Impulsivity and self-control during intertemporal decision making linked to the neural dynamics of reward value representation

A characteristic marker of impulsive decision making is the discounting of delayed rewards, demonstrated via choice preferences and choice-related brain activity. However, delay discounting may also arise from how subjective reward value is dynamically represented in the brain when anticipating an upcoming chosen reward. In the current study, brain activity was continuously monitored as human participants freely selected an immediate or delayed primary liquid reward and then waited for the specified delay before consuming it. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) exhibited a characteristic pattern of activity dynamics during the delay period, as well as modulation during choice, that is consistent with the time-discounted coding of subjective value. The ventral striatum (VS) exhibited a similar activity pattern, but preferentially in impulsive individuals. A contrasting profile of delay-related and choice activation was observed in the anterior PFC (aPFC), but selectively in patient individuals. Functional connectivity analyses indicated that both vmPFC and aPFC exerted modulatory, but opposite, influences on VS activation. These results link behavioral impulsivity and self-control to dynamically evolving neural representations of future reward value, not just during choice, but also during postchoice delay periods

Infants - Child Neglect Proceeding

The Court of Appeals of New York has held that an indigent parent faced with loss of a child\u27s society, as well as the possibility of criminal charges, is entitled to assistance of counsel in child neglect proceedings and is required to be advised of such right. In re Ella R.B., 30 N.Y.2d 352, 285 N.E.2d 288, 334 N.Y.S. 2d 133 (1972)

The Oath of Office

Adam Braver is the author of Mr. Lincoln\u27s Wars, Divine Sarah, and Crows Over the Wheatfield. His work has appeared in journals such as Daedalus, Harvard Review, Cimarron Review, Water-Stone Review, West Branch, and Post Road. He teaches at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI, and is a Writer-in-Residence at the NY State Summer Writers Institute. His latest book, November 22, 1963, will be published in November 2008

Lobachevski Illuminated: Content, Methods, and Context of the Theory of Parallels

In the 1820\u27s, Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevski discovered and began to explore the world\u27s first non-Euclidean geometry. This crucial development in the history of mathematics was not recognized as such in his own lifetime. When his work finally found a sympathetic audience in the late 19th century, it was reinterpreted in the light of various intermediate developments (particularly Riemann\u27s conception of geometry), which were foreign to Lobachevski\u27s own way of thinking about the subject. Because our modern understanding of his work derives from these reinterpretations, many of Lobachevski\u27s most striking ideas have been forgotten. To recover them, I have produced an illuminated version of Lobachevski\u27s most accessible work, Geometrische Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Parallellinien (Geometric Investigations on the Theory of Parallels), a book that he published in 1840. I have produced a new English version of this work, together with extensive mathematical, historical, and philosophical commentary. The commentary expands and explains Lobachevski\u27s often cryptic statements and proofs, while linking the individual propositions of his treatise to the related work of his predecessors (including Gerolamo Saccheri, J.H. Lambert, and A.M. Legendre), his contemporaries (including J·nos Bolyai and Karl Friedrich Gauss), and his followers (including Eugenio Beltrami, Henri PoincarÈ, and David Hilbert). This dissertation supplies the contemporary reader with all of the tools necessary to unlock Lobachevski\u27s rich, beautiful, but generally inaccessible world

Court-Packing: An American Tradition?

This Article provides the first comprehensive and conceptual account of all increases and decreases to the Supreme Court’s size. In today’s debate over court-packing, proponents assert and opponents concede that there is ample precedent for the tactic. Against this prevailing consensus, I argue that although the Court’s size has changed seven times, court-packing is nearly novel in American history, and it would pose unprecedented dangers if enacted today. I define court-packing as manipulating the number of Supreme Court seats primarily in order to alter the ideological balance of the Supreme Court. Court-packing’s distinct danger is that it will lead to a tit-for-tat downward spiral of packing, ballooning the Court’s size so large that its legitimacy pops. Previous changes to the Court’s size fall into two groups. The first group is tied to the practice of circuit-riding, a now obsolete system that required the addition of Supreme Court Justices to staff newly created circuit courts. The circuit-riding justification created a set of norms regulating when and how the size of the Supreme Court could be changed, limiting the opportunities for partisan machinations. The second group consists of attempts to pack the Court. While the 1801 court-packing attempt failed, the 1869 one succeeded. This lone example of successful court-packing occurred, however, in an extraordinarily low-risk situation in which the President lacked the support of either major political party, thereby lessening the threat of any partisan retaliation. Previous changes to the Court’s size presented few of the perils that packing poses today. The Article concludes by explaining why the elected branches have sought and how they have managed to curb the Supreme Court without permanently tainting the Court’s legitimacy. In an age of rising populism, the next step for scholars of constitutional hardball and departmentalism is to set outer boundaries for the attacks on the Court that they encourage

Incomplete Neutralization in American English Flapping: A Production Study

This paper presents a production study of incomplete neutralization in American English flapping. In flapping, /d/ and /t/ both become a voiced flap in certain prosodic contexts (see, e.g., Kahn 1980). A number of studies show that this neutralization is incomplete: /d/-flaps can be distinguished from /t/-flaps on the surface (Fox and Terbeek 1977). Other studies, however, have found conflicting results (Port 1976). This study finds that flapping is an incompletely neutralizing process—/d/-flaps and /t/-flaps can be distinguished on the surface by the duration of the preceding vowel, at least for some speakers. Additionally, some studies find evidence that hyperarticulation and orthography have an effect on whether neutralization is complete or incomplete (Fourakis and Iverson 1984, Warner et al. 2006). The present study employed two tasks: a minimal pair reading task, designed to increase these potential effects, and a morphological paradigm completion/ wug task, designed to reduce these effects. No significant differences between the two tasks were found, thus failing to support the claim that incomplete neutralization is due to these extragrammatical factors

Role of Suction-Based Airway Clearance Devices in Pediatric Foreign Body Airway Obstruction

Introduction Foreign body airway obstruction (FBAO) represents a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the pediatric population. Factors including pediatric anatomy, chewing and swallowing difficulties, developmental stages, habits and behaviors, and children’s toys and foods increase risk of FBAO in children.1,2 BLS guidelines for FBAO management in responsive children ages 1-8 call for a series of subdiaphragmatic abdominal thrusts, which increase intrathoracic pressure to force air and the foreign body out of the airway.3,4 Abdominal thrusts have higher reports of injury compared to all other FBAO interventions, with risk of thoracic, vascular, and gastro-esophageal injury.5-7 Novel suction-based airway clearance devices (ACDs), including LifeVac and Dechoker, are non-powered, externally applied, and utilize a negative pressure system to remove an obstruction from the airway.6,8 They are straight-forward to use and less invasive than abdominal thrusts. This research aimed to address the following question: In children with foreign body airway obstruction, are suction-based airway clearance devices superior to established pediatric BLS guidelines for abdominal thrusts in terms of successful foreign body removal and ease of use?https://jdc.jefferson.edu/mspas_capstones/1002/thumbnail.jp

The role of psychometrics in individual differences research in cognition: A case study of the AX-CPT

Investigating individual differences in cognition requires addressing questions not often thought about in standard experimental designs, especially regarding the psychometric properties of the task. Using the AX-CPT cognitive control task as a case study example, we address four concerns that one may encounter when researching the topic of individual differences in cognition. First, we demonstrate the importance of variability in task scores, which in turn directly impacts reliability, particularly when comparing correlations in different populations. Second, we demonstrate the importance of variability and reliability for evaluating potential failures to replicate predicted correlations, even within the same population. Third, we demonstrate how researchers can turn to evaluating psychometric properties as a way of evaluating the feasibility of utilizing the task in new settings (e.g., online administration). Lastly, we show how the examination of psychometric properties can help researchers make informed decisions when designing a study, such as determining the appropriate number of trials for a task

Speaking Silence: The Enactment of Politics in Refugee Protest

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College