Graphene Oxide Suspensions and Films

We report ultrafast response of femtosecond photoexcited carriers in single layer reduced graphene oxide flakes suspended in water as well as few layer thick film deposited on indium tin oxide coated glass plate using pump-probe differential transmission spectroscopy at 790 nm. The carrier relaxation dynamics has three components: ~200 fs, 1 to 2 ps, and ~25 ps, all of them independent of pump fluence. It is seen that the second component (1 to 2 ps) assigned to the lifetime of hot optical phonons is larger for graphene in suspensions whereas other two time constants are the same for both the suspension and the film. The value of third order nonlinear susceptibility estimated from the pump-probe experiments is compared with that obtained from the open aperture Z-scan results for the suspension.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in International Journal of Nanoscience (IJN), 201

Rare occurrence of deepsea snake mackerel off Nagapattinam coast in the Bay of Bengal

Lepidocybium flavobrunneum (Smith, 1843) has a wide distribution in tropical and temperate seas of the world. The species is considered to be benthopelagic in occurrence between 200 and 1000 m, depth, and probably not reported to occur in the northern Indian Ocean. Balasubramanian (2007) reported on the occurrence of this species during 2004-06 in the landings of large meshed gillnets operated off Tuticorin coast in the Gulf of Mannar. A catch of 4 specimens of Lepidocybium flavobrunneum (Fig. 1) belonging to the family Gempylidae (snake mackerels) were observed at Chennai Fisheries Harbour on 5.3.2009