The role of individual and social variables in task performance.

This paper reports on a data-based study in which we explored - as part of a larger-scale British-Hungarian research project - the effects of a number of affective and social variables on foreign language (L2) learners’ engagement in oral argumentative tasks. The assumption underlying the investigation was that students’ verbal behaviour in oral task situations is partly determined by a number of non-linguistic and non-cognitive factors whose examination may constitute a potentially fruitful extension of existing task-based research paradigms. The independent variables in the study included various aspects of L2 motivation and several factors characterizing the learner groups the participating students were members of (such as group cohesiveness and intermember relations), as well as the learners’ L2 proficiency and ‘willingness to communicate’ in their L1. The dependent variables involved objective measures of the students’ language output in two oral argumentative tasks (one in the learners’ L1, the other in their L2): the quantity of speech and the number of turns produced by the speakers. The results provide insights into the interrelationship of the multiple variables determining the learners’ task engagement, and suggest a multi-level construct whereby some independent variables only come into force when certain conditions have been met

A new other-race effect for gaze perception

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Measurements of integral muon intensity at large zenith angles

High-statistics data on near-horizontal muons collected with Russian-Italian coordinate detector DECOR are analyzed. Precise measurements of muon angular distributions in zenith angle interval from 60 to 90 degrees have been performed. In total, more than 20 million muons are selected. Dependences of the absolute integral muon intensity on zenith angle for several threshold energies ranging from 1.7 GeV to 7.2 GeV are derived. Results for this region of zenith angles and threshold energies have been obtained for the first time. The dependence of integral intensity on zenith angle and threshold energy is well fitted by a simple analytical formula.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Caracterização e ocorrência do distúrbio do amolecimento precoce em mamões 'Golden'

The occurrence of green skin and soft pulp in 'Golden' papaya fruit during certain seasons has been reported by farmers in the northern of the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil. The objective of this study was to characterize and determine the occurrence of this disorder, which was referred as "early softening disorder". Fruits were harvested weekly for 11 months (from September to July). The fruits were stored at 10°C, and then fruit flesh firmness and skin color were analyzed. The results of the firmness test were submitted to regression analysis assuming a linear trendline. The slope of the curve was called the 'softening index' (SI). Fruits with early softening are characterized by a loss of firmness in less than 10 days, even when stored under refrigeration. Although softened, the skin of the fruit remains partially green. Fruits with the disorder occurred more frequently from mid-summer to mid-autumn (February to May). It is not possible to distinguish early softening disorder fruits from those without the disorder by skin color and flesh firmness analysis at the time of the harvest.Tem sido relatado por produtores da região norte do Espírito Santo a ocorrência de mamões 'Golden' com casca verde e polpa mole, em determinadas épocas do ano. O objetivo deste trabalho foi caracterizar e determinar a ocorrência deste distúrbio denominado de amolecimento precoce. Foram realizadas coletas semanais durante 11 meses (período de setembro a julho). Os frutos foram armazenados a 10°C e analisados quanto à firmeza da polpa e à cor da casca. Os resultados de firmeza da polpa foram submetidos à análise de regressão, assumindo-se que a equação é do tipo linear, e o ângulo de inclinação da curva foi chamado Índice de Amolecimento (IA). Frutos com o distúrbio caracterizaram-se pela perda da firmeza em menos de 10 dias, mesmo quando armazenados sob refrigeração. Embora amolecidos, a coloração da casca manteve-se parcialmente verde. A maior frequência de frutos com o distúrbio ocorreu de meados de verão a meados de outono (fevereiro a maio). Não é possível distinguir frutos com o distúrbio do amolecimento precoce daqueles normais pela análise da cor da casca e da firmeza da polpa, no momento da colheita

The Detection and Policing of Gun Crime: Challenges to the Effective Policing of Gun Crime in Europe

Despite a shared understanding across the EU that access to firearms by the general public should be restricted, detailed legislation regarding the ownership, use and trade of firearms varies between EU member states. It is unclear however, how such variations impact on the policing of gun enabled crime. By using qualitative data generated from interviews with police, policy and decision makers from thirteen European countries, the authors of this article aim to determine how stakeholders perceive that national variations in firearms legislation impact on the policing of gun enabled crime within and across EU countries. Four main themes were identified from the qualitative data: disparities in Legislation, disparities in Priority given and the Resources allocated to investigations into gun enabled crime as well as Interventions. Due to the aforementioned disparities, cross-national investigations into incidents of gun crime are at risk of remaining impaired in their effectiveness. Therefore, more legislative coherency as well as sustainable long-term interventions will be needed to successfully reduce ownership and use of firearms in the criminal world. In this context, a departure from an exclusive use of an economic model of gun crime is recommended to allow for a better understanding of the dynamics of the black gun market

First report of generalized face processing difficulties in möbius sequence.

Reverse simulation models of facial expression recognition suggest that we recognize the emotions of others by running implicit motor programmes responsible for the production of that expression. Previous work has tested this theory by examining facial expression recognition in participants with Möbius sequence, a condition characterized by congenital bilateral facial paralysis. However, a mixed pattern of findings has emerged, and it has not yet been tested whether these individuals can imagine facial expressions, a process also hypothesized to be underpinned by proprioceptive feedback from the face. We investigated this issue by examining expression recognition and imagery in six participants with Möbius sequence, and also carried out tests assessing facial identity and object recognition, as well as basic visual processing. While five of the six participants presented with expression recognition impairments, only one was impaired at the imagery of facial expressions. Further, five participants presented with other difficulties in the recognition of facial identity or objects, or in lower-level visual processing. We discuss the implications of our findings for the reverse simulation model, and suggest that facial identity recognition impairments may be more severe in the condition than has previously been noted

A review of the use of blood and blood products in HIV-infected patients

Despite numerous publications on the appropriate use of blood and blood products, few specifically consider the role of transfusion in the management of HIV. This review is a synthesis of conditions encountered in the management of HIV-infected patients where the transfusion of blood or blood products may be indicated. A consistent message emerging from the review is that the principles of transfusion medicine do not differ between HIV-negative and -positive patients. The aim of the review is to provide clinicians witha practical and succinct overview of the haematological abnormalities and clinical circumstances most commonly encountered in the HIV setting, while focusing on the rational and appropriate use of blood and blood products forHIV patients. Important ethical considerations in dealing with both the collection and transfusion blood and blood products in the HIV era have also been addressed

Atmospheric Muon Flux at Sea Level, Underground, and Underwater

The vertical sea-level muon spectrum at energies above 1 GeV and the underground/underwater muon intensities at depths up to 18 km w.e. are calculated. The results are particularly collated with a great body of the ground-level, underground, and underwater muon data. In the hadron-cascade calculations, the growth with energy of inelastic cross sections and pion, kaon, and nucleon generation in pion-nucleus collisions are taken into account. For evaluating the prompt muon contribution to the muon flux, we apply two phenomenological approaches to the charm production problem: the recombination quark-parton model and the quark-gluon string model. To solve the muon transport equation at large depths of homogeneous medium, a semi-analytical method is used. The simple fitting formulas describing our numerical results are given. Our analysis shows that, at depths up to 6-7 km w. e., essentially all underground data on the muon intensity correlate with each other and with predicted depth-intensity relation for conventional muons to within 10%. However, the high-energy sea-level data as well as the data at large depths are contradictory and cannot be quantitatively decribed by a single nuclear-cascade model.Comment: 47 pages, REVTeX, 15 EPS figures included; recent experimental data and references added, typos correcte

The Composite Task Reveals Stronger Holistic Processing in Children than Adults for Child Faces

Background: While own-age faces have been reported to be better recognized than other-age faces, the underlying cause of this phenomenon remains unclear. One potential cause is holistic face processing, a special kind of perceptual and cognitive processing reserved for perceiving upright faces. Previous studies have indeed found that adults show stronger holistic processing when looking at adult faces compared to child faces, but whether a similar own-age bias exists in children remains to be shown. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we used the composite face task – a standard test of holistic face processing – to investigate if, for child faces, holistic processing is stronger for children than adults. Results showed child participants (8–13 years) had a larger composite effect than adult participants (22–65 years). Conclusions/Significance: Our finding suggests that differences in strength of holistic processing may underlie the ownage bias on recognition memory. We discuss the origin of own-age biases in terms of relative experience, face-space tuning, and social categorization

Holistic processing, contact, and the other-race effect in face recognition

Face recognition, holistic processing, and processing of configural and featural facial information are known to be influenced by face race, with better performance for own- than other-race faces. However, whether these various other-race effects (OREs) arise from the same underlying mechanisms or from different processes remains unclear. The present study addressed this question by measuring the OREs in a set of face recognition tasks, and testing whether these OREs are correlated with each other. Participants performed different tasks probing (1) face recognition, (2) holistic processing, (3) processing of configural information, and (4) processing of featural information for both own- and other-race faces. Their contact with other-race people was also assessed with a questionnaire. The results show significant OREs in tasks testing face memory and processing of configural information, but not in tasks testing either holistic processing or processing of featural information. Importantly, there was no cross-task correlation between any of the measured OREs. Moreover, the level of other-race contact predicted only the OREs obtained in tasks testing face memory and processing of configural information. These results indicate that these various cross-race differences originate from different aspects of face processing, in contrary to the view that the ORE in face recognition is due to cross-race differences in terms of holistic processing