Effects of Learned Episodic Event Structure on Prospective Duration Judgments

The field of psychology of time has typically distinguished between prospective timing and retrospective duration estimation: in prospective timing, participants attend to and encode time, whereas in retrospective estimation, estimates are based on the memory of what happened. Prior research on prospective timing has primarily focused on attentional mechanisms to explain timing behavior, but it remains unclear the extent to which memory processes may also play a role. The present studies investigate this issue, and specifically, the role of newly learned encoded event structure. Two structural properties of dynamic event sequences were examined, which are known to modulate retrospective duration estimates: the perceived number of segments and the similarity between them. We found that when duration and episodic event content are both attended to and encoded, more segments and less similarity between them led to longer attributed durations, despite clock duration remaining constant. In contrast, when only duration is attended to, only the number of segments influenced estimated durations. These findings indicate that incidentally or intentionally encoded episodic event structure modulates prospective duration judgments. Based on these and previous findings, implications for the role of memory mechanisms on prospective paradigms are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Recor

Similarity-based competition in relative clause production and comprehension

This work investigates the role of semantic similarity in sentence production and comprehension. Previous research suggests that animacy and conceptual similarity of the noun concepts within complex descriptive phrases modulate structural preferences in production, and processing cost in comprehension. For example, animate-head phrases such as the girl that the boy is pulling are rare in production and more difficult to understand in comprehension. In contrast, phrases with passive clauses such as the girl being pulled by the boy are commonly produced and more easily understood, as are inanimate-head structures such as the truck the boy is pulling. In three picture-based studies, we examined the mechanisms underlying semantic similarity effects in producing and comprehending these phrases. Study 1 investigated structural preferences in production, whereas Study 2 investigated processing cost in comprehension. Study 3 used eye-tracking to examine the time-course of production processes. The results showed that semantic similarity elicited competition during phrase planning, influenced the choice of syntactic structure in production, and engendered comprehension difficulty in animate-head active configurations. Structural preferences, fixation probabilities reflecting production planning processes and comprehension cost significantly correlated with measures of conceptual similarity across the three studies. We argue that similarity-based competition modulates sentence production and comprehension processes when verbs are planned or interpreted, i.e., when event-based semantic or syntactic roles are determined. In addition to task-specific processes, we suggest that a similar and shared semantic competition mechanism underlies both production and comprehension, a view consistent with existing evidence for common brain regions recruited in both tasks

Elastic Antiproton-Nucleus Scattering from Chiral Forces

Elastic scattering of antiprotons off He4, C12, and O16,18 is described for the first time with a consistent microscopic approach based on the calculation of an optical potential (OP) describing the antiproton-target interaction. The OP is derived using the recent antiproton-nucleon (p¯N) chiral interaction to calculate the p¯N t matrix, while the target densities are computed with the ab initio no-core shell model using chiral interactions as well. Our results are in good agreement with the existing experimental data and the results computed at different chiral orders of the p¯N interaction display a well-defined convergence pattern

Medicated foams and film forming dosage forms as tools to improve the thermodynamic activity of drugs to be administered through the skin

Medicated foams and film forming systems are dosage forms formulated to undergo to a controlled metamorphosis when applied on the skin. Indeed, due to the presence of propellant or a particular air-spray foam pump, a liquid can generate a foam when applied on the stratum corneum, or a liquid or conventional dosage form can form on the skin a continuous film as a consequence of the solvent evaporation. Thanks to these controlled modifications, the drug thermodynamic activity increases favoring the skin penetration and, therefore, the bioavailability with respect to conventional semi-solid and liquid dosage forms. Furthermore, the available clinical data also evidence that these dosage forms improve the patient's compliance. The main formulative aspects of medicated foams and film forming systems are reviewed with the aim to underline the possible advantages in terms of biopharmaceutical performances and patient's adherence

Regulatory framework of pharmaceutical compounding and actual developments of legislation in Europe

Pharmaceutical preparations are medicines that the pharmacist makes for the special needs of the patients that the pharmaceutical industry cannot comply for economic and logistic reasons. Pharmacy compounding is still an important component of pharmacy practice and a valuable therapeutical service that is an integrant part of the modern health care system, but its legislation is not harmonized among European and US countries.In 2011 the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has adopted a Resolution on quality and safety assurance requirements for medicinal products prepared in pharmacies for the special needs of patients. Aim of this resolution is to harmonize quality assurance and standards for pharmacy-made medicinal products among European countries and to pass the gap in quality assurance and standards between preparation in pharmacies and medicines prepared by the pharmaceutical industry. This article will analyze the actual rules and technical norms that regulate compounding activity and the expectations resultants from the new European and US laws

The TNG Near Infrared Camera Spectrometer

NICS (acronym for Near Infrared Camera Spectrometer) is the near-infrared cooled camera-spectrometer that has been developed by the Arcetri Infrared Group at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory, in collaboration with the CAISMI-CNR for the TNG (the Italian National Telescope Galileo at La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain). As NICS is in its scientific commissioning phase, we report its observing capabilities in the near-infrared bands at the TNG, along with the measured performance and the limiting magnitudes. We also describe some technical details of the project, such as cryogenics, mechanics, and the system which executes data acquisition and control, along with the related software.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, compiled with A&A macros. A&A in pres

A revisited and general Kane’s formulation applied to very flexible multibody spacecraft

Abstract. Current space missions require predicting the spacecraft dynamics with considerable reliability. Among the various components of a spacecraft, subsystems like payload, structures, and power depend heavily on the dynamic behavior of the satellite during its operational life. Therefore, to ensure that the results obtained through numerical simulations correspond to the actual behavior, an accurate dynamical model must be developed. In this context, an implementation of Kane’s method is presented to derive the dynamical equations of a spacecraft composed of both rigid and flexible bodies connected via joints in tree topology. Starting from the kinematics of two generic interconnected bodies, a systematic approach is derived and the recursive structure of the equations is investigated. The Kane’s formulation allows a relatively simple derivation of the equation of motion while obtaining the minimum set of differential equations, which implies lower computational time. On the other hand, this formulation excludes reaction forces and torques from the dynamical equations. Nevertheless, in this work a strategy to compute them a posteriori without further numerical integrations is presented. Flexibility is introduced through the standard modal decomposition technique, so that modal shapes obtained by FEA software can be directly utilized to characterize the elastic motion of the flexible bodies. A spacecraft composed of a rigid bus and several flexible appendages is modeled and numerical simulations point out that this systematic method is very effective for this illustrative example