Impact of Infectious Disease on Humans and Our Origins

On May 16, 2020, the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny organized the symposium “Impact of Infectious Disease on Humans and Our Origins”. The symposium aimed to gather experts on infectious diseases in one place and discuss the interrelationship between different pathogens and humans in an evolutionary context. The talks discussed topics including SARS-CoV-2, dengue and Zika, the notion of human-specific diseases, streptococci, microbiome in the human reproductive tract, Salmonella enterica, malaria, and human immunological memory

Konferencija: Cognitive Science

Konferencija "Cognitive Science" održala se na Institutu "Jožef Stefan" u Ljubljani 11. listopada 2018. u sklopu 21. Međunarodne multikonferencije "Information Society". Konferenciju "Cognitive Science" organiziralo je Slovensko društvo za kognitivnu znanost. Cilj konferencije bio je povezati stručnjake iz raznih disciplina koje se bave kognicijom te omogućiti razmjenu raznolikih i izazovnih ideja

Book Review: Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins

Recently, we have witnessed an explosion of studies and discussions claiming that Neanderthals engaged in a range of “symbolic” behaviors, including personal ornament use (Radovčić et al. 2015), funerary practices (Balzeau et al. 2020), visual arts (Hoffmann et al. 2018), body aesthetics (Roebroeks et al. 2012), etc. In Paleolithic archaeology, it has become mainstream to axiomatically infer from these putative behaviors that Neanderthals engaged in symbol use and that Neanderthals thus possessed some form of language. Rudolf Botha’s bombastic title "Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins" provides a detailed and very critical overview of the archaeological hypotheses and speculations about Neanderthal language

Impact of Infectious Disease on Humans and Our Origins

On May 16, 2020, the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny organized the symposium “Impact of Infectious Disease on Humans and Our Origins”. The symposium aimed to gather experts on infectious diseases in one place and discuss the interrelationship between different pathogens and humans in an evolutionary context. The talks discussed topics including SARS-CoV-2, dengue and Zika, the notion of human-specific diseases, streptococci, microbiome in the human reproductive tract, Salmonella enterica, malaria, and human immunological memory

Performance on verbal fluency tasks depends on the given category/letter: Preliminary data from a multivariable analysis

Verbal fluency tasks are often used in neuropsychological research and may have predictive and diagnostic utility in psychiatry and neurology. However, researchers using verbal fluency have uncritically assumed that there are no category-or phoneme-specific effects on verbal fluency performance. We recruited 16 healthy young adult subjects and administered two semantic (animals, trees) and phonemic (K, M) fluency tasks. Because of the small sample size, results should be regarded as preliminary and exploratory. On the animal compared to the tree task, subjects produced significantly more legal words, had a significantly lower intrusion rate, significantly shorter first-response latencies and final silence periods, as well as significantly shorter between-cluster response latencies. These differences may be explained by differences in the category sizes, integrity of the categories’ borders, and efficiency of the functional connectivity between subcategories. On the K compared to the M task, subjects produced significantly more legal words and had significantly shorter between-cluster response times. Counterintuitively, a corpus analysis revealed there are more words starting with ⟨m⟩ compared to ⟨k⟩ in the experimental language. Our results potentially have important implications for research utilizing verbal fluency, including decreased reproducibility, questionable reliability of diagnostic and predictive tools based on verbal fluency, decreased knowledge accumulation, and increased number of publications with potentially misleading clinical interpretations

Overlooked evidence for semantic compositionality and signal reduction in wild chimpanzees (_Pan troglodytes_)

Recent discoveries of semantic compositionality in Japanese tits have enlivened the discussions on the presence of this phenomenon in wild animal communication. Data on semantic compositionality in wild apes are lacking, even though language experiments with captive apes have demonstrated they are capable of semantic compositionality. In this paper, I revisit the study by Boesch (Hum. Evol. 6:81–89, 1991) who investigated drumming sequences by an alpha male in a chimpanzee (_Pan troglodytes_) community in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. A reanalysis of the data reveals that the alpha male produced semantically compositional combined messages of travel direction change and resting period initiation. Unlike the Japanese tits, the elements of the compositional expression were not simply juxtaposed but displayed structural reduction, while one of the two elements in the expression coded the meanings of both elements. These processes show relative resemblance to blending and fusion in human languages. Also unlike the tits, the elements of the compositional expression did not have a fixed order, although there was a fixed distribution of drumming events across the trees used for drumming. Because the elements of the expression appear to carry verb-like meanings, the compositional expression also resembles simple verb-verb constructions and short paratactic combinations of two clauses found across languages. In conclusion, the reanalysis suggests that semantic compositionality and phenomena resembling paratactic combinations of two clauses might have been present in the communication of the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, not necessarily in the vocal modality

INFLUENCING FACTORS IN INSULATION MODEL TESTING

The aim of this paper is to examine different factors that influence the quality of insulation models high voltage testing results. These factors are related to model geometry and model testing procedures. Model geometry is visually checked, several influencing factors are detected and their influence on el. field calculation results is evaluated using finite element method (FEM) and cumulative method for oilbarrier insulation design. The procedure for model geometry uncertainty estimation is performed using first-order Taylor series approximation. Also, the influence of previous voltage exposure history of a specimen, so-called “memo effect”, is estimated with a cumulative exposure method

RESEARCH OF TRANSFORMER MAIN INSULATION DESIGN RULES

Kappeler research performed more than 50 years ago is widely used for HV transformers insulation design. Even though the original experiment was done for oil ducts width from 0.5 to 6 mm, the results have been extrapolated to ducts up to 100 and more mm without detailed publication that would confirm the validity of this extrapolation. This paper presents the experiment that aims to expand Kappeler research to oil duct width up to 30 mm. Model setup also allows creepage and barriers effect testing up to 30 mm

A concept for experimental testing of oil-barrier insulation system

Svrha ovog rada je predstavljanje koncepta za eksperimentalno istraživanje uljno-barijernog izolacijskog sustava. Predložen je dizajn modela izolacije s ciljem rješavanja tipičnih problema kod ispitivanja parcijalnih izbijanja papirom izoliranih elektroda. Električno polje u modelima analizirano je metodama koje se uobičajeno koriste za dimenzioniranje izolacije u transformatoru (kumulativna metoda i metoda maksimalnog električnog polja). Prototip modela je izrađen i ispitan kako bi se potvrdila funkcionalnost predloženog modela. Također, procijenjena je nesigurnost geometrije modela kako bi se odredio utjecaj predloženog modela na rezultate istraživanja.The aim of this paper is to present a concept for experimental testing of transformer oil-barrier insulation system. Design of insulation model is proposed with the purpose to avoid typical problems reported in literature concerning partial discharge testing of paper coated electrodes. Electric field between model electrodes is analyzed with methods commonly used in transformer insulation design - cumulative method and maximum electric field method. Model prototype is produced and tested to confirm functionality of the proposed concept. Also, model uncertainty is estimated to define model geometry influence on the test results

Therapeutic Efficacy of 5% NaCl Hypertonic Solution in Patients with Bullous Keratopathy

A clinical trial was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of hypertonic solution (5% NaCl) in patients who have bullous keratopathy (BK). The aim of the study was to define the stage of the disease and the thickness of cornea in micrometers, which would be the threshold for therapeutic approach. This was a prospective study on 70 eyes of 55 patients. Patients were divided in two groups at the beginning of the study.The first group (n=33 eyes) included patients with initial stage of BK: only stromal component of corneal oedema was present. The second group (n=37 eyes) included patients with advanced stage of BK: the epithelial component of the disease with bullae on the corneal surface had already developed. Visual acuity, central and peripheral thickness of cornea and morphology of the disease was recorded before therapy, 7 days and 4 weeks after administration of hypertonic solution. Our results shown that the efficacy of hypertonic solution correlates with the severity of clinical picture in patients with BK. When 5% NaCl hypertonic solution was applied in the early stage of the disease, when only stromal component of corneal oedema was presented, visual acuity and pachymetry readings were significantly improved. The threshold pachymerty measurement of corneal thickness justifying the application of hypertonic solution was 613–694 _m(in the central corneal area), and 633–728 _m(at corneal periphery). It seems reasonable to apply hypertonic solution to the patients who have BK and whose pachymetric values are below mentioned range. In terminal stages of BK, when superficial bullae (epithelial component) had already developed, treatment with NaCl was not effective and patients had to be submitted to penetrating keratoplasty