<學界展望>一九三〇年代中國農村經濟研究の一整理

<div><p>A number of studies from the 1960s to 1990s assessed the symbolic competence of great apes and other animals. These studies provided varying forms of evidence that some species were capable of symbolically representing their worlds, both through productive symbol use and comprehension of symbolic stimuli. One such project at the Language Research Center involved training chimpanzees (<i>Pan troglodytes</i>) to use lexigram symbols (geometric visual stimuli that represented objects, actions, locations, and individuals). Those studies now are more than 40 years old, and only a few of the apes involved in those studies are still alive. Three of these chimpanzees (and a fourth, control chimpanzee) were assessed across a 10-year period from 1999 to 2008 for their continued knowledge of lexigram symbols and, in the case of one chimpanzee, the continued ability to comprehend human speech. This article describes that longitudinal assessment and outlines the degree to which symbol competence was retained by these chimpanzees across that decade-long period. All chimpanzees showed retention of lexigram vocabularies, although there were differences in the number of words that were retained across the individuals. One chimpanzee also showed continual retention of human speech perception. These retained vocabularies largely consisted of food item names, but also names of inedible objects, locations, individuals, and some actions. Many of these retained words were for things that are not common in the daily lives of the chimpanzees and for things that are rarely requested by the chimpanzees. Thus, the early experiences of these chimpanzees in symbol-rich environments have produced long-lasting memories for symbol meaning, and those competencies have benefited research in a variety of topics in comparative cognition.</p></div

Coherent terahertz control of antiferromagnetic spin waves

Ultrafast charge and spin excitations in the elusive terahertz regime1, 2 of the electromagnetic spectrum play a pivotal role in condensed matter3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. The electric field of free-space terahertz pulses has provided a direct gateway to manipulating the motion of charges on the femtosecond timescale6, 7, 8, 9. Here, we complement this process by showing that the magnetic component of intense terahertz transients enables ultrafast control of the spin degree of freedom. Single-cycle terahertz pulses switch on and off coherent spin waves in antiferromagnetic NiO at frequencies as high as 1 THz. An optical probe pulse with a duration of 8 fs follows the terahertz-induced magnetic dynamics directly in the time domain and verifies that the terahertz field addresses spins selectively by means of the Zeeman interaction. This concept provides a universal ultrafast means to control previously inaccessible magnetic excitations in the electronic ground state

Carbon monoxide: from toxin to endogenous modulator of cardiovascular functions

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a pollutant commonly recognized for its toxicological attributes, including CNS and cardiovascular effects. But CO is also formed endogenously in mammalian tissues. Endogenously formed CO normally arises from heme degradation in a reaction catalyzed by heme oxygenase. While inhibitors of endogenous CO production can raise arterial pressure, heme loading can enhance CO production and lead to vasodepression. Both central and peripheral tissues possess heme oxygenases and generate CO from heme, but the inability of heme substrate to cross the blood brain barrier suggests the CNS heme-heme oxygenase-CO system may be independent of the periphery. In the CNS, CO apparently acts in the nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS) promoting changes in glutamatergic neurotransmission and lowering blood pressure. At the periphery, the heme-heme oxygenase-CO system can affect cardiovascular functions in a two-fold manner; specifically: 1) heme-derived CO generated within vascular smooth muscle (VSM) can promote vasodilation, but 2) its actions on the endothelium apparently can promote vasoconstriction. Thus, it seems reasonable that the CNS-, VSM- and endothelial-dependent actions of the heme-heme oxygenase-CO system may all affect cardiac output and vascular resistance, and subsequently blood pressure

Designing the interaction of automated vehicles with other traffic participants: design considerations based on human needs and expectations

Automated vehicles (AV) are expected to be integrated into mixed traffic environments in the near future. As human road users have established elaborated interaction strategies to coordinate their actions among each other, one challenge that human factors experts and vehicle designers are facing today is how to design AVs in a way that they can safely and intuitively interact with other traffic participants. This paper presents design considerations that are intended to support AV designers in reducing the complexity of the design space. The design considerations are based on a literature review of common human–human interaction strategies. Four categories of information are derived for the design considerations: (1) information about vehicle driving mode; (2) information about AVs’ manoeuvres; (3) information about AVs’ perceptions of the environment; and (4) information about AVs’ cooperation capabilities. In this paper, we apply the four categories to analyse existing research studies of traffic participants’ needs during interactions with AVs and results of the CityMobil2 project. From the CityMobil2 project we present central results from face-to-face interviews, an onsite-survey and two focus groups. To further support the AV designers we describe and rate different design options to present the information of the four categories, including the design of the infrastructure, the vehicle shape, the vehicle manoeuvres and the external human–machine interface of the AV