What are you or who are you? The emergence of social interaction between dog and Unidentified Moving Object (UMO)

Robots offer new possibilities for investigating animal social behaviour. This method enhances controllability and reproducibility of experimental techniques, and it allows also the experimental separation of the effects of bodily appearance (embodiment) and behaviour. In the present study we examined dogs’ interactive behaviour in a problem solving task (in which the dog has no access to the food) with three different social partners, two of which were robots and the third a human behaving in a robot-like manner. The Mechanical UMO (Unidentified Moving Object) and the Mechanical Human differed only in their embodiment, but showed similar behaviour toward the dog. In contrast, the Social UMO was interactive, showed contingent responsiveness and goal-directed behaviour and moved along varied routes. The dogs showed shorter looking and touching duration, but increased gaze alternation toward the Mechanical Human than to the Mechanical UMO. This suggests that dogs’ interactive behaviour may have been affected by previous experience with typical humans. We found that dogs also looked longer and showed more gaze alternations between the food and the Social UMO compared to the Mechanical UMO. These results suggest that dogs form expectations about an unfamiliar moving object within a short period of time and they recognise some social aspects of UMOs’ behaviour. This is the first evidence that interactive behaviour of a robot is important for evoking dogs’ social responsiveness

Dogs are able to generalize directional acoustic signals to different contexts and tasks

Previous studies suggested that dogs are able to use both egocentric and allocentric cues spontaneously in specified spatial tasks. They can also learn rapidly ‘go-left/go-right’ tasks based on stimulus location but relying on stimulus quality. At the same time, relatively little research has looked at the possibility of whether dogs are able to solve a spatial problem based on previously trained signals in novel situations. In the present study we have examined whether dogs are able to rely on quality differences in sound stimuli for directional behaviour and to generalise this rule in different field conditions. First, we trained 16 adult pet dogs in the lab to go left and right based upon qualitatively different sound signals. After having reached the criterion, subjects participated in five field test sessions that included several novel targets (balls/trees/humans) at different distances (7–18 m) and angular deviations (36°–87°). We wanted to see whether these aspects of the novel context affect the dogs’ performance. After having reached the criterion, subjects participated in five field test sessions that included several novel targets at different distances and angular deviations. The test sessions were followed by a control session in the laboratory in order to exclude the Clever Hans effect. We found that dogs chose the target object that matched the sound signal significantly above the chance level in each test condition and also in the Clever Hans control. Their performance was not affected by different targets and distances, but decreased as a function of angular deviation. These results suggest that dogs are able to learn the ‘go left/go right’ task based on qualitatively different sounds and utilise this rule in novel situations. The angular deviation in choosing the correct target direction proved to be an important factor in the dogs’ performance in a novel context

The Distribution of Activation Markers and Selectins on Peripheral T Lymphocytes in Preeclampsia

INTRODUCTION: Impaired maternal immune tolerance resulting in systemic inflammation plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. Phenotypical changes of monocytes and neutrophil granulocytes have already been studied in preeclampsia, and some studies also included T lymphocyte activation markers; however, the results are controversial and a comprehensive analysis of activation markers is lacking. The characteristics of cellular adhesion molecules in preeclampsia are yet to be described. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Peripheral blood samples of 18 preeclamptic patients and 20 healthy pregnant women in the third trimester were evaluated using flow cytometry to characterize the cell surface expression of T lymphocyte activation markers and selectins. RESULTS: We found an elevated ratio of HLA-DR and CD122-, CD62E-, and CD62L-expressing cells among the CD4+ T lymphocytes in PE in comparison to healthy pregnancy. No alterations were found in the prevalence of CD69-, CD25-, and CD62P-expressing lymphocytes and CD11c-expressing monocytes. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support the role of activated T lymphocytes and specific cell adhesion molecules in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia

Phosphorus levels in croplands of the European Union with implications for P fertilizer use

tIn the frame of the Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey sampling of topsoil was carried out on around22,000 points in 25 EU Member States in 2009 and in additional 2 Member States in 2012. Besidesother basic soil properties soil phosphorus (P) content of the samples were also measured in a singlelaboratory in both years. Based on the results of the LUCAS topsoil survey we performed an assessmentof plant available P status of European croplands. Higher P levels can be observed in regions where highercrop yields can be expected and where high fertilizer P inputs are reported. Plant available phosphoruslevels were determined using two selected fertilizer recommendation systems: one from Hungary andone from the United Kingdom. The fertilizer recommendation system of the UK does not recommendadditional fertilizer use on croplands with highest P supply, which covers regions mostly in Belgiumand the Netherlands. According to a Hungarian advisory system there is a need for fertilizer P input inall regions of the EU. We established a P fertilizer need map based on integrating results from the twosystems. Based on data from 2009 and 2012, P input demand of croplands in the European Union wasestimated to 3, 849, 873 tons(P2O5)/year. Meanwhile we found disparities of calculated input need andreported fertilizer statistics both on local (country) scale and EU level. The first ever uniform topsoilP survey of the EU highlights the contradictions between soil P management of different countries ofthe Union and the inconsistencies between reported P fertilizer consumption and advised P doses. Ouranalysis shows a status of a baseline period of the years 2009 and 2012, while a repeated LUCAS topsoilsurvey can be a useful tool to monitor future changes of nutrient levels, including P in soils of the EU

Electrophysiological correlates and psychoacoustic characteristics of hearing-motion synaesthesia

People with hearing-motion synaesthesia experience sounds from moving or changing (e.g. flickering) visual stimuli. This phenomenon may be one of the most common forms of synaesthesia but it has rarely been studied and there are no studies of its neural basis. We screened for this in a sample of 200+ individuals, and estimated a prevalence of 4.2%. We also document its characteristics: it tends to be induced by physically moving stimuli (more so than static stimuli which imply motion or trigger illusory motion); and the psychoacoustic features are simple (e.g. “whooshing”) with some systematic correspondences to vision (e.g. faster movement is higher pitch). We demonstrate using event-related potentials that it emerges from early perceptual processing of vision. The synaesthetes have a higher amplitude motion-evoked N2 (165-185 msec), with some evidence of group differences as early as 55-75 msec. We discuss similarities between hearing-motion synaesthesia and previous observations that visual motion triggers auditory activity in the congenitally deaf. It is possible that both conditions reflect the maintenance of multisensory pathways found in early development that most people lose but can be retained in certain people in response to sensory deprivation (in the deaf) or, in people with normal hearing, as a result of other differences (e.g. genes predisposing to synaesthesia)