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

A vetésidő és a tőszám hatása az eltérő tenyészidejű kukoricahibridek termésére és termésbiztonságára

Szakdologozatomban a kukoricahibrid-vetésidő-tőszám hatását vizsgáltam Debrecenben, mészlepedékes csernozjom talajon. A vizsgált hibridek a KITE Zrt. tulajdonában vannak. A kutatás során több tényezőt vizsgáltunk, pl. növény és csőmagasság, hím és nővirágzás ideje, érés időszakában a szemtermés vízleadás dinamikáját.BSc/BAMezőgazdasági mérnö

Auditory–Visual Matching of Conspecifics and Non-Conspecifics by Dogs and Human Infants

We tested whether dogs and 14–16-month-old infants are able to integrate intersensory information when presented with conspecific and heterospecific faces and vocalisations. The looking behaviour of dogs and infants was recorded with a non-invasive eye-tracking technique while they were concurrently presented with a dog and a female human portrait accompanied with acoustic stimuli of female human speech and a dog’s bark. Dogs showed evidence of both con- and heterospecific intermodal matching, while infants’ looking preferences indicated effective auditory–visual matching only when presented with the audio and visual stimuli of the non-conspecifics. The results of the present study provided further evidence that domestic dogs and human infants have similar socio-cognitive skills and highlighted the importance of comparative examinations on intermodal perception

Egy betegség két arca:szeronegatív rheumatoid arthritist követően kialakuló spondylarthritis ankylopoetica : Esetbemutatás a 20 éves reumatológiai osztály anyagából = Two faces of an illness: ankylosing spondylitis developed after rheumatoid arthritis

A szerzők egy 35 éves nőbeteg kórtörténetét ismertetik, akinél 29 éves korában szeronegatív rheumatoid arthritist igazoltak a reumatológiai osztályon. A betegség remisszióját sikeres graviditás követte, majd két évvel később kizárólag axiális tüneteket mutató spondylarthritist diagnosztizáltak. A major hisztokompatibilitási komplex vizsgálata során a hagyományos szerológiai módszerekkel a HLA B27 spondylarthritis ankylopoeticára jellemző, valamint HLA DR1 rheumatoid arthritisre jellemző haplotípust mutattak ki. A HLA DRB-polimorfizmus vizsgálata során a rheumatoid arthritis létrejöttében és kórlefolyásában szerepet játszó HLA DR B1 0101 allél jelenlétét igazolták. A betegben tehát ritka kombinációként a spondylarthritis ankylopoetica és a rheumatoid arthritis létrejöttében is szerepet játszó HLA-formáció egyaránt megtalálható volt. | Author presents the clinical history of a 35 years old female patient, who suffered from seronegative rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 29. Remission of the illness was followed by successful gravidity. Almost two years later spondylarthritis was diagnosed, showing only axial symptoms. The major histocompatibility complex analyzed by normal serological methods revealed the HLA B27 haplotype, typical for ankylosing spondylitis, and the HLA DR1 haplotype, typical for rheumatoid arthritis. During the examination of HLA DRB polymorphism, presence of DR B1 0101 allele was found, that plays role in the pathophysiology of rheumatoid arthritis. This case proves that a combination of HLA alleles typical for ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis can be found in the same patient