Review

Detecting the direction of image motion is a fundamental component of visual computation, essential for survival of the animal. However, at the level of individual photoreceptors, the direction in which the image is shifting is not explicitly represented. Rather, directional motion information needs to be extracted from the photoreceptor array by comparing the signals of neighboring units over time. The exact nature of this process as implemented in the visual system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has been studied in great detail, and much progress has recently been made in determining the neural circuits giving rise to directional motion information. The results reveal the following: (1) motion information is computed in parallel ON and OFF pathways. (2) Within each pathway, T4 (ON) and T5 (OFF) cells are the first neurons to represent the direction of motion. Four subtypes of T4 and T5 cells exist, each sensitive to one of the four cardinal directions. (3) The core process of direction selectivity as implemented on the dendrites of T4 and T5 cells comprises both an enhancement of signals for motion along their preferred direction as well as a suppression of signals for motion along the opposite direction. This combined strategy ensures a high degree of direction selectivity right at the first stage where the direction of motion is computed. (4) At the subsequent processing stage, tangential cells spatially integrate direct excitation from ON and OFF-selective T4 and T5 cells and indirect inhibition from bi-stratified LPi cells activated by neighboring T4/T5 terminals, thus generating flow-field-selective responses

Ultrasound mapping of lymph node and subcutaneous metastases in patients with cutaneous melanoma: Results of a prospective multicenter study

Background: Ultrasound (sonography, B-mode sonography, ultrasonography) examination improves the sensitivity in more than 25% compared to the clinical palpation, especially after surgery on the regional lymph node area. Objective: To evaluate the distribution of metastases during follow-up in the draining lymph node areas from the scar of primary to regional lymph nodes ( head and neck, supraclavicular, axilla, infraclavicular, groin) in patients with cutaneous melanoma with or without sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) or former elective or consecutive complete lymph node dissection in case of positive sentinel lymph node (CLND). Methods: Prospective multicenter study of the Departments of Dermatology of the Universities of Homburg/Saar, Tubingen and Munich (Germany) in which the distribution of lymph node and subcutaneous metastases were mapped from the scar of primary to the lymphatic drainage region in 53 melanoma patients ( 23 women, 30 men; median age: 64 years; median tumor thickness: 1.99 mm) with known primary, visible lymph nodes or subcutaneous metastases proven by ultrasound and histopathology during the follow-up. Results: Especially in the axilla, infraclavicular region and groin the metastases were not limited to the anatomic lymph node regions. In 5 patients (9.4%) ( 4 of them were in stage IV) lymph node metastases were not located in the corresponding lymph node area. 32 patients without former SLNB had a time range between melanoma excision and lymph node metastases of 31 months ( median), 21 patients with SLNB had 18 months ( p < 0.005). In 11 patients with positive SLNB the time range was 17 months, in 10 patients with negative SLNB 21 months ( p < 0.005); in 32 patients with CLND the time range was 31 m< 0.005). In thinner melanomas lymph node metastases occurred later ( p < 0.05). Conclusions: After surgery of cutaneous melanoma, SLNB and CLND the lymphatic drainage can show significant changes which should be considered in clinical and ultrasound follow-up examinations. Especially for high-risk melanoma patients follow-up examinations should be performed at intervals of 3 months in the first years. Patients at stage IV should be examined in all regional lymph node areas clinically and by ultrasound. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel

Reconfiguring experimental archaeology using 3D reconstruction

Experimental archaeology has long yielded valuable insights into the tools and techniques that featured in past peoples’ relationship with the material world around them. We can determine, for example, how many trees would need to be felled to construct a large round-house of the southern British Iron Age (over one hundred), infer the exact angle needed to strike a flint core in order to knap an arrowhead in the manner of a Neolithic hunter-gatherer, or recreate the precise environmental conditions needed to store grain in underground silos over the winter months, with only the technologies and materials available to Romano-Briton villagers (see Coles 1973; Reynolds 1993). However, experimental archaeology has, hitherto, confined itself to rather rigid, empirical and quantitative questions such as those posed in these examples. This is quite understandable, and in line with good scientific practice, which stipulates that any ‘experiment’ must be based on replicable data, and be reproducible. Despite their potential in this area however, it is notable that digital reconstruction technologies have yet to play a significant role in experimental archaeology. Whilst many excellent examples of digital 3D reconstruction of heritage sites exist (for example the Digital Roman Forum project: http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum) most, if not all, of these are characterized by a drive to establish a photorealistic re-creation of physical features. This paper will discuss possibilities that lie beyond straightforward positivist re-creation of heritage sites, in the experimental reconstruction of intangible heritage. Between 2010 and 2012, the authors led the Motion in Place Platform project (MiPP: http://www.motioninplace.org/), a capital grant under the AHRC's DEDEFI scheme developing motion capture and analysis tools for exploring how people move through spaces. In the course of MiPP, a series of experiments were conducted using motion capture hardware and software at the Silchester Roman town archaeological excavation in Hampshire, and at the Butser Ancient Farm facility, where Romano-British and Iron Age dwellings have been constructed according to the best experimental practice. As well as reconstructing such Roman and early British dwellings in 3D, the authors were able to use motion capture to reconstruct the kind of activities that – according to the material evidence – are likely to have been carried out by the occupants who used them. Bespoke motion capture suits developed for the project were employed, and the traces captured and rendered with a combination of Autodesk and Unity3D software. This sheds new light on how the reconstructed spaces - and, by inference, their ancient counterparts - were most likely to have been used. In particular the exercises allowed the evaluation and visualisation of changes in behaviour which occur as a result of familiarity with an environment and the acquisition of expertise over time; and to assess how interaction between different actors affects how everyday tasks are carried out

Gifting personal interpretations in galleries

The designers of mobile guides for museums and galleries face three major challenges: fostering rich interpretation, delivering deep personalization, and enabling a coherent social visit. We propose an approach to tackling all three simultaneously by inviting visitors to design an interpretation that is specifically tailored for a friend or loved one that they then experience together. We describe a trial of this approach at a contemporary art gallery, revealing how visitors designed personal and sometimes provocative experiences for people they knew well. We reveal how pairs of visitors negotiated these experiences together, showing how our approach could deliver intense experiences for both, but also required them to manage social risk. By interpreting our findings through the lens of ‘gift giving’ we shed new light on ongoing explorations of interpretation, personalization and social visiting within HCI

A longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis of the process of kidney recipients’ resolution of complex ambiguities within relationships with their living donors

Much previous research into living kidney donation has focused on the decision making of the donor, despite evidence suggesting this may be a more psychologically challenging time for the recipient. This longitudinal study explores the experiences of four recipients of kidneys from living donors throughout the transplant process. Transcripts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Three themes arose from the data, which were: Changing perceptions of relationships with kidney donors; Upbeat, temporal strategies for remaining positive; and Journey of the self. Findings from the first theme are presented in detail here. It was found that each participants’ relationship with their donor grew and developed in different ways, presenting their own complex challenges in terms of developing relationships and ambiguity around the decision to use the chosen donor

Humour as social dreaming:Stand-up comedy as therapeutic performance

Stand-up comedy binds dramatic cultural spectacle to ritualised, intimate exposure. Examining ‘case’ examples from live comic performance, this paper describes stand-up as a kind of social dreaming. The article proposes a theoretical frame drawing on Thomas Ogden’s notion of ‘talking as dreaming’ and psychoanalytic accounts connecting humour and melancholia. Locating the stand-up comedian’s propensity for humour in a specialist capacity to hone, display and process traumata, the paper characterises stand-up as a performative oscillation evoking paranoid-schizoid and depressive anxieties. A psychosocial gloss places stand-up as a cultural resource in the service of the popular-as-therapeutic. The paper articulates complementarities between Henri Bergson’s formulations on the function of laughter and an emergent object relations account in order to help to recognise ‘containing’ and ‘cultural-restorative’ aspects of much stand-up, understood as contemporary psychosocial ritual

Gender Differences in Emotion Regulation: An fMRI Study of Cognitive Reappraisal

Despite strong popular conceptions of gender differences in emotionality and striking gender differences in the prevalence of disorders thought to involve emotion dysregulation, the literature on the neural bases of emotion regulation is nearly silent regarding gender differences (Gross, 2007; Ochsner & Gross, in press). The purpose of the present study was to address this gap in the literature. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we asked male and female participants to use a cognitive emotion regulation strategy (reappraisal) to down-regulate their emotional responses to negatively valenced pictures. Behaviorally, men and women evidenced comparable decreases in negative emotion experience. Neurally, however, gender differences emerged. Compared with women, men showed (a) lesser increases in prefrontal regions that are associated with reappraisal, (b) greater decreases in the amygdala, which is associated with emotional responding, and (c) lesser engagement of ventral striatal regions, which are associated with reward processing. We consider two non-competing explanations for these differences. First, men may expend less effort when using cognitive regulation, perhaps due to greater use of automatic emotion regulation. Second, women may use positive emotions in the service of reappraising negative emotions to a greater degree. We then consider the implications of gender differences in emotion regulation for understanding gender differences in emotional processing in general, and gender differences in affective disorders