Action and valence modulate choice and choice-induced preference change.

Choices are not only communicated via explicit actions but also passively through inaction. In this study we investigated how active or passive choice impacts upon the choice process itself as well as a preference change induced by choice. Subjects were tasked to select a preference for unfamiliar photographs by action or inaction, before and after they gave valuation ratings for all photographs. We replicate a finding that valuation increases for chosen items and decreases for unchosen items compared to a control condition in which the choice was made post re-evaluation. Whether choice was expressed actively or passively affected the dynamics of revaluation differently for positive and negatively valenced items. Additionally, the choice itself was biased towards action such that subjects tended to choose a photograph obtained by action more often than a photographed obtained through inaction. These results highlight intrinsic biases consistent with a tight coupling of action and reward and add to an emerging understanding of how the mode of action itself, and not just an associated outcome, modulates the decision making process

Development of Universal Solver for High Enthalpy Flows Through Ablative Materials

Atmospheric entry occurs at very high speeds which produces high temperature around the vehicle. Entry vehicles are thus equipped with Thermal Protection Systems which are usually made of ablative materials. This dissertation presents a new solver that models the atmospheric entry environment and the thermal protection systems. In this approach, both the external flow and the porous heat shield are solved using the same computational domain. The new solver uses the Volume Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations adapted for hypersonic non-equilibrium flow, and is thus valid for both domains. The code is verified using analytical problems, set of benchmarks and also a code-to-code comparison is carried out. A validation study is conducted by modelling a hypersonic arc jet facility test case including ablation modelling. Finally, a high temperature flow tube experiment case is modelled for validation purposes and to study the ablation chemistry model

Utopia and imagination

The most important aim of the "Back to the Sense of the City" International Conference is to draw attention to the city and the sense of its being, the fact that a city seen as a heterogeneous entity is not only a work of its direct creators: architects, engineers, civil servants and municipal services, but all who "fill" it, primarily its inhabitants. A particular role is attributed to artists. It is the artists’ duty not only to shape it but also creatively criticize and contemplate. Artistic actions understood as the city’s activity and activity in relation to the city have certain qualities of utopian events, manifesting in the unattainability of a goal, idealistic activity base, transience of events and the type of references to it /to the city/. The paper focuses on such interpretative approach to these actions. The meaning of this notion is usually interpreted as a place that does not exist, "... from the Greek outopos (gr. ou - no, topos - a place, non-place, place that does not exist, non-existent) and the eutopia (good place) ". Our statement, built on an idea of an internal dialogue, a dialogue between the main text and the footnotes and quotations, focuses on the changing of the ways of thinking about the city as a work of active art, on the role of an artist, architect, town-planner in this process and their activities seen as special intellectual contribution to the development of this kind of space. It is also a kind of provocation relating to the description of similarities of the artistic and architectural activities in the context of the space of a city

FruitGrowth - Gasburning in orchards - Environment friendly weed control

Gas burning makes treatment of weed organic. The new ENVO-DAN burner saves 40% gas and treats 1/2 meter in width.It can be mounted on a standard lawn tractor, orchard tractor or a mobile robot. The modular burner system for burning weeds in orchards can be configurated to your needs

Ultrasound-guided transversus abdominis plane block in combination with ilioinguinal-iliohypogastric block in a high risk cardiac patient for inguinal hernia repair: a case report

Background and Purpose: A high risk cardiac patient, ASA IV, was planned for inguinal hernia repair. Since general anaesthesia presented a high risk, anaesthesia was conducted with a transversus abdominis plane (TAP) in combination with ilioinguinal-iliohypogastric (ILIH) block. Material and Methods: A 70-year old male patient with severe CAD and previous LAD PTCA, AVR, in situ PPM and severe MR and TR 3+, was planned for elective inguinal hernia repair. The preoperative ECHO showed IVS dyskinesis with apicoseptal hypokinesis, global EF 42% and grade III diastolic dysfunction. The patient also suffered from hypertension, diabetes mellitus and had severe stenosis of both femoral arteries. Preoperative preparation included IBP monitoring while the TAP block was carried out under ultrasound guidance using an 8 Hertz linear probe. The ilioinguinal and iliohypogastric nerves were identified with ultrasound and peripheral nerve stimulator. Local anaesthetic [0.5% levobupivacaine (Chirocaine®, Abbott Laboratories) ] was applied in two locations: in the upper right fascia of the transversus abdominis muscle (15 ml) and around the right ilioinguinal and iliohypogastric nerves (10 ml), totalling a volume of 25 ml. Skin infiltration was performed with 5 ml 2% lidocaine [Lidocaine ®, Belupo] and 5 ml of normal saline. Results: Sensory block onset was at 28 minutes after administration and lasted for approximately 18 hours. There were no haemodynamic disturbances and the perioperative course was uneventful. Conclusion: During the first 18 postoperative hours, the patient was comfortable and satisfied with the anaesthetic procedure

Embodied Energy Versus Operational Energy in a Nearly Zero Energy Building Case Study

Currently in the NZEB energy demand calculation method the Embodied Energy is not included, despite the state-of-the-art recognizes a relevant energy impact caused by raw materials extraction as well as components manufacturing, product final assembly and transportation. Aim of this study was to assess the Embodied Energy in a NZEB case study along with the Operational Energy, pointing out the importance of taking into account both these aspects since the earliest design stage. Within the research activity here presented, for accounting the EE, a worksheet was developed and implemented with over 65 materials taken from a database carried out by the authors, in order to encourage designers to properly manage these issues

Some mechanisms of working memory may not be evident in the human EEG

Ruchkin et al. use brain-activity data from healthy subjects to assess the physiological validity of a cognitive working memory model and to propose modifications. The conclusions drawn from this data are interesting and plausible, but they have limitations. Much of what is known about the neural mechanisms of working memory comes from single neuron recordings in animals, and it is currently not fully understood how these translate to scalp recordings of EEG

The dopaminergic midbrain participates in human episodic memory formation: Evidence from genetic imaging

Recent data from animal studies raise the possibility that dopaminergic neuromodulation promotes the encoding of novel stimuli. We investigated a possible role for the dopaminergic midbrain in human episodic memory by measuring how polymorphisms in dopamine clearance pathways affect encoding-related brain activity (functional magnetic resonance imaging) in an episodic memory task. In 51 young, healthy adults, successful episodic encoding was associated with activation of the substantia nigra. This midbrain activation was modulated by a functional variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphism in the dopamine transporter (DAT1) gene. Despite no differences in memory performance between genotype groups, carriers of the (low expressing) 9-repeat allele of the DAT1 VNTR showed relatively higher midbrain activation when compared with subjects homozygous for the 10-repeat allele, who express DAT1 at higher levels. The catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) Val108/158Met polymorphism, which is known to modulate enzyme activity, affected encoding-related activity in the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) and in occipital brain regions but not in the midbrain. Moreover, subjects homozygous for the (low activity) Met allele showed stronger functional coupling between the PFC and the hippocampus during encoding. Our finding that genetic variations in the dopamine clearance pathways affect encoding-related activation patterns in midbrain and PFC provides strong support for a role of dopaminergic neuromodulation in human episodic memory formation. It also supports the hypothesis of anatomically and functionally distinct roles for DAT1 and COMT in dopamine metabolism, with DAT1 modulating rapid, phasic midbrain activity and COMT being particularly involved in prefrontal dopamine clearance

A Common Mechanism for Adaptive Scaling of Reward and Novelty

Declarative memory is remarkably adaptive in the way it maintains sensitivity to relative novelty in both unknown and highly familiar environments. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this contextual adaptation are poorly understood. On the basis of emerging links between novelty processing and reinforcement learning mechanisms, we hypothesized that responses to novelty will be adaptively scaled according to expected contextual probabilities of new and familiar events, in the same way that responses to prediction errors for rewards are scaled according to their expected range. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans, we show that the influence of novelty and reward on memory formation in an incidental memory task is adaptively scaled and furthermore that the BOLD signal in orbital prefrontal and medial temporal cortices exhibits concomitant scaled adaptive coding. These findings demonstrate a new mechanism for adjusting gain and sensitivity in declarative memory in accordance with contextual probabilities and expectancies of future events. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Sharing a Context with Other Rewarding Events Increases the Probability that Neutral Events will be Recollected.

Although reward is known to enhance memory for reward-predicting events, the extent to which such memory effects spread to associated (neutral) events is unclear. Using a between-subject design, we examined how sharing a background context with rewarding events influenced memory for motivationally neutral events (tested after a 5 days delay). We found that sharing a visually rich context with rewarding objects during encoding increased the probability that neutral objects would be successfully recollected during memory test, as opposed to merely being recognized without any recall of associative detail. In contrast, such an effect was not seen when the context was not explicitly demarcated and objects were presented against a blank black background. These qualitative changes in memory were observed in the absence of any effects on overall recognition (as measured by d'). Additionally, a follow-up study failed to find any evidence to suggest that the mere presence of a context picture in the background during encoding (i.e., without the reward manipulation) produced any such qualitative changes in memory. These results suggest that reward enhances recollection for rewarding objects as well as other non-rewarding events that are representationally linked to the same context