The role of spatial and temporal information in biological motion perception

Point-light biological motion stimuli provide spatio-temporal information about the structure of the human body in motion. Manipulation of the spatial structure of point-light stimuli reduces the ability of human observers to perceive biological motion. A recent study has reported that interference with the spatial structure of pointlight walkers also reduces the evoked eventrelated potentials over the occipitotemporal cortex, but that interference with the temporal structure of the stimuli evoked event-related potentials similar to normal biological motion stimuli. We systematically investigated the influence of spatial and temporal manipulation on 2 common discrimination tasks and compared it with predictions of a neurocomputational model previously proposed. This model first analyzes the spatial structure of the stimulus independently of the temporal information to derive body posture and subsequently analyzes the temporal sequence of body postures to derive movement direction. Similar to the model predictions, the psychophysical results show that human observers need only intact spatial configuration of the stimulus to discriminate the facing direction of a point-light walker. In contrast, movement direction discrimination needs a fully intact spatiotemporal pattern of the stimulus. The activation levels in the model predict the observed eventrelated potentials for the spatial and temporal manipulations

A study of psychiatrists’ concepts of mental illness

Background: There are multiple models of mental illness that inform professional and lay understanding. Few studies have formally investigated psychiatrists' attitudes. We aimed to measure how a group of trainee psychiatrists understand familiar mental illnesses in terms of propositions drawn from different models. Method: We used a questionnaire study of a sample of trainees from South London and Maudsley National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust designed to assess attitudes across eight models of mental illness (e.g. biological, psychodynamic) and four psychiatric disorders. Methods for analysing repeated measures and a principal components analysis (PCA) were used. Results: No one model was endorsed by all respondents. Model endorsement varied with disorder. Attitudes to schizophrenia were expressed with the greatest conviction across models. Overall, the ‘biological’ model was the most strongly endorsed. The first three components of the PCA (interpreted as dimensions around which psychiatrists, as a group, understand mental illness) accounted for 56% of the variance. Each main component was classified in terms of its distinctive combination of statements from different models: PC1 33% biological versus non-biological; PC2 12% ‘eclectic’ (combining biological, behavioural, cognitive and spiritual models); and PC3 10% psychodynamic versus sociological. Conclusions: Trainee psychiatrists are most committed to the biological model for schizophrenia, but in general are not exclusively committed to any one model. As a group, they organize their attitudes towards mental illness in terms of a biological/non-biological contrast, an ‘eclectic’ view and a psychodynamic/sociological contrast. Better understanding of how professional group membership influences attitudes may facilitate better multidisciplinary working

In-Space Propulsion: Connectivity to In-Space Fabrication and Repair

The connectivity between new in-space propulsion technologies and the ultimate development of an in-space fabrication and repair infrastructure are described in this Technical Memorandum. A number of advanced in-space propulsion technologies are being developed by NASA, many of which are directly relevant to the establishment of such an in-space infrastructure. These include aerocapture, advanced solar-electric propulsion, solar-thermal propulsion, advanced chemical propulsion, tethers, and solar photon sails. Other, further-term technologies have also been studied to assess their utility to the development of such an infrastructure

Detecting the direction of a signal on high-dimensional spheres: Non-null and Le Cam optimality results

We consider one of the most important problems in directional statistics, namely the problem of testing the null hypothesis that the spike direction $\theta$ of a Fisher-von Mises-Langevin distribution on the $p$-dimensional unit hypersphere is equal to a given direction $\theta_0$. After a reduction through invariance arguments, we derive local asymptotic normality (LAN) results in a general high-dimensional framework where the dimension $p_n$ goes to infinity at an arbitrary rate with the sample size $n$, and where the concentration $\kappa_n$ behaves in a completely free way with $n$, which offers a spectrum of problems ranging from arbitrarily easy to arbitrarily challenging ones. We identify various asymptotic regimes, depending on the convergence/divergence properties of $(\kappa_n)$, that yield different contiguity rates and different limiting experiments. In each regime, we derive Le Cam optimal tests under specified $\kappa_n$ and we compute, from the Le Cam third lemma, asymptotic powers of the classical Watson test under contiguous alternatives. We further establish LAN results with respect to both spike direction and concentration, which allows us to discuss optimality also under unspecified $\kappa_n$. To investigate the non-null behavior of the Watson test outside the parametric framework above, we derive its local asymptotic powers through martingale CLTs in the broader, semiparametric, model of rotationally symmetric distributions. A Monte Carlo study shows that the finite-sample behaviors of the various tests remarkably agree with our asymptotic results.Comment: 47 pages, 4 figure

Prophylactic immunization to <em>Helicobacter pylori</em> infection using spore vectored vaccines

BackgroundHelicobacter pylori infection remains a major public health threat leading to gastrointestinal illness and increased risk of gastric cancer. Mostly affecting populations in developing countries no vaccines are yet available and the disease is controlled by antimicrobials which, in turn, are driving the emergence of AMR.Materials and MethodsWe have engineered spores of Bacillus subtilis to display putative H. pylori protective antigens, urease subunit A (UreA) and subunit B (UreB) on the spore surface. Following oral dosing of mice with these spores, we evaluated immunity and colonization in animals challenged with H. pylori.ResultsOral immunization with spores expressing either UreA or UreB showed antigen-specific mucosal responses (fecal sIgA) including seroconversion and hyperimmunity. Following challenge, colonization by H. pylori was significantly reduced by up to 1-log.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates the utility of bacterial spores for mucosal vaccination to H. pylori infection. The heat stability and robustness of Bacillus spores coupled with their existing use as probiotics make them an attractive solution for either protection against H. pylori infection or potentially for therapy and control of active infection

Cystic fibrosis: NHLBI workshop on the primary prevention of chronic lung diseases

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-limiting, monogenic disorder characterized by chronic sinopulmonary and gastrointestinal involvement. Progressive pulmonary disease leads to death in the majority of patients. Despite its well-defined molecular basis related to defects in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator anion transport channel, there are large gaps in our understanding of the origin of CF lung disease. Disease has been shown to be present in infancy, and there is mounting evidence that abnormalities begin in utero. Heterogeneity of clinical presentations and severity suggest that many factors involved in lung disease have yet to be fully elucidated. Although new advances in therapeutic treatments have shown promise in delaying disease progression, the prevention of pulmonary disease at its origin (primary prevention) should be a key goal of CF care. The objective of this workshop was to (1) review our understanding of the origins of CF lung disease, (2) determine gaps in the knowledge base that are most significant and most likely to enable prevention of CF lung disease, and (3) prioritize new research questions that will promote pulmonary health in both CF and other childhood lung diseases. The goal of this report is to provide recommendations for future research that will improve our understanding of pulmonary development in health and disease, improve outcome measures and biomarkers for early lung disease, and determine therapeutic targets and strategies to prevent the development of lung disease in children with CF

Tuberculosis in children in India-II: Chemotherapy for tuberculosis

Tubercle bacilli readily become resistant to the common drugs, and resistant bacilli are more likely to proliferate if they are present in the patient at the start of treatment. So always use more than one drug. The only possible exception is prophylaxis for an asymptomatic case with a normal X-ray. CAUTION! (1) Never give intermittent (twice or thrice weekly) treatment unless every dose can be supervised by a health worker. Daily treatment is usually mandatory. (2) When you give more than one drug, give them both at the same time, so that high blood levels coincide; do not give one drug daily and the other drug less often. THE DOSES of the commonly used drugs for daily and intermittent treatment in children and adults are: lsoniazid (H) 5 mg/kg/24 hours if he is moderately ill and 10 mg/kg/24 hours if he is severely ill. The dose for a twice weekly course is 15 mg/kg. CAUTION! Opinions on the dose of isoniazid vary. Some consider 10 mg/kg/24 hours too much for an Indian child and always give 5 mg. Rifampicin (R) 10 mg/kg/24 hours, or 10 mg/kg twice weekly. Pyrazinamide (Z) 35 mg/kg/24 hours, 75 mg/kg twice weekly or 50 mg/kg thrice weekly, is an important drug for short course treatment, so try to include it whenever it is mentioned in the regimes below. Streptomycin (S) 10-20 mg/kg/24 hours, or 40 mg/kg twice weekly, to a total of not more than 0.75 g. Streptomycin is painful, so avoid it if you can. If you give it, inject in different places each day, because repeated injections into the same site are painful. Ethambutol (E) 25 mg/kg/24 hours for 2 months, then 15 mg/kg/24 hours. Avoid ethambutol in younger children (under 12); they are unable to complain of the early symptoms of retrobulbar neuritis (blindness). Thiacetazone (T) 4 mg/kg/24 hours to a maximum Of 150 mg; unsuitable for intermittent treatment

Identifying the mechanisms underpinning recognition of structured sequences of action

© 2012 The Experimental Psychology SocietyWe present three experiments to identify the specific information sources that skilled participants use to make recognition judgements when presented with dynamic, structured stimuli. A group of less skilled participants acted as controls. In all experiments, participants were presented with filmed stimuli containing structured action sequences. In a subsequent recognition phase, participants were presented with new and previously seen stimuli and were required to make judgements as to whether or not each sequence had been presented earlier (or were edited versions of earlier sequences). In Experiment 1, skilled participants demonstrated superior sensitivity in recognition when viewing dynamic clips compared with static images and clips where the frames were presented in a nonsequential, randomized manner, implicating the importance of motion information when identifying familiar or unfamiliar sequences. In Experiment 2, we presented normal and mirror-reversed sequences in order to distort access to absolute motion information. Skilled participants demonstrated superior recognition sensitivity, but no significant differences were observed across viewing conditions, leading to the suggestion that skilled participants are more likely to extract relative rather than absolute motion when making such judgements. In Experiment 3, we manipulated relative motion information by occluding several display features for the duration of each film sequence. A significant decrement in performance was reported when centrally located features were occluded compared to those located in more peripheral positions. Findings indicate that skilled participants are particularly sensitive to relative motion information when attempting to identify familiarity in dynamic, visual displays involving interaction between numerous features

Tuberculosis in children in India-I

Tuberculosis is different in children. It involves many organs, instead of being the predominantly respiratory disease that it usually is in adults. Fortunately, it readily responds to treatment–if you diagnose it early enough and treat it for long enough! This is the problem. Unfortunately, tuberculosis causes such non-specific symptoms and signs, and you are so seldom able to isolate bacilli, that you may never be sure of the diagnosis. Even experts sometimes disagree. In India particularly, it is a disease of the poorest of the poor, but even in them it causes only a small proportion of their burden of morbidity. The great problem is to reach those infected. Of every thousand Indians, seven children and about twenty adults have active tuberculosis, and five of these adults are sputum positive. Only about half the 9 million in the community at any one time are ever diagnosed, and of these only about 13% complete their treatment, so there is a huge pool of infectious cases, half a million of whom die each year. Fortunately, the incidence of tuberculosis among children reporting to hospital is slowly decreasing, probably largely due to improved coverage with BCG