Special Education for Children with Attention Deficit Disorder: Current Issues. CRS Report for Congress.

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Aleman, Steven R.

This paper examines issues concerning the eligibility of children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) for special education and related services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). A policy memorandum was issued by the Department of Education in September 1991, identifying those circumstances under which such children…

Attention affects visual perceptual processing near the hand.

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Cosman, Joshua D; Vecera, Shaun P

2010-09-01

Specialized, bimodal neural systems integrate visual and tactile information in the space near the hand. Here, we show that visuo-tactile representations allow attention to influence early perceptual processing, namely, figure-ground assignment. Regions that were reached toward were more likely than other regions to be assigned as foreground figures, and hand position competed with image-based information to bias figure-ground assignment. Our findings suggest that hand position allows attention to influence visual perceptual processing and that visual processes typically viewed as unimodal can be influenced by bimodal visuo-tactile representations.

The cross-functional role of frontoparietal regions in cognition: internal attention as the overarching mechanism.

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Lückmann, Helen C; Jacobs, Heidi I L; Sack, Alexander T

2014-05-01

Neuroimaging studies have repeatedly reported findings of activation in frontoparietal regions that largely overlap across various cognitive functions. Part of this frontoparietal activation has been interpreted as reflecting attentional mechanisms that can adaptively be directed towards external stimulation as well as internal representations (internal attention), thereby generating the experience of distinct cognitive functions. Nevertheless, findings of material- and task-specific activation in frontal and parietal regions challenge this internal attention hypothesis and have been used to support more modular hypotheses of cognitive function. The aim of this review is twofold: First, it discusses evidence in support of the concept of internal attention and the so-called dorsal attention network (DAN) as its neural source with respect to three cognitive functions (working memory, episodic retrieval, and mental imagery). While DAN activation in all three functions has been separately linked to internal attention, a comprehensive and integrative review has so far been lacking. Second, the review examines findings of material- and process-specific activation within frontoparietal regions, arguing that these results are well compatible with the internal attention account of frontoparietal activation. A new model of cognition is presented, proposing that supposedly different cognitive concepts actually rely on similar attentional network dynamics to maintain, reactivate and newly create internal representations of stimuli in various modalities. Attentional as well as representational mechanisms are assigned to frontal and parietal regions, positing that some regions are implicated in the allocation of attentional resources to perceptual or internal representations, but others are involved in the representational processes themselves. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Attentional modulation of neural processing of shape, color, and velocity in humans

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Corbetta, M.; Miezin, F.M.; Dobmeyer, S.; Shulman, G.L.; Petersen, S.E.

1990-01-01

Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to measure changes in regional cerebral blood flow of normal subjects, while they were discriminating different attributes (shape, color, and velocity) of the same set of visual stimuli. Psychophysical evidence indicated that the sensitivity for discriminating subtle stimulus changes was higher when subjects focused attention on one attribute than when they divided attention among several attributes. Correspondingly, attention enhanced the activity of different regions of extrastriate visual cortex that appear to be specialized for processing information related to the selected attribute

Stereoscopic Visual Attention-Based Regional Bit Allocation Optimization for Multiview Video Coding

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Dai Qionghai

2010-01-01

Full Text Available We propose a Stereoscopic Visual Attention- (SVA- based regional bit allocation optimization for Multiview Video Coding (MVC by the exploiting visual redundancies from human perceptions. We propose a novel SVA model, where multiple perceptual stimuli including depth, motion, intensity, color, and orientation contrast are utilized, to simulate the visual attention mechanisms of human visual system with stereoscopic perception. Then, a semantic region-of-interest (ROI is extracted based on the saliency maps of SVA. Both objective and subjective evaluations of extracted ROIs indicated that the proposed SVA model based on ROI extraction scheme outperforms the schemes only using spatial or/and temporal visual attention clues. Finally, by using the extracted SVA-based ROIs, a regional bit allocation optimization scheme is presented to allocate more bits on SVA-based ROIs for high image quality and fewer bits on background regions for efficient compression purpose. Experimental results on MVC show that the proposed regional bit allocation algorithm can achieve over % bit-rate saving while maintaining the subjective image quality. Meanwhile, the image quality of ROIs is improved by  dB at the cost of insensitive image quality degradation of the background image.

Physical activities of students in special primary schools in the central Bohemian region

OpenAIRE

Beznosova, Irina

2011-01-01

1 Abstract Title of the thesis: Physical activities of students in special primary schools in the central Bohemian region Aim of the study: The aim of the thesis is a comprehensive survey of physical activities provided by special primary schools in the Central Bohemian region. Method: We used a method of an empirical research. We studied a representative sample of special primary schools located in the Central Bohemia region in order to ascertain characteristics of the objects of observation...

The association between hemispheric specialization for language production and for spatial attention depends on left-hand preference strength.

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Zago, Laure; Petit, Laurent; Mellet, Emmanuel; Jobard, Gaël; Crivello, Fabrice; Joliot, Marc; Mazoyer, Bernard; Tzourio-Mazoyer, Nathalie

2016-12-01

Cerebral lateralization for language production and spatial attention and their relationships with manual preference strength (MPS) were assessed in a sample of 293 healthy volunteers, including 151 left-handers, using fMRI during covert sentence production (PROD) and line bisection judgment (LBJ) tasks, as compared to high- and low-level reference tasks. At the group level, we found the expected complementary hemispheric specialization (HS) with leftward asymmetries for PROD within frontal and temporal regions and rightward asymmetries for LBJ within frontal and posterior occipito-parieto-temporal regions. Individual hemispheric (HLI) and regional (frontal and occipital) lateralization indices (LI) were then calculated on the activation maps for PROD and LBJ. We found a correlation between the degree of rightward cerebral asymmetry and the leftward behavioral attentional bias recorded during LBJ task. This correlation was found when LBJ-LI was computed over the hemispheres, in the frontal lobes, but not in the occipital lobes. We then investigated whether language production and spatial attention cerebral lateralization relate to each other, and whether manual preference was a variable that impacted the complementary HS of these functions. No correlation was found between spatial and language LIs in the majority of our sample of participants, including right-handers with a strong right-hand preference (sRH, n=97) and mixed-handers (MH, n=97), indicating that these functions lateralized independently. By contrast, in the group of left-handers with a strong left-hand preference (sLH, n= 99), a negative correlation was found between language and spatial lateralization. This negative correlation was found when LBJ-LI and PROD-LI were computed over the hemispheres, in the frontal lobes and between the occipital lobes for LBJ and the frontal lobes for PROD. These findings underline the importance to include sLH in the study sample to reveal the underlying mechanisms of

Fast and robust generation of feature maps for region-based visual attention.

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Aziz, Muhammad Zaheer; Mertsching, Bärbel

2008-05-01

Visual attention is one of the important phenomena in biological vision which can be followed to achieve more efficiency, intelligence, and robustness in artificial vision systems. This paper investigates a region-based approach that performs pixel clustering prior to the processes of attention in contrast to late clustering as done by contemporary methods. The foundation steps of feature map construction for the region-based attention model are proposed here. The color contrast map is generated based upon the extended findings from the color theory, the symmetry map is constructed using a novel scanning-based method, and a new algorithm is proposed to compute a size contrast map as a formal feature channel. Eccentricity and orientation are computed using the moments of obtained regions and then saliency is evaluated using the rarity criteria. The efficient design of the proposed algorithms allows incorporating five feature channels while maintaining a processing rate of multiple frames per second. Another salient advantage over the existing techniques is the reusability of the salient regions in the high-level machine vision procedures due to preservation of their shapes and precise locations. The results indicate that the proposed model has the potential to efficiently integrate the phenomenon of attention into the main stream of machine vision and systems with restricted computing resources such as mobile robots can benefit from its advantages.

From Clusters to Smart Specialization: Tourism in Institution-Sensitive Regional Development Policies

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Maximilian Benner

2017-07-01

Full Text Available In the European Union and its neighborhood, regional development has increasingly come to focus on agglomerations during the last three decades. Notably, during the 1990s and early 2000s, clustering was the major policy focus in regional development. Currently, the concept of smart specialization is applied all over the European Union and is attracting interest in the EU’s neighborhood. The tourism sector particularly tends to agglomerate regionally and even locally. While there is a large body of literature describing tourism clusters and while tourism features as a priority sector in many regional development strategies such as smart specialization strategies, there is a research gap on policy approaches applying agglomeration-oriented policy concepts to tourism destinations in an institution-sensitive way. This article argues that both cluster policy and smart specialization can be of considerable value for institution-sensitive tourism development, either when adapted to the specificities of the tourism sector or when integrating tourism development into wider, cross-sectoral strategies of regional development. Such a policy can be a valuable tool for local and regional development, provided that policies are designed in an institution-sensitive manner and respond to the particular institutional context prevailing in a tourist destination. The article illustrates some preliminary thoughts for institution-sensitive tourism development through cluster policy and smart specialization in Cyprus, Israel, and Tunisia.

Finding regions of interest in pathological images: an attentional model approach

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Gómez, Francisco; Villalón, Julio; Gutierrez, Ricardo; Romero, Eduardo

2009-02-01

This paper introduces an automated method for finding diagnostic regions-of-interest (RoIs) in histopathological images. This method is based on the cognitive process of visual selective attention that arises during a pathologist's image examination. Specifically, it emulates the first examination phase, which consists in a coarse search for tissue structures at a "low zoom" to separate the image into relevant regions.1 The pathologist's cognitive performance depends on inherent image visual cues - bottom-up information - and on acquired clinical medicine knowledge - top-down mechanisms -. Our pathologist's visual attention model integrates the latter two components. The selected bottom-up information includes local low level features such as intensity, color, orientation and texture information. Top-down information is related to the anatomical and pathological structures known by the expert. A coarse approximation to these structures is achieved by an oversegmentation algorithm, inspired by psychological grouping theories. The algorithm parameters are learned from an expert pathologist's segmentation. Top-down and bottom-up integration is achieved by calculating a unique index for each of the low level characteristics inside the region. Relevancy is estimated as a simple average of these indexes. Finally, a binary decision rule defines whether or not a region is interesting. The method was evaluated on a set of 49 images using a perceptually-weighted evaluation criterion, finding a quality gain of 3dB when comparing to a classical bottom-up model of attention.

Attentional Push: Augmenting Salience with Shared Attention Modeling

OpenAIRE

Gorji, Siavash; Clark, James J.

2016-01-01

We present a novel visual attention tracking technique based on Shared Attention modeling. Our proposed method models the viewer as a participant in the activity occurring in the scene. We go beyond image salience and instead of only computing the power of an image region to pull attention to it, we also consider the strength with which other regions of the image push attention to the region in question. We use the term Attentional Push to refer to the power of image regions to direct and man...

Top-Down Control of Visual Attention by the Prefrontal Cortex. Functional Specialization and Long-Range Interactions

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Paneri, Sofia; Gregoriou, Georgia G.

2017-01-01

The ability to select information that is relevant to current behavioral goals is the hallmark of voluntary attention and an essential part of our cognition. Attention tasks are a prime example to study at the neuronal level, how task related information can be selectively processed in the brain while irrelevant information is filtered out. Whereas, numerous studies have focused on elucidating the mechanisms of visual attention at the single neuron and population level in the visual cortices, considerably less work has been devoted to deciphering the distinct contribution of higher-order brain areas, which are known to be critical for the employment of attention. Among these areas, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has long been considered a source of top-down signals that bias selection in early visual areas in favor of the attended features. Here, we review recent experimental data that support the role of PFC in attention. We examine the existing evidence for functional specialization within PFC and we discuss how long-range interactions between PFC subregions and posterior visual areas may be implemented in the brain and contribute to the attentional modulation of different measures of neural activity in visual cortices. PMID:29033784

Top-Down Control of Visual Attention by the Prefrontal Cortex. Functional Specialization and Long-Range Interactions

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Sofia Paneri

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The ability to select information that is relevant to current behavioral goals is the hallmark of voluntary attention and an essential part of our cognition. Attention tasks are a prime example to study at the neuronal level, how task related information can be selectively processed in the brain while irrelevant information is filtered out. Whereas, numerous studies have focused on elucidating the mechanisms of visual attention at the single neuron and population level in the visual cortices, considerably less work has been devoted to deciphering the distinct contribution of higher-order brain areas, which are known to be critical for the employment of attention. Among these areas, the prefrontal cortex (PFC has long been considered a source of top-down signals that bias selection in early visual areas in favor of the attended features. Here, we review recent experimental data that support the role of PFC in attention. We examine the existing evidence for functional specialization within PFC and we discuss how long-range interactions between PFC subregions and posterior visual areas may be implemented in the brain and contribute to the attentional modulation of different measures of neural activity in visual cortices.

Attention and Regional Gray Matter Development in Very Preterm Children at Age 12 Years.

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Lean, Rachel E; Melzer, Tracy R; Bora, Samudragupta; Watts, Richard; Woodward, Lianne J

2017-08-01

This study examines the selective, sustained, and executive attention abilities of very preterm (VPT) born children in relation to concurrent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures of regional gray matter development at age 12 years. A regional cohort of 110 VPT (≤32 weeks gestation) and 113 full term (FT) born children were assessed at corrected age 12 years on the Test of Everyday Attention-Children. They also had a structural MRI scan that was subsequently analyzed using voxel-based morphometry to quantify regional between-group differences in cerebral gray matter development, which were then related to attention measures using multivariate methods. VPT children obtained similar selective (p=.85), but poorer sustained (p=.02) and executive attention (p=.01) scores than FT children. VPT children were also characterized by reduced gray matter in the bilateral parietal, temporal, prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, bilateral thalami, and left hippocampus; and increased gray matter in the occipital and anterior cingulate cortices (family-wise error-corrected pregional gray matter development appear to contribute, at least in part, to the poorer attentional performance of VPT children at school age. (JINS, 2017, 23, 539-550).

REGIONAL SPECIALIZATION AND INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION IN THAILAND, 1996-2005

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Apisek Pansuwan

2009-06-01

Full Text Available This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the changes in the industrial and spatial concentration that occurred in Thailand from 1996 to 2005. Based on the data from the Department of Industrial Work of the Ministry of Industry and using the Hirschman-Herfindahl index of concentration, the geographical concentration of industries in the study regions was measured. The Hirschman-Herfindahl index has the useful property of being decomposable into sources of changes in the concentration. Moreover, location quotient was also used to measure the regional specialization of the manufacturing industries in Thailand. Results of the analysis indicated that from 1996 to 2005, the decrease in the spatial concentration of manufacturing as well as in the regional specialization in manufacturing in Thailand remained stable to a lesser extent. The results have also indicated that most factories continue to be concentrated in Bangkok and its neighboring areas. It can therefore be best argued that in the case of Thailand, the effect of its trade liberalization policy has been more powerful than its industrial decentralization policy.

The impact of a model-based clinical regional registry for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

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Zanetti, Michele; Cartabia, Massimo; Didoni, Anna; Fortinguerra, Filomena; Reale, Laura; Mondini, Matteo; Bonati, Maurizio

2017-09-01

This article describes the development and clinical impact of the Italian Regional ADHD Registry, aimed at collecting and monitoring diagnostic and therapeutic pathways of care for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder children and adolescents, launched by the Italian Lombardy Region in June 2011. In particular, the model-based software used to run the registry and manage clinical care data acquisition and monitoring, is described. This software was developed using the PROSAFE programme, which is already used for data collection in many Italian intensive care units, as a stand-alone interface case report form. The use of the attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder regional registry led to an increase in the appropriateness of the clinical management of all patients included in the registry, proving to be an important instrument in ensuring an appropriate healthcare strategy for children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Frontal and parietal cortical interactions with distributed visual representations during selective attention and action selection.

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Nelissen, Natalie; Stokes, Mark; Nobre, Anna C; Rushworth, Matthew F S

2013-10-16

Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we studied how distributed visual representations in human occipitotemporal cortex are modulated by attention and link their modulation to concurrent activity in frontal and parietal cortex. We detected similar occipitotemporal patterns during a simple visuoperceptual task and an attention-to-working-memory task in which one or two stimuli were cued before being presented among other pictures. Pattern strength varied from highest to lowest when the stimulus was the exclusive focus of attention, a conjoint focus, and when it was potentially distracting. Although qualitatively similar effects were seen inside regions relatively specialized for the stimulus category and outside, the former were quantitatively stronger. By regressing occipitotemporal pattern strength against activity elsewhere in the brain, we identified frontal and parietal areas exerting top-down control over, or reading information out from, distributed patterns in occipitotemporal cortex. Their interactions with patterns inside regions relatively specialized for that stimulus category were higher than those with patterns outside those regions and varied in strength as a function of the attentional condition. One area, the frontal operculum, was distinguished by selectively interacting with occipitotemporal patterns only when they were the focus of attention. There was no evidence that any frontal or parietal area actively inhibited occipitotemporal representations even when they should be ignored and were suppressed. Using MVPA to decode information within these frontal and parietal areas showed that they contained information about attentional context and/or readout information from occipitotemporal cortex to guide behavior but that frontal regions lacked information about category identity.

Frontal and Parietal Cortical Interactions with Distributed Visual Representations during Selective Attention and Action Selection

Science.gov (United States)

Stokes, Mark; Nobre, Anna C.; Rushworth, Matthew F. S.

2013-01-01

Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we studied how distributed visual representations in human occipitotemporal cortex are modulated by attention and link their modulation to concurrent activity in frontal and parietal cortex. We detected similar occipitotemporal patterns during a simple visuoperceptual task and an attention-to-working-memory task in which one or two stimuli were cued before being presented among other pictures. Pattern strength varied from highest to lowest when the stimulus was the exclusive focus of attention, a conjoint focus, and when it was potentially distracting. Although qualitatively similar effects were seen inside regions relatively specialized for the stimulus category and outside, the former were quantitatively stronger. By regressing occipitotemporal pattern strength against activity elsewhere in the brain, we identified frontal and parietal areas exerting top-down control over, or reading information out from, distributed patterns in occipitotemporal cortex. Their interactions with patterns inside regions relatively specialized for that stimulus category were higher than those with patterns outside those regions and varied in strength as a function of the attentional condition. One area, the frontal operculum, was distinguished by selectively interacting with occipitotemporal patterns only when they were the focus of attention. There was no evidence that any frontal or parietal area actively inhibited occipitotemporal representations even when they should be ignored and were suppressed. Using MVPA to decode information within these frontal and parietal areas showed that they contained information about attentional context and/or readout information from occipitotemporal cortex to guide behavior but that frontal regions lacked information about category identity. PMID:24133250

Specialization in the default mode: Task-induced brain deactivations dissociate between visual working memory and attention.

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Mayer, Jutta S; Roebroeck, Alard; Maurer, Konrad; Linden, David E J

2010-01-01

The idea of an organized mode of brain function that is present as default state and suspended during goal-directed behaviors has recently gained much interest in the study of human brain function. The default mode hypothesis is based on the repeated observation that certain brain areas show task-induced deactivations across a wide range of cognitive tasks. In this event-related functional resonance imaging study we tested the default mode hypothesis by comparing common and selective patterns of BOLD deactivation in response to the demands on visual attention and working memory (WM) that were independently modulated within one task. The results revealed task-induced deactivations within regions of the default mode network (DMN) with a segregation of areas that were additively deactivated by an increase in the demands on both attention and WM, and areas that were selectively deactivated by either high attentional demand or WM load. Attention-selective deactivations appeared in the left ventrolateral and medial prefrontal cortex and the left lateral temporal cortex. Conversely, WM-selective deactivations were found predominantly in the right hemisphere including the medial-parietal, the lateral temporo-parietal, and the medial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, during WM encoding deactivated regions showed task-specific functional connectivity. These findings demonstrate that task-induced deactivations within parts of the DMN depend on the specific characteristics of the attention and WM components of the task. The DMN can thus be subdivided into a set of brain regions that deactivate indiscriminately in response to cognitive demand ("the core DMN") and a part whose deactivation depends on the specific task. 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Attention and Olfactory Consciousness

OpenAIRE

Keller, Andreas

2011-01-01

Understanding the relation between attention and consciousness is an important part of our understanding of consciousness. Attention, unlike consciousness, can be systematically manipulated in psychophysical experiments and a law-like relation between attention and consciousness is waiting to be discovered. Most attempts to discover the nature of this relation are focused on a special type of attention: spatial visual attention. In this review I want to introduce another type of attention to ...

Location and regional productive specialization in Colombia

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Henry Antonio Mendoza Tolosa

2017-03-01

Full Text Available This document is directed to responding if Colombian regional economies restructured their productive activities from 2000 to 2014, and if so, illustrate the way that process has been effective in the different departments from the results and dynamics of their economic activities. For developing this exercise, we used a set of statistical indicators of spatial geography, among which is the factorial analysis, specifically the method of principal components, whose purpose was to identify the set activities whose performance explains more clearly the productive orientation of the departments, and complementary synthetic regional specialization indexes were employed in order to identify the degree and the changes of economic diversification, presented in those indicators. The results of this research shows that most of the Colombian regions have diversified their economic activity, with focus on service activities, among which are representative government and non-market services produced by those institutions, nowadays less dependent on few sources of growth. However, in other regions the primary sector, mainly mining activity, for many years has been the most important activity of production structures, affecting the process of full diversification, which is close to current local demands and international economic order the requests with greater intensity.

Louisiana Speaks Regional Plan Vision Special Economic Zones, UTM Zone 15N NAD83, Louisiana Recovery Authority (2007), [louisiana_speaks_vision_special_economic_zones

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Louisiana Geographic Information Center — This GIS shapefile data illustrates special economic zones included in the Louisiana Speaks Regional Plan Vision. Special economic zones include existing national,...

Explicit goal-driven attention, unlike implicitly learned attention, spreads to secondary tasks.

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Addleman, Douglas A; Tao, Jinyi; Remington, Roger W; Jiang, Yuhong V

2018-03-01

To what degree does spatial attention for one task spread to all stimuli in the attended region, regardless of task relevance? Most models imply that spatial attention acts through a unitary priority map in a task-general manner. We show that implicit learning, unlike endogenous spatial cuing, can bias spatial attention within one task without biasing attention to a spatially overlapping secondary task. Participants completed a visual search task superimposed on a background containing scenes, which they were told to encode for a later memory task. Experiments 1 and 2 used explicit instructions to bias spatial attention to one region for visual search; Experiment 3 used location probability cuing to implicitly bias spatial attention. In location probability cuing, a target appeared in one region more than others despite participants not being told of this. In all experiments, search performance was better in the cued region than in uncued regions. However, scene memory was better in the cued region only following endogenous guidance, not after implicit biasing of attention. These data support a dual-system view of top-down attention that dissociates goal-driven and implicitly learned attention. Goal-driven attention is task general, amplifying processing of a cued region across tasks, whereas implicit statistical learning is task-specific. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Entrepreneurial activity and regional development: an introduction to this special issue

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Maribel Guerrero

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The main objective of this special issue is to analyze the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial activity and its impact on regional development. The last convulsive decade, with expansionary and recessionary economic cycles, offers a good opportunity to study how economic cycles affect the propensity of becoming an entrepreneur and, in turn, to observe how entrepreneurial activity contributes to change (improvement in the economy.Previous studies have analyzed the complicated endogenous relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth, but these studies have examined the countries’ performance under a static view. This special issue focuses on analyzing complex entrepreneurial behavior from a sub-national perspective (examining several regions in the Spanish autonomous communities and a dynamic view (using data from several years, which adds rigor and valuable knowledge to this research field.

Killing vectors in empty space algebraically special metrics. II

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Held, A.

1976-01-01

Empty space algebraically special metrics possessing an expanding degenerate principal null vector and Killing vectors are investigated. Attention is centered on that class of Killing vector (called nonpreferred) which is necessarily spacelike in the asymptotic region. A detailed analysis of the relationship between the Petrov--Penrose classification and these Killing vectors is carried out

The Regional Special Operations Headquarters: Franchising the NATO Model as a Hedge in Lean Times

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-01

1 AIR FORCE FELLOWS AIR UNIVERSITY THE REGIONAL SPECIAL OPERATIONS HEADQUARTERS: FRANCHISING THE NATO MODEL AS A HEDGE IN LEAN...Headquarters: Franchising The NATO Model As A Hedge In Lean Times 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d...it is not copyrighted, but is the property of the United States government. 3 The Regional Special Operations Headquarters: Franchising the

Impact of regional special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) initiatives on county infrastructure.

Science.gov (United States)

2011-10-01

In response to fiscal constraints on transportation funding and the need to address transportation problems and create regional solutions, Georgia is proposing a 1% regional Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax (SPLOST). To accommodate this initiat...

76 FR 19380 - Notice of Entry Into Effect of MARPOL Annex V Wider Caribbean Region Special Area

Science.gov (United States)

2011-04-07

... Effect of MARPOL Annex V Wider Caribbean Region Special Area AGENCY: Coast Guard, DHS. ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: The Coast Guard announces the date for the entry into effect of discharge requirements from ships in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) special area (SA) as specified in the International Convention...

Attention to emotion modulates fMRI activity in human right superior temporal sulcus.

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Narumoto, J; Okada, T; Sadato, N; Fukui, K; Yonekura, Y

2001-10-01

A parallel neural network has been proposed for processing various types of information conveyed by faces including emotion. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we tested the effect of the explicit attention to the emotional expression of the faces on the neuronal activity of the face-responsive regions. Delayed match to sample procedure was adopted. Subjects were required to match the visually presented pictures with regard to the contour of the face pictures, facial identity, and emotional expressions by valence (happy and fearful expressions) and arousal (fearful and sad expressions). Contour matching of the non-face scrambled pictures was used as a control condition. The face-responsive regions that responded more to faces than to non-face stimuli were the bilateral lateral fusiform gyrus (LFG), the right superior temporal sulcus (STS), and the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS). In these regions, general attention to the face enhanced the activities of the bilateral LFG, the right STS, and the left IPS compared with attention to the contour of the facial image. Selective attention to facial emotion specifically enhanced the activity of the right STS compared with attention to the face per se. The results suggest that the right STS region plays a special role in facial emotion recognition within distributed face-processing systems. This finding may support the notion that the STS is involved in social perception.

Resting-state functional connectivity of ventral parietal regions associated with attention reorienting and episodic recollection

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Sander M Daselaar

2013-02-01

Full Text Available In functional neuroimaging studies, ventral parietal cortex (VPC is recruited by very different cognitive tasks. Explaining the contributions VPC to these tasks has become a topic of intense study and lively debate. Perception studies frequently find VPC activations during tasks involving attention-reorienting, and memory studies frequently find them during tasks involving episodic recollection. According to the Attention to Memory (AtoM model, both phenomena can be explained by the same VPC function: bottom-up attention. Yet, a recent functional MRI (fMRI meta-analysis suggested that attention-reorienting activations are more frequent in anterior VPC, whereas recollection activations are more frequent in posterior VPC. Also, there is evidence that anterior and posterior VPC regions have different functional connectivity patterns. To investigate these issues, we conducted a resting-state functional connectivity analysis using as seeds the center-of-mass of attention-reorienting and recollection activations in the meta-analysis, which were located in the supramarginal gyrus (SMG, around the temporo-parietal junction—TPJ and in the angular gyrus (AG, respectively. The SMG seed showed stronger connectivity with ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC and occipito-temporal cortex, whereas the AG seed showed stronger connectivity with the hippocampus and default network regions. To investigate whether these connectivity differences were graded or sharp, VLPFC and hippocampal connectivity was measured in VPC regions traversing through the SMG and AG seeds. The results showed a graded pattern: VLPFC connectivity gradually decreases from SMG to AG, whereas hippocampal connectivity gradually increases from SMG to AG. Importantly, both gradients showed an abrupt break when extended beyond VPC borders. This finding suggests that functional differences between SMG and AG are more subtle than previously thought. These connectivity differences can be

Distinct regions of right temporo-parietal junction are selective for theory of mind and exogenous attention.

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Scholz, Jonathan; Triantafyllou, Christina; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan; Brown, Emery N; Saxe, Rebecca

2009-01-01

In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, a cortical region in the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ) is recruited when participants read stories about people's thoughts ('Theory of Mind'). Both fMRI and lesion studies suggest that a region near the RTPJ is associated with attentional reorienting in response to an unexpected stimulus. Do Theory of Mind and attentional reorienting recruit a single population of neurons, or are there two neighboring but distinct neural populations in the RTPJ? One recent study compared these activations, and found evidence consistent with a single common region. However, the apparent overlap may have been due to the low resolution of the previous technique. We tested this hypothesis using a high-resolution protocol, within-subjects analyses, and more powerful statistical methods. Strict conjunction analyses revealed that the area of overlap was small and on the periphery of each activation. In addition, a bootstrap analysis identified a reliable 6-10 mm spatial displacement between the peak activations of the two tasks; the same magnitude and direction of displacement was observed in within-subjects comparisons. In all, these results suggest that there are neighboring but distinct regions within the RTPJ implicated in Theory of Mind and orienting attention.

Sleepiness, On-Task Behavior and Attention in Children with Epilepsy Who Visited a School for Special Education: A Comparative Study

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Didden, Robert; de Moor, Jan M. H.; Korzilius, Hubert

2009-01-01

Children with epilepsy are at risk for problems in daytime functioning. We assessed daytime sleepiness, on-task behavior and attention in 17 children (aged between 7 and 11 years) with epilepsy who visited a school for special education and compared these to 17 children from a control group who visited a regular school. Within the group of…

Regional specialization within the human striatum for diverse psychological functions.

Science.gov (United States)

Pauli, Wolfgang M; O'Reilly, Randall C; Yarkoni, Tal; Wager, Tor D

2016-02-16

Decades of animal and human neuroimaging research have identified distinct, but overlapping, striatal zones, which are interconnected with separable corticostriatal circuits, and are crucial for the organization of functional systems. Despite continuous efforts to subdivide the human striatum based on anatomical and resting-state functional connectivity, characterizing the different psychological processes related to each zone remains a work in progress. Using an unbiased, data-driven approach, we analyzed large-scale coactivation data from 5,809 human imaging studies. We (i) identified five distinct striatal zones that exhibited discrete patterns of coactivation with cortical brain regions across distinct psychological processes and (ii) identified the different psychological processes associated with each zone. We found that the reported pattern of cortical activation reliably predicted which striatal zone was most strongly activated. Critically, activation in each functional zone could be associated with distinct psychological processes directly, rather than inferred indirectly from psychological functions attributed to associated cortices. Consistent with well-established findings, we found an association of the ventral striatum (VS) with reward processing. Confirming less well-established findings, the VS and adjacent anterior caudate were associated with evaluating the value of rewards and actions, respectively. Furthermore, our results confirmed a sometimes overlooked specialization of the posterior caudate nucleus for executive functions, often considered the exclusive domain of frontoparietal cortical circuits. Our findings provide a precise functional map of regional specialization within the human striatum, both in terms of the differential cortical regions and psychological functions associated with each striatal zone.

HISTORIOGRAPHY GENERAL, REGIONAL AND SPECIAL STUDIES OF JUDICIAL REFORM IN RUSSIA 1864

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Sergei Evgenievich Strakhov

2014-10-01

Full Text Available In today's world, a crucial role is played by the judiciary. In the period lasting judicial reform, it is important to explore this institution not only at the present stage, but also to trace the history of its development, including - through analysis and synthesis of existing studies of the judiciary and judicial reforms.The purpose of this study - to explore the historiography of general, special and regional studies of judicial reform of1864 inRussia, to classify research on history and on the subject of the study.Scientific, theoretical and practical significance of the work lies in the fact that the study of this topic will summarize the significant weight of the studies of the judicial reform of 1864 and classified by facilitating orientation interested in individuals in the study subjects.The author uses historical, comparative, hermeneutical, mathematical methods, as well as general methods of scientific research.The author analyzes the historiography of general, special and regional studies of the judicial reform of1864 inRussia, introducing a classification of such studies in chronological order (pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern stages and subject matter (common - affecting all aspects of judicial reform, special - dedicated to a particular aspect (legal agencies, prosecutors, legal, etc. and regional - dedicated to judicial reform, or some aspects of it in some regions of Russia.The results of this study are scientific and practical value, because they can be useful for teaching students - in industry disciplines "judiciary", "advocacy", "notary public", "public prosecutor's supervision" and general theoretical "History of State and Law," "History of the fatherland" ; in science - by picking up information about the historiography of the judicial reform, and in practice - said work can serve as a guide to research judicial reform, which may be useful to practitioners of judicial and investigative bodies, as well as - prosecutors

Regional specialization within the intestinal immune system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mowat, Allan M.; Agace, William Winston

2014-01-01

The intestine represents the largest compartment of the immune system. It is continually exposed to antigens and immunomodulatory agents from the diet and the commensal microbiota, and it is the port of entry for many clinically important pathogens. Intestinal immune processes are also increasingly...... implicated in controlling disease development elsewhere in the body. In this Review, we detail the anatomical and physiological distinctions that are observed in the small and large intestines, and we suggest how these may account for the diversity in the immune apparatus that is seen throughout...... the intestine. We describe how the distribution of innate, adaptive and innate-like immune cells varies in different segments of the intestine and discuss the environmental factors that may influence this. Finally, we consider the implications of regional immune specialization for inflammatory disease...

Cingulate, Frontal and Parietal Cortical Dysfunction in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

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Bush, George

2011-01-01

Functional and structural neuroimaging have identified abnormalities of the brain that are likely to contribute to the neuropathophysiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In particular, hypofunction of the brain regions comprising the cingulo-frontal-parietal (CFP) cognitive-attention network have been consistently observed across studies. These are major components of neural systems that are relevant to ADHD, including cognitive/attention networks, motor systems and reward/feedback-based processing systems. Moreover, these areas interact with other brain circuits that have been implicated in ADHD, such as the “default mode” resting state network. ADHD imaging data related to CFP network dysfunction will be selectively highlighted here to help facilitate its integration with the other information presented in this special issue. Together, these reviews will help shed light on the neurobiology of ADHD. PMID:21489409

The Special Interest Tourism Development and the Small Regions

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Drita Kruja

2011-04-01

Full Text Available It is easy to attract visitors when you have plenty of resources, nice accommodations, powerful selling techniques, many supporting sectors and of course reliable government support. The challenge starts when you lack most of the above and what you have is only a handful of beautiful natural resources, breathtaking sceneries, goodwill and a great desire and pride to show those visitors what your country is made of. How can we generate income using what we have? The answer is simple. You target that group of customers whom are specifically interested in what you have, beautiful views, heartfelt welcome, home like accommodations and very warm people. These customers do not look for fancy, expensive, overcrowded hotels; they are in search of real beauty and nature. They have special interests and would like to fulfill them toward a reasonable price. Hence starts the development of what is widely known as the special interest tourism whose analysis as a potential tool for the improvement of tourism in the region of Shkodra is the main purpose of this paper.

Reward processing in the value-driven attention network: reward signals tracking cue identity and location.

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Anderson, Brian A

2017-03-01

Through associative reward learning, arbitrary cues acquire the ability to automatically capture visual attention. Previous studies have examined the neural correlates of value-driven attentional orienting, revealing elevated activity within a network of brain regions encompassing the visual corticostriatal loop [caudate tail, lateral occipital complex (LOC) and early visual cortex] and intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Such attentional priority signals raise a broader question concerning how visual signals are combined with reward signals during learning to create a representation that is sensitive to the confluence of the two. This study examines reward signals during the cued reward training phase commonly used to generate value-driven attentional biases. High, compared with low, reward feedback preferentially activated the value-driven attention network, in addition to regions typically implicated in reward processing. Further examination of these reward signals within the visual system revealed information about the identity of the preceding cue in the caudate tail and LOC, and information about the location of the preceding cue in IPS, while early visual cortex represented both location and identity. The results reveal teaching signals within the value-driven attention network during associative reward learning, and further suggest functional specialization within different regions of this network during the acquisition of an integrated representation of stimulus value. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Replication Research and Special Education

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Travers, Jason C.; Cook, Bryan G.; Therrien, William J.; Coyne, Michael D.

2016-01-01

Replicating previously reported empirical research is a necessary aspect of an evidence-based field of special education, but little formal investigation into the prevalence of replication research in the special education research literature has been conducted. Various factors may explain the lack of attention to replication of special education…

Science-Economy-Technology Concordance Matrix for Development and Implementation of Regional Smart Specializations in the Silesian Voivodeship, Poland

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Adam Smoliński

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The regional smart specializations include the innovative activities within a common science-economy-technology sector, which open the opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. The original procedure of science-economy-technology concordance matrix development on an example of smart specializations of the Silesian Voivodeship was presented in the paper. The procedure developed includes recognition of the research and economic components of the regional smart specialization and the connection between the economic components of the regional specialization and the technological innovation through the international patent classification. It also comprises recognition of key enabling technologies (KETs and high technologies (of high R&D intensity other than KET in the economic and technological dimensions of innovation as well as the high R&D intensity services in the economic dimension of innovation. The in-depth expert analyses with the application of the Delphi method were also taken into account. The methodological approach developed and the visualization method applied are both of cognitive and practical importance since they contribute significantly to the creation of efficient development policies, to the enhancement and facilitation of cross-sectoral cooperation, and to the focusing on the fields of key importance in terms of the competitive advantage of a region.

Science-Economy-Technology Concordance Matrix for Development and Implementation of Regional Smart Specializations in the Silesian Voivodeship, Poland.

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Smoliński, Adam; Bondaruk, Jan; Pichlak, Magdalena; Trząski, Leszek; Uszok, Elżbieta

2015-01-01

The regional smart specializations include the innovative activities within a common science-economy-technology sector, which open the opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. The original procedure of science-economy-technology concordance matrix development on an example of smart specializations of the Silesian Voivodeship was presented in the paper. The procedure developed includes recognition of the research and economic components of the regional smart specialization and the connection between the economic components of the regional specialization and the technological innovation through the international patent classification. It also comprises recognition of key enabling technologies (KETs) and high technologies (of high R&D intensity) other than KET in the economic and technological dimensions of innovation as well as the high R&D intensity services in the economic dimension of innovation. The in-depth expert analyses with the application of the Delphi method were also taken into account. The methodological approach developed and the visualization method applied are both of cognitive and practical importance since they contribute significantly to the creation of efficient development policies, to the enhancement and facilitation of cross-sectoral cooperation, and to the focusing on the fields of key importance in terms of the competitive advantage of a region.

Virtual Reality and Special Needs

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Jeffs, Tara L.

2009-01-01

The use of virtual environments for special needs is as diverse as the field of Special Education itself and the individuals it serves. Individuals with special needs often face challenges with attention, language, spatial abilities, memory, higher reasoning and knowledge acquisition. Research in the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE)…

Ethical Considerations Regarding the Biological Contamination of Climatically Recurrent Special Regions.

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Clifford, S. M.

2014-04-01

With the dawn of planetary exploration, the international science community expressed concerns regarding the potential contamination of habitable planetary environments by the introduction of terrestrial organisms on robotic spacecraft. The initial concern was that such contamination would confound our efforts to find unambiguous evidence of life elsewhere in the Solar System, although, more recently, this concern has been expanded to include ethical considerations regarding the need to protect alien biospheres from potentially harmful and irreversible contamination. The international agreements which address this concern include the UN Space Treaty of 1967 and the Planetary Protection Policy of the International Council for Science's Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). In the context of Mars exploration, COSPAR calls a potentially habitable environment a 'Special Region', which it defines as: "A region within which terrestrial organisms are likely to propagate, or a region which is interpreted to have a high potential for the existence of extant Martian life forms." Specifically included in this definition are regions where liquid water is present or likely to occur and the Martian polar caps. Over the years, scientists have debated the level of cleanliness required for robotic spacecraft to investigate such environments with the goal of defining international standards that are strict enough to ensure the integrity of life-detection efforts during the period of 'biological exploration', which has been somewhat arbitrarily defined as 50 years from the arrival date of any given mission. More recently, NASA and ESA have adopted a definition of Special Regions as any Martian environment where liquid water is likely to exist within the next 500 years. While this appears to be a more conservative interpretation of the original COSPAR definition, it specifically excludes some environments where there is a high probability of liquid water on timescales greater than 500

Attention enhances multi-voxel representation of novel objects in frontal, parietal and visual cortices.

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Woolgar, Alexandra; Williams, Mark A; Rich, Anina N

2015-04-01

Selective attention is fundamental for human activity, but the details of its neural implementation remain elusive. One influential theory, the adaptive coding hypothesis (Duncan, 2001, An adaptive coding model of neural function in prefrontal cortex, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2:820-829), proposes that single neurons in certain frontal and parietal regions dynamically adjust their responses to selectively encode relevant information. This selective representation may in turn support selective processing in more specialized brain regions such as the visual cortices. Here, we use multi-voxel decoding of functional magnetic resonance images to demonstrate selective representation of attended--and not distractor--objects in frontal, parietal, and visual cortices. In addition, we highlight a critical role for task demands in determining which brain regions exhibit selective coding. Strikingly, representation of attended objects in frontoparietal cortex was highest under conditions of high perceptual demand, when stimuli were hard to perceive and coding in early visual cortex was weak. Coding in early visual cortex varied as a function of attention and perceptual demand, while coding in higher visual areas was sensitive to the allocation of attention but robust to changes in perceptual difficulty. Consistent with high-profile reports, peripherally presented objects could also be decoded from activity at the occipital pole, a region which corresponds to the fovea. Our results emphasize the flexibility of frontoparietal and visual systems. They support the hypothesis that attention enhances the multi-voxel representation of information in the brain, and suggest that the engagement of this attentional mechanism depends critically on current task demands. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Use of Multichannel Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Study Relationships Between Brain Regions and Neurocognitive Tasks of Selective/Divided Attention and 2-Back Working Memory.

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Tomita, Nozomi; Imai, Shoji; Kanayama, Yusuke; Kawashima, Issaku; Kumano, Hiroaki

2017-06-01

While dichotic listening (DL) was originally intended to measure bottom-up selective attention, it has also become a tool for measuring top-down selective attention. This study investigated the brain regions related to top-down selective and divided attention DL tasks and a 2-back task using alphanumeric and Japanese numeric sounds. Thirty-six healthy participants underwent near-infrared spectroscopy scanning while performing a top-down selective attentional DL task, a top-down divided attentional DL task, and a 2-back task. Pearson's correlations were calculated to show relationships between oxy-Hb concentration in each brain region and the score of each cognitive task. Different brain regions were activated during the DL and 2-back tasks. Brain regions activated in the top-down selective attention DL task were the left inferior prefrontal gyrus and left pars opercularis. The left temporopolar area was activated in the top-down divided attention DL task, and the left frontopolar area and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were activated in the 2-back task. As further evidence for the finding that each task measured different cognitive and brain area functions, neither the percentages of correct answers for the three tasks nor the response times for the selective attentional task and the divided attentional task were correlated to one another. Thus, the DL and 2-back tasks used in this study can assess multiple areas of cognitive, brain-related dysfunction to explore their relationship to different psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders.

34 CFR 300.606 - Public attention.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 34 Education 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public attention. 300.606 Section 300.606 Education Regulations of the Offices of the Department of Education (Continued) OFFICE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION AND..., and Enforcement § 300.606 Public attention. Whenever a State receives notice that the Secretary is...

Central and Divided Visual Field Presentation of Emotional Images to Measure Hemispheric Differences in Motivated Attention.

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O'Hare, Aminda J; Atchley, Ruth Ann; Young, Keith M

2017-11-16

Two dominant theories on lateralized processing of emotional information exist in the literature. One theory posits that unpleasant emotions are processed by right frontal regions, while pleasant emotions are processed by left frontal regions. The other theory posits that the right hemisphere is more specialized for the processing of emotional information overall, particularly in posterior regions. Assessing the different roles of the cerebral hemispheres in processing emotional information can be difficult without the use of neuroimaging methodologies, which are not accessible or affordable to all scientists. Divided visual field presentation of stimuli can allow for the investigation of lateralized processing of information without the use of neuroimaging technology. This study compared central versus divided visual field presentations of emotional images to assess differences in motivated attention between the two hemispheres. The late positive potential (LPP) was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs) methodologies to assess motivated attention. Future work will pair this paradigm with a more active behavioral task to explore the behavioral impacts on the attentional differences found.

Different cortical mechanisms for spatial vs. feature-based attentional selection in visual working memory

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Anna Heuer

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The limited capacity of visual working memory necessitates attentional mechanisms that selectively update and maintain only the most task-relevant content. Psychophysical experiments have shown that the retroactive selection of memory content can be based on visual properties such as location or shape, but the neural basis for such differential selection is unknown. For example, it is not known if there are different cortical modules specialized for spatial versus feature-based mnemonic attention, in the same way that has been demonstrated for attention to perceptual input. Here, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS to identify areas in human parietal and occipital cortex involved in the selection of objects from memory based on cues to their location (spatial information or their shape (featural information. We found that TMS over the supramarginal gyrus (SMG selectively facilitated spatial selection, whereas TMS over the lateral occipital cortex selectively enhanced feature-based selection for remembered objects in the contralateral visual field. Thus, different cortical regions are responsible for spatial vs. feature-based selection of working memory representations. Since the same regions are involved in attention to external events, these new findings indicate overlapping mechanisms for attentional control over perceptual input and mnemonic representations.

Cholinergic enhancement reduces functional connectivity and BOLD variability in visual extrastriate cortex during selective attention.

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Ricciardi, Emiliano; Handjaras, Giacomo; Bernardi, Giulio; Pietrini, Pietro; Furey, Maura L

2013-01-01

Enhancing cholinergic function improves performance on various cognitive tasks and alters neural responses in task specific brain regions. We have hypothesized that the changes in neural activity observed during increased cholinergic function reflect an increase in neural efficiency that leads to improved task performance. The current study tested this hypothesis by assessing neural efficiency based on cholinergically-mediated effects on regional brain connectivity and BOLD signal variability. Nine subjects participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover fMRI study. Following an infusion of physostigmine (1 mg/h) or placebo, echo-planar imaging (EPI) was conducted as participants performed a selective attention task. During the task, two images comprised of superimposed pictures of faces and houses were presented. Subjects were instructed periodically to shift their attention from one stimulus component to the other and to perform a matching task using hand held response buttons. A control condition included phase-scrambled images of superimposed faces and houses that were presented in the same temporal and spatial manner as the attention task; participants were instructed to perform a matching task. Cholinergic enhancement improved performance during the selective attention task, with no change during the control task. Functional connectivity analyses showed that the strength of connectivity between ventral visual processing areas and task-related occipital, parietal and prefrontal regions reduced significantly during cholinergic enhancement, exclusively during the selective attention task. Physostigmine administration also reduced BOLD signal temporal variability relative to placebo throughout temporal and occipital visual processing areas, again during the selective attention task only. Together with the observed behavioral improvement, the decreases in connectivity strength throughout task-relevant regions and BOLD variability within stimulus

Wicked Problems in Special and Inclusive Education

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Armstrong, David

2017-01-01

This special paper provides a critical overview of wicked problems in special and inclusive education. Practically, this paper provides a strategic framework for future special issues in the "Journal of Special Educational Needs". Critical attention is also given to the concept of a wicked problem when applied to research in special and…

The Dance of Attention: Toward an Aesthetic Dimension of Attention-Deficit.

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Levin, Kasper

2018-03-01

What role does the aesthetics of bodily movement play in the understanding of attention among children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? This article animates a phenomenological approach to attention and embodiment with a special focus on the relation between aesthetic or expressive bodily movement and behavioral awareness in children diagnosed with ADHD. However, beyond this it is argued that the aesthetic aspect of movement calls for an expansion of the phenomenological perspective. In this context Gilles Deleuze's notion of aesthetics as a "science of the sensible" is activated and discussed in relation to the phenomenological concept of perception. Empirically the article takes point of departure in a qualitative study conducted with a group of children with attention-deficit practicing the Afro-Brazilian marital art, capoeira. Combining ethnographic and phenomenological methods, it is demonstrated that capoeira can be considered a form of aesthetic movement that offers a transition of attention-deficit into a productive force of expression that changes the notions of sensation and movement in ADHD.

Analysis of Attentional Bias towards Attractive and Unattractive Body Regions among Overweight Males and Females: An Eye-Movement Study.

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Petra Warschburger

Full Text Available Body image distortion is highly prevalent among overweight individuals. Whilst there is evidence that body-dissatisfied women and those suffering from disordered eating show a negative attentional bias towards their own unattractive body parts and others' attractive body parts, little is known about visual attention patterns in the area of obesity and with respect to males. Since eating disorders and obesity share common features in terms of distorted body image and body dissatisfaction, the aim of this study was to examine whether overweight men and women show a similar attentional bias.We analyzed eye movements in 30 overweight individuals (18 females and 28 normal-weight individuals (16 females with respect to the participants' own pictures as well as gender- and BMI-matched control pictures (front and back view. Additionally, we assessed body image and disordered eating using validated questionnaires.The overweight sample rated their own body as less attractive and showed a more disturbed body image. Contrary to our assumptions, they focused significantly longer on attractive compared to unattractive regions of both their own and the control body. For one's own body, this was more pronounced for women. A higher weight status and more frequent body checking predicted attentional bias towards attractive body parts. We found that overweight adults exhibit an unexpected and stable pattern of selective attention, with a distinctive focus on their own attractive body regions despite higher levels of body dissatisfaction. This positive attentional bias may either be an indicator of a more pronounced pattern of attentional avoidance or a self-enhancing strategy. Further research is warranted to clarify these results.

Analysis of Attentional Bias towards Attractive and Unattractive Body Regions among Overweight Males and Females: An Eye-Movement Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Warschburger, Petra; Calvano, Claudia; Richter, Eike M; Engbert, Ralf

2015-01-01

Body image distortion is highly prevalent among overweight individuals. Whilst there is evidence that body-dissatisfied women and those suffering from disordered eating show a negative attentional bias towards their own unattractive body parts and others' attractive body parts, little is known about visual attention patterns in the area of obesity and with respect to males. Since eating disorders and obesity share common features in terms of distorted body image and body dissatisfaction, the aim of this study was to examine whether overweight men and women show a similar attentional bias. We analyzed eye movements in 30 overweight individuals (18 females) and 28 normal-weight individuals (16 females) with respect to the participants' own pictures as well as gender- and BMI-matched control pictures (front and back view). Additionally, we assessed body image and disordered eating using validated questionnaires. The overweight sample rated their own body as less attractive and showed a more disturbed body image. Contrary to our assumptions, they focused significantly longer on attractive compared to unattractive regions of both their own and the control body. For one's own body, this was more pronounced for women. A higher weight status and more frequent body checking predicted attentional bias towards attractive body parts. We found that overweight adults exhibit an unexpected and stable pattern of selective attention, with a distinctive focus on their own attractive body regions despite higher levels of body dissatisfaction. This positive attentional bias may either be an indicator of a more pronounced pattern of attentional avoidance or a self-enhancing strategy. Further research is warranted to clarify these results.

Sustained Spatial Attention to Vibrotactile Stimulation in the Flutter Range: Relevant Brain Regions and Their Interaction

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Goltz, Dominique; Pleger, Burkhard; Thiel, Sabrina; Villringer, Arno; Müller, Matthias M.

2013-01-01

The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was designed to get a better understanding of the brain regions involved in sustained spatial attention to tactile events and to ascertain to what extent their activation was correlated. We presented continuous 20 Hz vibrotactile stimuli (range of flutter) concurrently to the left and right index fingers of healthy human volunteers. An arrow cue instructed subjects in a trial-by-trial fashion to attend to the left or right index finger and to detect rare target events that were embedded in the vibrotactile stimulation streams. We found blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) attentional modulation in primary somatosensory cortex (SI), mainly covering Brodmann area 1, 2, and 3b, as well as in secondary somatosensory cortex (SII), contralateral to the to-be-attended hand. Furthermore, attention to the right (dominant) hand resulted in additional BOLD modulation in left posterior insula. All of the effects were caused by an increased activation when attention was paid to the contralateral hand, except for the effects in left SI and insula. In left SI, the effect was related to a mixture of both a slight increase in activation when attention was paid to the contralateral hand as well as a slight decrease in activation when attention was paid to the ipsilateral hand (i.e., the tactile distraction condition). In contrast, the effect in left posterior insula was exclusively driven by a relative decrease in activation in the tactile distraction condition, which points to an active inhibition when tactile information is irrelevant. Finally, correlation analyses indicate a linear relationship between attention effects in intrahemispheric somatosensory cortices, since attentional modulation in SI and SII were interrelated within one hemisphere but not across hemispheres. All in all, our results provide a basis for future research on sustained attention to continuous vibrotactile stimulation in the range of flutter

Tourism of Khmelnytskyi region

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Інна Шоробура

2017-09-01

can avoid the problem of seasonal prevalence of tourism in the region and in its turn to significantly increase tourists’ arrival throughout the year. Special attention is paid to improving the efficiency of tourism policy of the region: tourist promotion, positive image of the region, green tourism, tourism’s infrastructure development, increase in marketing and other components.

Emotion and attention interactions in social cognition: brain regions involved in processing anger prosody.

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Sander, David; Grandjean, Didier; Pourtois, Gilles; Schwartz, Sophie; Seghier, Mohamed L; Scherer, Klaus R; Vuilleumier, Patrik

2005-12-01

Multiple levels of processing are thought to be involved in the appraisal of emotionally relevant events, with some processes being engaged relatively independently of attention, whereas other processes may depend on attention and current task goals or context. We conducted an event-related fMRI experiment to examine how processing angry voice prosody, an affectively and socially salient signal, is modulated by voluntary attention. To manipulate attention orthogonally to emotional prosody, we used a dichotic listening paradigm in which meaningless utterances, pronounced with either angry or neutral prosody, were presented simultaneously to both ears on each trial. In two successive blocks, participants selectively attended to either the left or right ear and performed a gender-decision on the voice heard on the target side. Our results revealed a functional dissociation between different brain areas. Whereas the right amygdala and bilateral superior temporal sulcus responded to anger prosody irrespective of whether it was heard from a to-be-attended or to-be-ignored voice, the orbitofrontal cortex and the cuneus in medial occipital cortex showed greater activation to the same emotional stimuli when the angry voice was to-be-attended rather than to-be-ignored. Furthermore, regression analyses revealed a strong correlation between orbitofrontal regions and sensitivity on a behavioral inhibition scale measuring proneness to anxiety reactions. Our results underscore the importance of emotion and attention interactions in social cognition by demonstrating that multiple levels of processing are involved in the appraisal of emotionally relevant cues in voices, and by showing a modulation of some emotional responses by both the current task-demands and individual differences.

Latin American integration and sub-regionalization: political and ideological dimension

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D. A. Kuznetsov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The article analyses regionalism and regionalization in modern Latin America paying special attention to political and ideological factors, which have already shifted political and economic landscape of Latin America and encouraged sub-regional differentiation, with each of the sub-regional integration association following its own (and sometimes competing development pattern. At the same time the region witnesses the consolidation of UNASUR that assumes a leading role trying to converge the sub-regional alternative patterns and to strengthen political and economic ties, based on regional leadership of Brazil, civilizational unity and imminent security threats. The author also uses comparative method to speculate on the model of Latin American integration. 

ROLE OF TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE IN EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT OF SPATIAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE REGION

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Ekaterina C. Chimitdorzhieva

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The problems of spatial socio-economic development of the region are considered in this article. Special attention is given to transport infrastructure. The authors propose methodical instruments for evaluating the influence of transport infrastructure on spatial development of region based on research of theoretic-methodical aspects of economic growth theory, location of economic activity and development concepts of infrastructural provision.

It's in the eye of the beholder: selective attention to drink properties during tasting influences brain activation in gustatory and reward regions.

Science.gov (United States)

van Rijn, Inge; de Graaf, Cees; Smeets, Paul A M

2018-04-01

Statements regarding pleasantness, taste intensity or caloric content on a food label may influence the attention consumers pay to such characteristics during consumption. There is little research on the effects of selective attention on taste perception and associated brain activation in regular drinks. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of selective attention on hedonics, intensity and caloric content on brain responses during tasting drinks. Using functional MRI brain responses of 27 women were measured while they paid attention to the intensity, pleasantness or caloric content of fruit juice, tomato juice and water. Brain activation during tasting largely overlapped between the three selective attention conditions and was found in the rolandic operculum, insula and overlying frontal operculum, striatum, amygdala, thalamus, anterior cingulate cortex and middle orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Brain activation was higher during selective attention to taste intensity compared to calories in the right middle OFC and during selective attention to pleasantness compared to intensity in the right putamen, right ACC and bilateral middle insula. Intensity ratings correlated with brain activation during selective attention to taste intensity in the anterior insula and lateral OFC. Our data suggest that not only the anterior insula but also the middle and lateral OFC are involved in evaluating taste intensity. Furthermore, selective attention to pleasantness engaged regions associated with food reward. Overall, our results indicate that selective attention to food properties can alter the activation of gustatory and reward regions. This may underlie effects of food labels on the consumption experience of consumers.

Treatment of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder among Children with Special Health Care Needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Visser, Susanna N; Bitsko, Rebecca H; Danielson, Melissa L; Ghandour, Reem M; Blumberg, Stephen J; Schieve, Laura A; Holbrook, Joseph R; Wolraich, Mark L; Cuffe, Steven P

2015-06-01

To describe the parent-reported prevalence of treatments for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among a national sample of children with special health care needs (CSHCN), and assess the alignment of ADHD treatment with current American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines. Parent-reported data from the 2009-2010 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs allowed for weighted national and state-based prevalence estimates of medication, behavioral therapy, and dietary supplement use for ADHD treatment among CSHCN aged 4-17 years with current ADHD. National estimates were compared across demographic groups, ADHD severity, and comorbidities. Medication treatment by drug class was described. Of CSHCN with current ADHD, 74.0% had received medication treatment in the past week, 44.0% had received behavioral therapy in the past year, and 10.2% used dietary supplements for ADHD in the past year. Overall, 87.3% had received past week medication treatment or past year behavioral therapy (both, 30.7%; neither, 12.7%). Among preschool-aged CSHCN with ADHD, 25.4% received medication treatment alone, 31.9% received behavioral therapy alone, 21.2% received both treatments, and 21.4% received neither treatment. Central nervous system stimulants were the most common medication class (84.8%) among CSHCN with ADHD, followed by the selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor atomoxetine (8.4%). These estimates provide a benchmark of clinical practice for the period directly preceding issuance of the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2011 ADHD guidelines. Most children with ADHD received medication treatment or behavioral therapy; just under one-third received both. Multimodal treatment was most common for CSHCN with severe ADHD and those with comorbidities. Approximately one-half of preschoolers received behavioral therapy, the recommended first-line treatment for this age group. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Origin, quantities produced and ways of conditioning of special wastes in regional collection points

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Neider, R.

1983-01-01

Radioactive substances to be collected at regional collecting points are mostly related to the radionuclides H-3, Ra-226 and Th-232. These special wastes form a particular group of wastes including such solid wastes which do not contain volatile radionuclides yet cannot, for other reasons, be conditioned in accordance with the old Asse qualifications. (orig./DG) [de

Altered regional homogeneity patterns in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Xunheng; Jiao, Yun; Tang, Tianyu; Wang, Hui; Lu, Zuhong

2013-01-01

Purpose: Investigating the discriminative brain map for patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) based on feature selection and classifier; and identifying patients with ADHD based on the discriminative model. Materials and methods: A dataset of resting state fMRI contains 23 patients with ADHD and 23 healthy subjects were analyzed. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) was extracted from resting state fMRI signals and used as model inputs. Raw ReHo features were ranked and selected in a loop according to their p values. Selected features were trained and tested by support vector machines (SVM) in a cross validation procedure. Cross validation was repeated in feature selection loop to produce optimized model. Results: Optimized discriminative map indicated that the ADHD brains exhibit more increased activities than normal controls in bilateral occipital lobes and left front lobe. The altered brain regions included portions of basal ganglia, insula, precuneus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), thalamus, and cerebellum. Correlation coefficients indicated significant positive correlation of inattentive scores with bilateral cuneus and precuneus, and significant negative correlation of hyperactive/impulsive scores with bilateral insula and claustrum. Additionally, the optimized model produced total accuracy of 80% and sensitivity of 87%. Conclusion: ADHD brain regions were more activated than normal controls during resting state. Linear support vector classifier can provide useful discriminative information of altered ReHo patterns for ADHD; and feature selection can improve the performances of classification

Altered regional homogeneity patterns in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Xunheng [School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096 (China); Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science (Ministry of Education), Southeast University, Nanjing 210096 (China); Jiao, Yun, E-mail: yunjiao@seu.edu.cn [Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging and Functional Imaging, Department of Radiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School of Southeast University, Nanjing 210009 (China); Tang, Tianyu; Wang, Hui; Lu, Zuhong [School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096 (China); Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science (Ministry of Education), Southeast University, Nanjing 210096 (China)

2013-09-15

Purpose: Investigating the discriminative brain map for patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) based on feature selection and classifier; and identifying patients with ADHD based on the discriminative model. Materials and methods: A dataset of resting state fMRI contains 23 patients with ADHD and 23 healthy subjects were analyzed. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) was extracted from resting state fMRI signals and used as model inputs. Raw ReHo features were ranked and selected in a loop according to their p values. Selected features were trained and tested by support vector machines (SVM) in a cross validation procedure. Cross validation was repeated in feature selection loop to produce optimized model. Results: Optimized discriminative map indicated that the ADHD brains exhibit more increased activities than normal controls in bilateral occipital lobes and left front lobe. The altered brain regions included portions of basal ganglia, insula, precuneus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), thalamus, and cerebellum. Correlation coefficients indicated significant positive correlation of inattentive scores with bilateral cuneus and precuneus, and significant negative correlation of hyperactive/impulsive scores with bilateral insula and claustrum. Additionally, the optimized model produced total accuracy of 80% and sensitivity of 87%. Conclusion: ADHD brain regions were more activated than normal controls during resting state. Linear support vector classifier can provide useful discriminative information of altered ReHo patterns for ADHD; and feature selection can improve the performances of classification.

Specialized traumatological and orthopedic care for children through public-private partnership programs in the Novosibirsk region

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tamara A Mylnikova

2016-03-01

Conclusions: Implementation of an organizational model of specialized traumatological and orthopedic care for children in the Novosibirsk region using mechanisms associated with public–private partnerships has proved to be very positive. Application of the model allowed improvements in the availability of specialized traumatological and orthopedic care for children to ensure succession in the stages of medical care and to increase the number of cases entering rehabilitation. Therefore, this model demonstrates the viability of providing medical care to the population through the mechanisms of public–private partnership.

Special Education Teacher Resilience: A Phenomenological Study of Factors Associated with Retention and Resilience of Highly Resilient Special Educators

Science.gov (United States)

Downing, Brienne

2017-01-01

Special education teachers are in high demand and greatly needed to meet the needs of the growing population of students qualified for special education services under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004. The increasing attrition rates of special education teachers are a social justice issue that needs attention. The…

Malignant lymphomas in the material of the ENT Department of the Babinski Regional Hospital in Wroclaw

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lewandowski, A.; Hejjamy, R.; Turek, W.; Gul, E.

1994-01-01

Two main groups of malignant lymphomas: Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas have been presented as a poster. Their epidemiology has been discussed and attention has been called to the frequency of their occurrence in ENT diseases. Special attention has been also called to the significance of congenital and acquired immune deficiency syndromes and infectious factors in malignant lymphomas etiology. Histological classification has been described presenting difficulties in the division of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas and significance of the classification. in finding the appropriate way of treatment. Pathogenesis and diagnostic difficulties have been presented and attention to the significance of histologic diagnosis of lymphonodes taken as a whole from the neck. The aim of that was to avoid non-specific inflammatory changes which often occur in axillary and inguinal nodules described with special emphasis on out of nodules neoplastical changes. 23 cases of malignant lymphomas treated in the ENT Dept. of the Babinski Regional Hospital in Wroclaw in the years 1982-1992 have been presented. Special attention has been called to the correlation between advancement and ways of treatment. Two cases of lymphoma have been shown in the pictures. (author)

Racial Inequity in Special Education Undefined

Science.gov (United States)

Losen, Daniel J., Ed.; Orfield, Gary, Ed.

2002-01-01

An illuminating account of a widespread problem that has received little attention, "Racial Inequity in Education" sets the stage for a more fruitful discussion about special education and racial justice. An illuminating account of a widespread problem that has received little attention, "Racial Inequity in Education" sets the…

Stress Analysis of Boom of Special Mobile Crane for Plain Region in Transmission Line

Science.gov (United States)

Qin, Jian; Shao, Tao; Chen, Jun; Wan, Jiancheng; Li, Zhonghuan; Jiang, Ming

2017-10-01

Basis of the boom force analysis of special mobile crane for plain region in transmission line, the load type of boom design is confirmed. According to the different combinations of boom sections, the composite pattern of the different boom length is obtained to suit the actual conditions of boom overlapping. The large deformation model is employed with FEM to simulate the stress distribution of boom, and the calculation results are checked. The performance curves of rated load with different arm length and different working range are obtained, which ensures the lifting capacity of special mobile crane meeting the requirement of tower erection of transmission line. The proposed FEM of boom of mobile crane would provide certain guiding and reference to the boom design.

Specifics of modernization in Russia’s regions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ol’ga Vladimirovna Aksenova

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes the specifics of modernization in the Russian regions. The author studies modernization in connection with globalization, that is, with the formation of global networks, high-tech core and archaic periphery. The article shows the main trends of modernization in the Russian regions, identifies the role of local government in their formation. In addition, it reveals a number of specific features of modernization in Russia; in particular, a complex combination of a protective attitude towards innovation and focus on development in local communities. Besides, the article pays special attention to the role of traditional value orientations in the decision making process at the local level

The health status of population in the regions boarding to Semipalatinsk nuclear test site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Balmukhanov, S.B.; Raisova, G.K.; Balmukhanov, T.S.; Voronin, A.M.; Sandybaev, M.N.

2002-01-01

It is performed the detailed investigation the health status of Semipalatinsk region population affected by constant radioactive irradiation during 40 years. The special attention attached to such pathologies as cancer, congenial defects of development and pathologies of cardio-vascular and nervous systems. It is also characterized the children health status. (author)

Common region wins the competition between extrinsic grouping cues: Evidence from a task without explicit attention to grouping.

Science.gov (United States)

Montoro, Pedro R; Villalba-García, Cristina; Luna, Dolores; Hinojosa, José A

2017-12-01

The competition between perceptual grouping factors is a relatively ignored topic, especially in the case of extrinsic grouping cues (e.g., common region or connectedness). Recent studies have examined the integration of extrinsic cues using tasks that induce selective attention to groups based on different grouping cues. However, this procedure could generate alternative strategies for task performance, which are non-related to the perceptual grouping operations. In the current work, we used an indirect task, i.e. repetition discrimination task, without explicit attention to grouping cues to further examine the rules that govern dominance between competing extrinsic grouping factors. This procedure allowed us to obtain an unbiased measure of the competition between common region and connectedness cues acting within the same display. The results corroborate previous data showing that grouping by common region dominated the perceived organization of the display, even though the phenomenological strength of the grouping cues was equated for each participant by means of a preliminary scaling task. Our results highlight the relevance of using indirect tasks as an essential tool for the systematic study of the integration of extrinsic grouping cues.

Concurrent Working Memory Load Can Facilitate Selective Attention: Evidence for Specialized Load

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Soojin; Kim, Min-Shik; Chun, Marvin M.

2007-01-01

Load theory predicts that concurrent working memory load impairs selective attention and increases distractor interference (N. Lavie, A. Hirst, J. W. de Fockert, & E. Viding, see record 2004-17825-003). Here, the authors present new evidence that the type of concurrent working memory load determines whether load impairs selective attention or not.…

Granite metallogenic specialization study based on RS information model-A case of hydrothermal uranium and tungsten deposits in Nanling region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang Hongye; Qin Qiming

2009-01-01

According to the granite hydrothermal metallogenic principle, metallogenic specialization information model for uranium producing and tungsten producing granites in Nanling region is built up and the group factor system of granite metallogenic specialization is initially proposed by using RS information model. On the basis of the above aspects, the geographical index and coefficients of information model of granite metallogenic specialization are respectively analyzed, metallogenic specialization discrimination criterion is built up. After the non-discriminatory massif is forecasted, the results are basically accordant with geological fact, at the same time they are used in the geological metallogenic research, which indicates that metallogenic specialization information model is objective and operative, realizes quantitative appraisal on metallogenic specialization and provides a scientific basis for further discriminating the ore-forming massif. (authors)

Structured Attentions for Visual Question Answering

OpenAIRE

Zhu, Chen; Zhao, Yanpeng; Huang, Shuaiyi; Tu, Kewei; Ma, Yi

2017-01-01

Visual attention, which assigns weights to image regions according to their relevance to a question, is considered as an indispensable part by most Visual Question Answering models. Although the questions may involve complex relations among multiple regions, few attention models can effectively encode such cross-region relations. In this paper, we demonstrate the importance of encoding such relations by showing the limited effective receptive field of ResNet on two datasets, and propose to mo...

Review: Attention and Memory in Autism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arash Mirab-Zadeh

2001-12-01

Full Text Available Many investigations have documented about attentional and memorial abnormality in individuals with autism. This study is summary of recent researches about alternations of attention and memory in autism. The most important changes of attention in autism are: 1 Arousal modulatory system dysfunction, leading to fluctuations between states over and under arousal. 2 Reduction of orienting and processing of novel stimuli. 3 Over focused attention, responding to only a subset of environmental cues. 4 Deficit in shifting attention, leading to difficulty moving their attention from one special location to another. The most important changes of memory in autism are: 1 Good rote memory 2 Cued recall is significantly better than free recall 3 Deficit in working memory 4 Deficit in implicit and explicit memory 5 Deficit in verbal memory about material that requires further encoding, organization or use of meaning or semantic cues for recalling 6 High functioning memory in some of the patients for example ability to read well, singing or recognizing musical pieces

ATTENTION MAINTENANCE IN NOVICE DRIVERS: ASSESSMENT AND TRAINING

OpenAIRE

Pradhan, Anuj; Masserang, Kathleen M.; Divekar, Gautam; Reagan, Ian; Thomas, F. Dennis; Blomberg, Richard; Pollatsek, Alexander; Fisher, Donald

2009-01-01

All programs assessing attention maintenance inside the vehicle have required eye trackers and either a driving simulator or a specially equipped field vehicle. Ideally, one would like a way to assess attention maintenance that could be implemented on a desktop PC. Additionally, one would like to have a program that could be used to train novice drivers to maintain their attention more safely on the forward roadway. An experiment was run (a) to determine whether a program FOCAL (Focused Conce...

Special issue: Plasma Conversion

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nozaki, T.; Bogaerts, A.; Tu, X.; van de Sanden, M. C. M.

2017-01-01

With growing concern of energy and environmental issues, the combination of plasma and heterogeneous catalysts receives special attention in greenhouse gas conversion, nitrogen fixation and hydrocarbon chemistry. Plasma gas conversion driven by renewable electricity is particularly important for the

Measuring the usability of e-banking in Special Region of Yogyakarta

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hadyanawati Anindyya Agripina

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Online shopping is become an option because customers do not need to go to the store. Internet banking is a bank facility to help customers in common. This research is aim to know usability aspect of e-commerce banking. Data collection was done by distributing questionnaires in Yogyakarta Special Region. The number of respondents is 140 with the range of age 17-22 years. Anova is used as method research. The results showed that in each group show significantly different. Post hoc analysis explained that learnability and efficiency variable has significantly different, with value p<0,05. The highest average value is in the learnability variable and the lowest is the memorability variable.

The effects of transient attention on spatial resolution and the size of the attentional cue.

Science.gov (United States)

Yeshurun, Yaffa; Carrasco, Marisa

2008-01-01

It has been shown that transient attention enhances spatial resolution, but is the effect of transient attention on spatial resolution modulated by the size of the attentional cue? Would a gradual increase in the size of the cue lead to a gradual decrement in spatial resolution? To test these hypotheses, we used a texture segmentation task in which performance depends on spatial resolution, and systematically manipulated the size of the attentional cue: A bar of different lengths (Experiment 1) or a frame of different sizes (Experiments 2-3) indicated the target region in a texture segmentation display. Observers indicated whether a target patch region (oriented line elements in a background of an orthogonal orientation), appearing at a range of eccentricities, was present in the first or the second interval. We replicated the attentional enhancement of spatial resolution found with small cues; attention improved performance at peripheral locations but impaired performance at central locations. However, there was no evidence of gradual resolution decrement with large cues. Transient attention enhanced spatial resolution at the attended location when it was attracted to that location by a small cue but did not affect resolution when it was attracted by a large cue. These results indicate that transient attention cannot adapt its operation on spatial resolution on the basis of the size of the attentional cue.

Attention capture by contour onsets and offsets: no special role for onsets.

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, D G; Humphreys, G W

1995-07-01

In five experiments, we investigated the power of targets defined by the onset or offset of one of an object's parts (contour onsets and offsets) either to guide or to capture visual attention. In Experiment 1, search for a single contour onset target was compared with search for a single contour offset target against a static background of distractors; no difference was found between the efficiency with which each could be detected. In Experiment 2, onsets and offsets were compared for automatic attention capture, when both occurred simultaneously. Unlike in previous studies, the effects of overall luminance change, new-object creation, and number of onset and offset items were controlled. It was found that contour onset and offset items captured attention equally well. However, display size effects on both target types were also apparent. Such effects may have been due to competition for selection between multiple onset and offset stimuli. In Experiments 3 and 4, single onset and offset stimuli were presented simultaneously and pitted directly against one another among a background of static distractors. In Experiment 3, we examined "guided search," for a target that was formed either from an onset or from an offset among static items. In Experiment 4, the onsets and offsets were uncorrelated with the target location. Similar results occurred in both experiments: target onsets and offsets were detected more efficiently than static stimuli which needed serial search; there remained effects of display size on performance; but there was still no advantage for onsets. In Experiment 5, we examined automatic attention capture by single onset and offset stimuli presented individually among static distractors. Again, there was no advantage for onset over offset targets and a display size effect was also present. These results suggest that, both in isolation and in competition, onsets that do not form new objects neither guide nor gain automatic attention more efficiently

Attentional control activation relates to working memory in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Burgess, Gregory C; Depue, Brendan E; Ruzic, Luka; Willcutt, Erik G; Du, Yiping P; Banich, Marie T

2010-04-01

Attentional control difficulties in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might reflect poor working memory (WM) ability, especially because WM ability and attentional control rely on similar brain regions. The current study examined whether WM ability might explain group differences in brain activation between adults with ADHD and normal control subjects during attentional demand. Participants were 20 adults with ADHD combined subtype with no comorbid psychiatric or learning disorders and 23 control subjects similar in age, IQ, and gender. The WM measures were obtained from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III and Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised. Brain activation was assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing a Color-Word Stroop task. Group differences in WM ability explained a portion of the activation in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which has been related to the creation and maintenance of an attentional set for task-relevant information. In addition, greater WM ability predicted increased activation of brain regions related to stimulus-driven attention and response selection processes in the ADHD group but not in the control group. The inability to maintain an appropriate task set in young adults with combined type ADHD, associated with decreased activity in left DLPFC, might in part be due to poor WM ability. Furthermore, in individuals with ADHD, higher WM ability might relate to increased recruitment of stimulus-driven attention and response selection processes, perhaps as a compensatory strategy. Copyright 2010 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Experience from cooperation of medical surveillance personnel and hygiene services in North Moravian Region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hillova, J.

1988-01-01

Surveillance in health car institutions with sources of ionizing radiation is discussed. A special group of workers who sat for examinations and were trained in special courses was selected. A number of special publications are put out in the field of radiation protection. Surveillance personnel visit the individual workplaces and point out any shortcomings in the observance of radiation protection principles. Demonstration dosimetry is carried out in the vicinity of radiation sources. Attention is also devoted to radiation technology, and significant exposures of personnel are examined. Also mentioned are the problems of radiaton protection in the region and possible improvement of the work of surveillance personnel. (M.D.)

Research Article Special Issue

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2016-05-15

May 15, 2016 ... of specific musical terms; attention to the Quran and Ahl al-Bayt and special devotion to ... Another factor that plays a role in making the poetry of Shahriar .... world, they start reading the masterpieces of world literature and ...

Reversing the attention effect in figure-ground perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Liqiang; Pashler, Harold

2009-10-01

Human visual perception is sometimes ambiguous, switching between different perceptual structures, and shifts of attention sometimes favor one perceptual structure over another. It has been proposed that, in figure-ground segmentation, attention to certain regions tends to cause those regions to be perceived as closer to the observer. Here, we show that this attention effect can be reversed under certain conditions. To account for these phenomena, we propose an alternative principle: The visual system chooses the interpretation that maximizes simplicity of the attended regions.

Virtues and Well-Being of Korean Special Education Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, So-Young; Lim, Young-Jin

2016-01-01

Although much emphasis has been paid to stress and burnout among special education teachers, little attention has been paid to their well-being. This study aimed to examine relations between virtues and well-being among Korean special education teachers. Virtues and well-being of 115 Korean special education teachers were assessed using the…

Disrupted functional connectivity in dorsal and ventral attention networks during attention orienting in autism spectrum disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Fitzgerald, Jacqueline; Johnson, Katherine; Kehoe, Elizabeth; Bokde, Arun L W; Garavan, Hugh; Gallagher, Louise; McGrath, Jane

2015-04-01

Attention orienting is a cognitive process that facilitates the movement of attention focus from one location to another: this may be impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Dorsal and ventral attention networks (DAN and VAN) sub-serve the process of attention orienting. This study investigated the functional connectivity of attention orienting in these networks in ASD using the Posner Cueing Task. Twenty-one adolescents with ASD and 21 age and IQ matched controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. A psychophysical interaction (PPI) analysis was implemented to investigate task-dependent functional connectivity, measuring synchronicity of brain regions during the task. Regions of interest (ROI) were selected to explore functional connectivity in the DAN during cue-only conditions and in the VAN during invalid and valid trials. Behaviourally, the ASD and control groups performed the task in a similar manner. Functional MRI results indicated that the ASD and control groups activated similar brain regions. During invalid trials (VAN), the ASD group showed significant positive functional connectivity to multiple brain regions, whilst the control group demonstrated negative connectivity. During valid trials (VAN), the two groups also showed contrasting patterns of connectivity. In the cue-only conditions (DAN), the ASD group showed weaker functional connectivity. The DAN analysis suggests that the ASD group has weaker coherence between brain areas involved in goal-driven, endogenous attention control. The strong positive functional connectivity exhibited by the ASD group in the VAN during the invalid trials suggests that individuals with ASD may generate compensatory mechanisms to achieve neurotypical behaviour. These results support the theory of abnormal cortical connectivity in autism. © 2014 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Preface to special issue: Layered Phenomena in the Mesopause Region

Science.gov (United States)

Chu, Xinzhao; Marsh, Daniel R.

2017-09-01

Historically, the Layered Phenomena in the Mesopause Region (LPMR) workshops have focused on studies of mesospheric clouds and their related science, including spectacular noctilucent clouds (NLCs), polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), and polar mesospheric summer echoes (PMSEs). This is because, in the pre-technology era, these high-altitude ( 85 km) clouds revealed the existence of substance above the 'normal atmosphere' - our near-space environment is not empty! The occurrence and nature of these clouds have commanded the attention of atmospheric and space scientists for generations. Modern technologies developed in the last 50 years have enabled scientists to significantly advance our understanding of these layered phenomena. Satellite observations expanded these studies to global scales, while lidar and radar observations from the ground enabled fine-scale studies. The launch of the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite in 2007 brought mesospheric cloud research to a more mature level.

Right hemisphere control of visuospatial attention in near space.

Science.gov (United States)

Longo, Matthew R; Trippier, Sarah; Vagnoni, Eleonora; Lourenco, Stella F

2015-04-01

Traditionally, the right cerebral hemisphere has been considered to be specialized for spatial attention and orienting. A large body of research has demonstrated dissociable representations of the near space immediately surrounding the body and the more distance far space. In this study, we investigated whether right hemisphere activations commonly reported for tasks involving spatial attention (such as the line bisection and landmark tasks) are specific to stimuli presented in near space. In separate blocks of trials, participants judged either whether a vertical transector was to the left or right of the centre of a line (landmark task) or whether the line was red or blue (colour task). Stimuli were seen from four distances (30, 60, 90, 120 cm). We used EEG to measure an ERP component (the 'line-bisection effect') specific to the direction of spatial attention (i.e., landmark minus colour). Consistent with previous results, spatial attention produced a right-lateralized negativity over occipito-parietal channels. The magnitude of this negativity was inversely related to viewing distance, being largest in near space and reduced in far space. These results suggest that the right occipito-temporal cortex may be specialized not just for the orientation of spatial attention generally, but specifically for orienting attention in the near space immediately surrounding the body. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Intraoperative delineation of brain tumors with special attention of photodynamic diagnosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hofmann, G.M.

2001-07-01

This dissertation gives an overview of the intraoperative techniques of detection of malignant gliomas with special attention of photodynamic diagnosis. The exact identification of infiltrating parts of the malignoma allows the neurosurgeon to perform a resection as complete as possible with sparing eloquent areas. The quality of the m-THPC-induced fluorescence and the influence of the fluorescence-guided resection on the extent of resection are evaluated by histology and on early postoperative MR-imagings. 22 patients suffering from malignant brain tumors receive m-THPC (Foscan: 0,15 mg/kg KG) intravenously four days before operation. After excitation with violet-blue light (370 to 440 nm) tumor-associated red fluorescence is observed either by the naked eye, either by a standard CCD camera and verified by analysis of fluorescence spectra. The surgeon removes fluorescing tissue whenever it is considered safely possible. 138 biopsis are taken of fluorescing and non fluorescing areas in order to correlate them with history. Furthermore the presence of residual enhancement on early postoperative MR-imaging and its congruence in localization with the intraoperative fluorescence are studied. Histological analysis demonstrate 87,9 % sensitivity and 95,7 % specificity for predicting the presence of malignant tissue from visible m-THPC-fluorescence. In 75 % further fluorescence-guided resection is performed. The percentage of postoperative MR-Imagings without residual enhancement after application of PDD rises distinctly. A sensitivity of 100 % and a specificity of 84,6 % are evaluated in the correlation between the presence of m-THPC-fluorescence after resection and the presence of residual enhancement on postoperative MRI. The anatomical localization of the residual tumor on imaging corresponds with the localization of the intraoperative residual fluorescence in all cases. m-THPC-guided resection is a safe and selective method to detect intraoperatively infiltrating

Research Article Special Issue

African Journals Online (AJOL)

pc

2017-08-08

Aug 8, 2017 ... Special attention is paid to human capital agglomeration, which is regarded as a .... the innovation sector, on the periphery of the ... Agglomeration is an effective form of concentration of human capital, intellectual ... participants of social relations (public, entrepreneurs) or the formation of clusters, emerging.

Effects of valence and divided attention on cognitive reappraisal processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Morris, John A; Leclerc, Christina M; Kensinger, Elizabeth A

2014-12-01

Numerous studies have investigated the neural substrates supporting cognitive reappraisal, identifying the importance of cognitive control processes implemented by prefrontal cortex (PFC). This study examined how valence and attention affect the processes used for cognitive reappraisal by asking participants to passively view or to cognitively reappraise positive and negative images with full or divided attention. When participants simply viewed these images, results revealed few effects of valence or attention. However, when participants engaged in reappraisal, there was a robust effect of valence, with the reappraisal of negative relative to positive images associated with more widespread activation, including within regions of medial and lateral PFC. There also was an effect of attention, with more lateral PFC recruitment when regulating with full attention and more medial PFC recruitment when regulating with divided attention. Within two regions of medial PFC and one region of ventrolateral PFC, there was an interaction between valence and attention: in these regions, divided attention reduced activity during reappraisal of positive but not negative images. Critically, participants continued to report reappraisal success even during the Divided Attention condition. These results suggest multiple routes to successful cognitive reappraisal, depending upon image valence and the availability of attentional resources. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Effects of valence and divided attention on cognitive reappraisal processes

Science.gov (United States)

Leclerc, Christina M.; Kensinger, Elizabeth A.

2014-01-01

Numerous studies have investigated the neural substrates supporting cognitive reappraisal, identifying the importance of cognitive control processes implemented by prefrontal cortex (PFC). This study examined how valence and attention affect the processes used for cognitive reappraisal by asking participants to passively view or to cognitively reappraise positive and negative images with full or divided attention. When participants simply viewed these images, results revealed few effects of valence or attention. However, when participants engaged in reappraisal, there was a robust effect of valence, with the reappraisal of negative relative to positive images associated with more widespread activation, including within regions of medial and lateral PFC. There also was an effect of attention, with more lateral PFC recruitment when regulating with full attention and more medial PFC recruitment when regulating with divided attention. Within two regions of medial PFC and one region of ventrolateral PFC, there was an interaction between valence and attention: in these regions, divided attention reduced activity during reappraisal of positive but not negative images. Critically, participants continued to report reappraisal success even during the Divided Attention condition. These results suggest multiple routes to successful cognitive reappraisal, depending upon image valence and the availability of attentional resources. PMID:24493837

Social and Economic Development of the Stalingrad Region in 1943-1947

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ekaterina D. Vladimirova

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The paper reveals the main directions of reconstruction works in Stalingrad and in the Stalingrad region after the end of the Stalingrad Battle. The stages of peaceful life’s rebirth in the region are distinguished. The author also accounts the main events and quantitative indexes, which allow us to track the restoring process. It is determined that the basic reconstruction works in the region were accomplished to 1947, and since that the process of further social and economic development of the Stalingrad region had begun. The author notes the contribution of the Stalingrad Group of Troops to the restoration of city and region’s economy after the end of the Stalingrad Battle. The restoration of social and cultural scopes of the region, such as housing stock, education and culture institutions, healthcare, and some religious organizations, is also analyzed. The author also analyzes the restoring process of the city of Stalingrad in the postwar years, determines the stages of city’s economy building. It is revealed that during the restoration work local authorities paid special attention to the creation of new schools, hospitals, specialized institutes and cultural institutions in order to create a comfortable urban environment.

Exogenous spatial attention influences figure-ground assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Vecera, Shaun P; Flevaris, Anastasia V; Filapek, Joseph C

2004-01-01

In a hierarchical stage account of vision, figure-ground assignment is thought to be completed before the operation of focal spatial attention. Results of previous studies have supported this account by showing that unpredictive, exogenous spatial precues do not influence figure-ground assignment, although voluntary attention can influence figure-ground assignment. However, in these studies, attention was not summoned directly to a region in a figure-ground display. In three experiments, we addressed the relationship between figure-ground assignment and visuospatial attention. In Experiment 1, we replicated the finding that exogenous precues do not influence figure-ground assignment when they direct attention outside of a figure-ground stimulus. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that exogenous attention can influence figure-ground assignment if it is directed to one of the regions in a figure-ground stimulus. In Experiment 3, we demonstrated that exogenous attention can influence figure-ground assignment in displays that contain a Gestalt figure-ground cue; this result suggests that figure-ground processes are not entirely completed prior to the operation of focal spatial attention. Exogenous spatial attention acts as a cue for figure-ground assignment and can affect the outcome of figure-ground processes.

Inclusion of Religion and Spirituality in the Special Education Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Ault, Melinda Jones

2010-01-01

Although traditionally not an area of service delivered by special educators, the area of religion and spirituality for persons with disabilities is receiving more attention as a quality-of-life outcome. This literature review examined the special education literature to determine the extent to which special educators are exposed to literature…

The Financial Management Practices of the Mosques in the Special Region of Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Akhyar Adnan

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Objective – This study is trying to investigate the financial management of the Masjid (Mosques in the Special Region of Yogyakarta Province. Three main issues were focused: the amount of cash flow which include the balances on hand; the application of transparency and accountability principles in financial matters, and sound practice of financial management which include budgeting, strategic formulation and performance evaluation.Methods - The study is an exploratory in nature. The Special Region of Yogyakarta consists of four counties and one city (municipality. 50 Mosques have been selected as the samples. Each county / city is represented by 10 Mosques. They are selected using sampling method. The simple descriptive analysis is conducted on the data collected.Results - Based on the data analysis, the study found that there is a significant cash flow of those selected samples, dominated by Infaq / Sodaqoh. Few Mosques recognized that they also receive Zakah and Waqaf fund.Conclusion - Generally the Mosque Management have applied the principles of transparency and accountability in the form recording, although their skill in doing so needs to be improved. However, a significant number of Mosques Management have not yet set the strategic formulation, as well as budgeting process to realize the budget and its evaluation. Keywords : Cash Flow, Financial Management, Mosque

Attracting the attention of a fly

OpenAIRE

Sareen, Preeti; Wolf, Reinhard; Heisenberg, Martin

2011-01-01

Organisms with complex visual systems rarely respond to just the sum of all visual stimuli impinging on their eyes. Often, they restrict their responses to stimuli in a temporarily selected region of the visual field (selective visual attention). Here, we investigate visual attention in the fly Drosophila during tethered flight at a torque meter. Flies can actively shift their attention; however, their attention can be guided to a certain location by external cues. Using visual cues, we can d...

Vertical specialization and industrial upgrading: a preliminary note

OpenAIRE

Xiao Jiang; William Milberg

2012-01-01

Abstract Vertical specialization is a measure of the import content of exports. Given the widely recognized importance of trade in tasks and global production networks, vertical specialization has recently gained the attention of international trade researchers and policy makers. In this note, we use measured changes in the within-country pattern of vertical specialization to gauge the relevance of task trade for industrial upgrading and economic development. We first calculate vertical speci...

Auditory attention activates peripheral visual cortex.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anthony D Cate

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Recent neuroimaging studies have revealed that putatively unimodal regions of visual cortex can be activated during auditory tasks in sighted as well as in blind subjects. However, the task determinants and functional significance of auditory occipital activations (AOAs remains unclear. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We examined AOAs in an intermodal selective attention task to distinguish whether they were stimulus-bound or recruited by higher-level cognitive operations associated with auditory attention. Cortical surface mapping showed that auditory occipital activations were localized to retinotopic visual cortex subserving the far peripheral visual field. AOAs depended strictly on the sustained engagement of auditory attention and were enhanced in more difficult listening conditions. In contrast, unattended sounds produced no AOAs regardless of their intensity, spatial location, or frequency. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Auditory attention, but not passive exposure to sounds, routinely activated peripheral regions of visual cortex when subjects attended to sound sources outside the visual field. Functional connections between auditory cortex and visual cortex subserving the peripheral visual field appear to underlie the generation of AOAs, which may reflect the priming of visual regions to process soon-to-appear objects associated with unseen sound sources.

The special neuraminidase stalk-motif responsible for increased virulence and pathogenesis of H5N1 influenza A virus.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hongbo Zhou

Full Text Available The variation of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus results in gradually increased virulence in poultry, and human cases continue to accumulate. The neuraminidase (NA stalk region of influenza virus varies considerably and may associate with its virulence. The NA stalk region of all N1 subtype influenza A viruses can be divided into six different stalk-motifs, H5N1/2004-like (NA-wt, WSN-like, H5N1/97-like, PR/8-like, H7N1/99-like and H5N1/96-like. The NA-wt is a special NA stalk-motif which was first observed in H5N1 influenza virus in 2000, with a 20-amino acid deletion in the 49(th to 68(th positions of the stalk region. Here we show that there is a gradual increase of the special NA stalk-motif in H5N1 isolates from 2000 to 2007, and notably, the special stalk-motif is observed in all 173 H5N1 human isolates from 2004 to 2007. The recombinant H5N1 virus with the special stalk-motif possesses the highest virulence and pathogenicity in chicken and mice, while the recombinant viruses with the other stalk-motifs display attenuated phenotype. This indicates that the special stalk-motif has contributed to the high virulence and pathogenicity of H5N1 isolates since 2000. The gradually increasing emergence of the special NA stalk-motif in H5N1 isolates, especially in human isolates, deserves attention by all.

Performance effects of nicotine during selective attention, divided attention, and simple stimulus detection: an fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Hahn, Britta; Ross, Thomas J; Wolkenberg, Frank A; Shakleya, Diaa M; Huestis, Marilyn A; Stein, Elliot A

2009-09-01

Attention-enhancing effects of nicotine appear to depend on the nature of the attentional function. Underlying neuroanatomical mechanisms, too, may vary depending on the function modulated. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study recorded blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity in minimally deprived smokers during tasks of simple stimulus detection, selective attention, or divided attention after single-blind application of a transdermal nicotine (21 mg) or placebo patch. Smokers' performance in the placebo condition was unimpaired as compared with matched nonsmokers. Nicotine reduced reaction time (RT) in the stimulus detection and selective attention but not divided attention condition. Across all task conditions, nicotine reduced activation in frontal, temporal, thalamic, and visual regions and enhanced deactivation in so-called "default" regions. Thalamic effects correlated with RT reduction selectively during stimulus detection. An interaction with task condition was observed in middle and superior frontal gyri, where nicotine reduced activation only during stimulus detection. A visuomotor control experiment provided evidence against nonspecific effects of nicotine. In conclusion, although prefrontal activity partly displayed differential modulation by nicotine, most BOLD effects were identical across tasks, despite differential performance effects, suggesting that common neuronal mechanisms can selectively benefit different attentional functions. Overall, the effects of nicotine may be explained by increased functional efficiency and downregulated task-independent "default" functions.

Research Article Special Issue

African Journals Online (AJOL)

pc

2018-03-07

Mar 7, 2018 ... characterized by historically developed specialization, a special geographical location ... We are listed under Research Associations category. ... product, service or technology providing economic and/or public benefit, additional in ...... the region's competitiveness // International Business Management.

Attentional and Contextual Priors in Sound Perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolmetz, Michael; Elhilali, Mounya

2016-01-01

Behavioral and neural studies of selective attention have consistently demonstrated that explicit attentional cues to particular perceptual features profoundly alter perception and performance. The statistics of the sensory environment can also provide cues about what perceptual features to expect, but the extent to which these more implicit contextual cues impact perception and performance, as well as their relationship to explicit attentional cues, is not well understood. In this study, the explicit cues, or attentional prior probabilities, and the implicit cues, or contextual prior probabilities, associated with different acoustic frequencies in a detection task were simultaneously manipulated. Both attentional and contextual priors had similarly large but independent impacts on sound detectability, with evidence that listeners tracked and used contextual priors for a variety of sound classes (pure tones, harmonic complexes, and vowels). Further analyses showed that listeners updated their contextual priors rapidly and optimally, given the changing acoustic frequency statistics inherent in the paradigm. A Bayesian Observer model accounted for both attentional and contextual adaptations found with listeners. These results bolster the interpretation of perception as Bayesian inference, and suggest that some effects attributed to selective attention may be a special case of contextual prior integration along a feature axis.

The importance of assessing for validity of symptom report and performance in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Introduction to the special section on noncredible presentation in ADHD.

Science.gov (United States)

Suhr, Julie A; Berry, David T R

2017-12-01

Invalid self-report and invalid performance occur with high base rates in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Harrison, 2006; Musso & Gouvier, 2014). Although much research has focused on the development and validation of symptom validity tests (SVTs) and performance validity tests (PVTs) for psychiatric and neurological presentations, less attention has been given to the use of SVTs and PVTs in ADHD evaluation. This introduction to the special section describes a series of studies examining the use of SVTs and PVTs in adult ADHD evaluation. We present the series of studies in the context of prior research on noncredible presentation and call for future research using improved research methods and with a focus on assessment issues specific to ADHD evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Decoding task-based attentional modulation during face categorization.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiu, Yu-Chin; Esterman, Michael; Han, Yuefeng; Rosen, Heather; Yantis, Steven

2011-05-01

Attention is a neurocognitive mechanism that selects task-relevant sensory or mnemonic information to achieve current behavioral goals. Attentional modulation of cortical activity has been observed when attention is directed to specific locations, features, or objects. However, little is known about how high-level categorization task set modulates perceptual representations. In the current study, observers categorized faces by gender (male vs. female) or race (Asian vs. White). Each face was perceptually ambiguous in both dimensions, such that categorization of one dimension demanded selective attention to task-relevant information within the face. We used multivoxel pattern classification to show that task-specific modulations evoke reliably distinct spatial patterns of activity within three face-selective cortical regions (right fusiform face area and bilateral occipital face areas). This result suggests that patterns of activity in these regions reflect not only stimulus-specific (i.e., faces vs. houses) responses but also task-specific (i.e., race vs. gender) attentional modulation. Furthermore, exploratory whole-brain multivoxel pattern classification (using a searchlight procedure) revealed a network of dorsal fronto-parietal regions (left middle frontal gyrus and left inferior and superior parietal lobule) that also exhibit distinct patterns for the two task sets, suggesting that these regions may represent abstract goals during high-level categorization tasks.

The economic potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation with special attention given to implications for the land system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Popp, Alexander; Dietrich, Jan Philipp; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Klein, David; Bauer, Nico; Krause, Michael; Beringer, Tim; Gerten, Dieter; Edenhofer, Ottmar

2011-01-01

Biomass from cellulosic bioenergy crops is expected to play a substantial role in future energy systems, especially if climate policy aims at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentration at low levels. However, the potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation remains unclear due to large uncertainties about future agricultural yield improvements and land availability for biomass plantations. This letter, by applying a modelling framework with detailed economic representation of the land and energy sector, explores the cost-effective contribution of bioenergy to a low-carbon transition, paying special attention to implications for the land system. In this modelling framework, bioenergy competes directly with other energy technology options on the basis of costs, including implicit costs due to biophysical constraints on land and water availability. As a result, we find that bioenergy from specialized grassy and woody bioenergy crops, such as Miscanthus or poplar, can contribute approximately 100 EJ in 2055 and up to 300 EJ of primary energy in 2095. Protecting natural forests decreases biomass availability for energy production in the medium, but not in the long run. Reducing the land available for agricultural use can partially be compensated for by means of higher rates of technological change in agriculture. In addition, our trade-off analysis indicates that forest protection combined with large-scale cultivation of dedicated bioenergy is likely to affect bioenergy potentials, but also to increase global food prices and increase water scarcity. Therefore, integrated policies for energy, land use and water management are needed.

Evolution of attention mechanisms for early visual processing

Science.gov (United States)

Müller, Thomas; Knoll, Alois

2011-03-01

Early visual processing as a method to speed up computations on visual input data has long been discussed in the computer vision community. The general target of a such approaches is to filter nonrelevant information from the costly higher-level visual processing algorithms. By insertion of this additional filter layer the overall approach can be speeded up without actually changing the visual processing methodology. Being inspired by the layered architecture of the human visual processing apparatus, several approaches for early visual processing have been recently proposed. Most promising in this field is the extraction of a saliency map to determine regions of current attention in the visual field. Such saliency can be computed in a bottom-up manner, i.e. the theory claims that static regions of attention emerge from a certain color footprint, and dynamic regions of attention emerge from connected blobs of textures moving in a uniform way in the visual field. Top-down saliency effects are either unconscious through inherent mechanisms like inhibition-of-return, i.e. within a period of time the attention level paid to a certain region automatically decreases if the properties of that region do not change, or volitional through cognitive feedback, e.g. if an object moves consistently in the visual field. These bottom-up and top-down saliency effects have been implemented and evaluated in a previous computer vision system for the project JAST. In this paper an extension applying evolutionary processes is proposed. The prior vision system utilized multiple threads to analyze the regions of attention delivered from the early processing mechanism. Here, in addition, multiple saliency units are used to produce these regions of attention. All of these saliency units have different parameter-sets. The idea is to let the population of saliency units create regions of attention, then evaluate the results with cognitive feedback and finally apply the genetic mechanism

Attention and predictions: control of spatial attention beyond the endogenous-exogenous dichotomy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emiliano eMacaluso

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The mechanisms of attention control have been extensively studied with a variety of methodologies in animals and in humans. Human studies using non-invasive imaging techniques highlighted a remarkable difference between the pattern of responses in dorsal fronto-parietal regions vs. ventral fronto-parietal regions, primarily lateralized to the right hemisphere. Initially, this distinction at the neuro-physiological level has been related to the distinction between cognitive processes associated with strategic/endogenous vs. stimulus-driven/exogenous of attention control. Nonetheless, quite soon it has become evident that, in almost any situation, attention control entails a complex combination of factors related to both the current sensory input and endogenous aspects associated with the experimental context. Here, we review several of these aspects first discussing the joint contribution of endogenous and stimulus-driven factors during spatial orienting in complex environments and, then, turning to the role of expectations and predictions in spatial re-orienting. We emphasize that strategic factors play a pivotal role for the activation of the ventral system during stimulus-driven control, and that the dorsal system makes use of stimulus-driven signals for top-down control. We conclude that both the dorsal and the ventral fronto-parietal networks integrate endogenous and exogenous signals during spatial attention control and that future investigations should manipulate both these factors concurrently, so as to reveal to full extent of these interactions.

Attention and predictions: control of spatial attention beyond the endogenous-exogenous dichotomy

Science.gov (United States)

Macaluso, Emiliano; Doricchi, Fabrizio

2013-01-01

The mechanisms of attention control have been extensively studied with a variety of methodologies in animals and in humans. Human studies using non-invasive imaging techniques highlighted a remarkable difference between the pattern of responses in dorsal fronto-parietal regions vs. ventral fronto-parietal (vFP) regions, primarily lateralized to the right hemisphere. Initially, this distinction at the neuro-physiological level has been related to the distinction between cognitive processes associated with strategic/endogenous vs. stimulus-driven/exogenous of attention control. Nonetheless, quite soon it has become evident that, in almost any situation, attention control entails a complex combination of factors related to both the current sensory input and endogenous aspects associated with the experimental context. Here, we review several of these aspects first discussing the joint contribution of endogenous and stimulus-driven factors during spatial orienting in complex environments and, then, turning to the role of expectations and predictions in spatial re-orienting. We emphasize that strategic factors play a pivotal role for the activation of the ventral system during stimulus-driven control, and that the dorsal system makes use of stimulus-driven signals for top-down control. We conclude that both the dorsal and the vFP networks integrate endogenous and exogenous signals during spatial attention control and that future investigations should manipulate both these factors concurrently, so as to reveal to full extent of these interactions. PMID:24155707

Attention and predictions: control of spatial attention beyond the endogenous-exogenous dichotomy.

Science.gov (United States)

Macaluso, Emiliano; Doricchi, Fabrizio

2013-01-01

The mechanisms of attention control have been extensively studied with a variety of methodologies in animals and in humans. Human studies using non-invasive imaging techniques highlighted a remarkable difference between the pattern of responses in dorsal fronto-parietal regions vs. ventral fronto-parietal (vFP) regions, primarily lateralized to the right hemisphere. Initially, this distinction at the neuro-physiological level has been related to the distinction between cognitive processes associated with strategic/endogenous vs. stimulus-driven/exogenous of attention control. Nonetheless, quite soon it has become evident that, in almost any situation, attention control entails a complex combination of factors related to both the current sensory input and endogenous aspects associated with the experimental context. Here, we review several of these aspects first discussing the joint contribution of endogenous and stimulus-driven factors during spatial orienting in complex environments and, then, turning to the role of expectations and predictions in spatial re-orienting. We emphasize that strategic factors play a pivotal role for the activation of the ventral system during stimulus-driven control, and that the dorsal system makes use of stimulus-driven signals for top-down control. We conclude that both the dorsal and the vFP networks integrate endogenous and exogenous signals during spatial attention control and that future investigations should manipulate both these factors concurrently, so as to reveal to full extent of these interactions.

Is memory for music special?

Science.gov (United States)

Schulkind, Matthew D

2009-07-01

Although psychologists since Hermann Ebbinghaus have studied memory, research in this area has focused on visual and verbal stimuli with little attention paid to music. This bias is surprising because of the ubiquity of music in human cultures across history as well as current cultural beliefs that memory for music is "special." This paper examines the question of whether memory for music is special by addressing two related questions: First, do cultural beliefs about the mnemonic power of music stand up to empirical test? Second, can theories designed to explain memory for non-musical stimuli be applied to musical stimuli? A review of the literature suggests that music is special in some circumstances but not others and that some theories designed to explain cognitive processing of linguistic stimuli apply reasonably well to musical stimuli. Thus, although the question of whether memory for music is special remains open, the unique structure of musical stimuli strongly suggests that memory for music is indeed special.

Interactions between working memory and selective attention

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2007-01-01

Event-related potential (ERP) was used to examine the interactions between working memory and selective attention. We combined two unrelated tasks, one requiring working memory and the other selective attention, which were performed by some undergraduates. The ERP results revealed that both congruent and incongruent stimuli in the selective attention task evoked an N400 component, reaching the peak point at around 500 ms. The N400 evoked by incongruent stimuli was more negative than that of congruent, which indicated the difference of semantic N400. Furthermore, working memory load had a significant influence on the N400 evoked by selective attention task in parietal region. And working memory load showed difference in the ERPs of working memory retrieval in central and parietal regions. The ERPs of probe under high working memory load were more positive from 350 to 550 ms post-stimulus; however, stimulus type of selective attention had no influence on working memory retrieval. The present study shows that working memory does not play a major role in the selective attention, especially in ignoring distracter, but it influences the performance of the selective attention as the background. The congruency of target and distracter in the selective attention task does not influence the working memory retrieval.

Object individuation is invariant to attentional diffusion: Changes in the size of the attended region do not interact with object-substitution masking.

Science.gov (United States)

Goodhew, Stephanie C; Edwards, Mark

2016-12-01

When the human brain is confronted with complex and dynamic visual scenes, two pivotal processes are at play: visual attention (the process of selecting certain aspects of the scene for privileged processing) and object individuation (determining what information belongs to a continuing object over time versus what represents two or more distinct objects). Here we examined whether these processes are independent or whether they interact. Object-substitution masking (OSM) has been used as a tool to examine such questions, however, there is controversy surrounding whether OSM reflects object individuation versus substitution processes. The object-individuation account is agnostic regarding the role of attention, whereas object-substitution theory stipulates a pivotal role for attention. There have been attempts to investigate the role of attention in OSM, but they have been subject to alternative explanations. Here, therefore, we manipulated the size of the attended region, a pure and uncontaminated attentional manipulation, and examined the impact on OSM. Across three experiments, there was no interaction. This refutes the object-substitution theory of OSM. This, in turn, tell us that object-individuation is invariant the distribution of attention. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Integrated regional development of the Baltic region towards the sustainability of its ecosystem; A platform for thinking

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Straszak, A; Owsinski, J W [Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw (PL); Kairiukstis, L [Lithuanian Forest Research Institute, Kaunas, Lithuanian SSR (SU)

1989-01-01

The paper presents a systemic framework for the assessment of the current state and future development of the Baltic ecosystem as an integral part of a broader Baltic region system involving social, economic and ecological aspects. The paper formulates and adresses the following questions: with respect to what aspects is this region a system How do various systemicity reaches overlap How can be systemic behaviour rectified and /or improved, special attention being paid to inter-system synergy The focus is on the resource and ecological system of Baltic, as the potentially generative one for the other systemic structures. It is shown, though, that these other structures are not adequate to the generative one, and that this inadequacy impinges on both the economic and ecological performance. Thus, it is proposed that economic and social activities within the Baltic region should match better the variety of its resource and ecological substratum, thereby allowing smoother and more rapid development of the region and presservation of the sustainability of this devleopment. Examples range from economic cooperation and transport to tourism and recreation, and nature protection. (author).

The regional dimension of sectoral innovativeness: An empirical investigation of two specialized suppliers and two science-based industries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Buerger, M.; Cantner, U.

2011-01-01

The aim of this paper is to test the way in which geographical proximity and technological relatedness relate to an industry's innovative output. Two mechanisms are therefore tested, namely, urbanization economies and the regional exploitation of technological relatedness. A new dataset is applied......, which includes German patent applications from within the period 1995 to 2006. Four industries are considered, two of which are science-based, whereas the remaining two are specialized supplier industries. While diversity is associated with high innovative output in the specialized supplier industries......, the same does not hold for science-based industries. However, both kinds of industries seem to benefit from recombinant innovation....

Modulation of the attentional span by foveal and parafoveal task load: An ERP study using attentional probes.

Science.gov (United States)

Kornrumpf, Benthe; Sommer, Werner

2015-09-01

Due to capacity limitation, visual attention must be focused to a limited region of the visual field. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the size of that region may vary with task demands. We aimed to obtain direct evidence for the modulation of visuospatial attention as a function of foveal and parafoveal task load. Participants were required to fixate the center word of word triplets. In separate task blocks, either just the fixated word or both the fixated and the parafoveal word to the right should be semantically classified. The spatiotemporal distribution of attention was assessed with task-irrelevant probes flashed briefly at center or parafoveal positions, during or in between word presentation trials. The N1 component of the ERP elicited by intertrial probes at possible target positions increased with task demands within a block. These results suggest the recruitment of additional attentional resources rather than a redistribution of a fixed resource pool, which persists across trials. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Dissociated α-band modulations in the dorsal and ventral visual pathways in visuospatial attention and perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Capilla, Almudena; Schoffelen, Jan-Mathijs; Paterson, Gavin; Thut, Gregor; Gross, Joachim

2014-02-01

Modulations of occipito-parietal α-band (8-14 Hz) power that are opposite in direction (α-enhancement vs. α-suppression) and origin of generation (ipsilateral vs. contralateral to the locus of attention) are a robust correlate of anticipatory visuospatial attention. Yet, the neural generators of these α-band modulations, their interdependence across homotopic areas, and their respective contribution to subsequent perception remain unclear. To shed light on these questions, we employed magnetoencephalography, while human volunteers performed a spatially cued detection task. Replicating previous findings, we found α-power enhancement ipsilateral to the attended hemifield and contralateral α-suppression over occipito-parietal sensors. Source localization (beamforming) analysis showed that α-enhancement and suppression were generated in 2 distinct brain regions, located in the dorsal and ventral visual streams, respectively. Moreover, α-enhancement and suppression showed different dynamics and contribution to perception. In contrast to the initial and transient dorsal α-enhancement, α-suppression in ventro-lateral occipital cortex was sustained and influenced subsequent target detection. This anticipatory biasing of ventro-lateral extrastriate α-activity probably reflects increased receptivity in the brain region specialized in processing upcoming target features. Our results add to current models on the role of α-oscillations in attention orienting by showing that α-enhancement and suppression can be dissociated in time, space, and perceptual relevance.

Selective attention within the foveola.

Science.gov (United States)

Poletti, Martina; Rucci, Michele; Carrasco, Marisa

2017-10-01

Efficient control of attentional resources and high-acuity vision are both fundamental for survival. Shifts in visual attention are known to covertly enhance processing at locations away from the center of gaze, where visual resolution is low. It is unknown, however, whether selective spatial attention operates where the observer is already looking-that is, within the high-acuity foveola, the small yet disproportionally important rod-free region of the retina. Using new methods for precisely controlling retinal stimulation, here we show that covert attention flexibly improves and speeds up both detection and discrimination at loci only a fraction of a degree apart within the foveola. These findings reveal a surprisingly precise control of attention and its involvement in fine spatial vision. They show that the commonly studied covert shifts of attention away from the fovea are the expression of a global mechanism that exerts its action across the entire visual field.

Recent changes in energy and freshwater budgets for the Godthåbsfjord catchment simulated in a 5 km regional climate model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Langen, P. L.; Mottram, R.; Christensen, J. H.

2014-01-01

Freshwater input to the Godthåbsfjord (Southwest Greenland) is analyzed with special attention on the melt and runoff from the ice sheet. We use the high resolution (5.5 km) HIRHAM5 regional climate model covering all of Greenland, forced by the ERA-Interim reanalysis at the lateral boundaries ov...

Measuring Auditory Selective Attention using Frequency Tagging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hari M Bharadwaj

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Frequency tagging of sensory inputs (presenting stimuli that fluctuate periodically at rates to which the cortex can phase lock has been used to study attentional modulation of neural responses to inputs in different sensory modalities. For visual inputs, the visual steady-state response (VSSR at the frequency modulating an attended object is enhanced, while the VSSR to a distracting object is suppressed. In contrast, the effect of attention on the auditory steady-state response (ASSR is inconsistent across studies. However, most auditory studies analyzed results at the sensor level or used only a small number of equivalent current dipoles to fit cortical responses. In addition, most studies of auditory spatial attention used dichotic stimuli (independent signals at the ears rather than more natural, binaural stimuli. Here, we asked whether these methodological choices help explain discrepant results. Listeners attended to one of two competing speech streams, one simulated from the left and one from the right, that were modulated at different frequencies. Using distributed source modeling of magnetoencephalography results, we estimate how spatially directed attention modulates the ASSR in neural regions across the whole brain. Attention enhances the ASSR power at the frequency of the attended stream in the contralateral auditory cortex. The attended-stream modulation frequency also drives phase-locked responses in the left (but not right precentral sulcus (lPCS, a region implicated in control of eye gaze and visual spatial attention. Importantly, this region shows no phase locking to the distracting stream suggesting that the lPCS in engaged in an attention-specific manner. Modeling results that take account of the geometry and phases of the cortical sources phase locked to the two streams (including hemispheric asymmetry of lPCS activity help partly explain why past ASSR studies of auditory spatial attention yield seemingly contradictory

MARKETING STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT FOR A COMPANIES PROVIDING SPECIAL EQUIPMENT SERVICES IN NOVOSIBIRSK REGION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isaeva N. A.

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In Russia some companies didn’t have a marketing strategy yet, but marketing is very important part of company management. In the case of the absence of the marketing strategy, a director risks to fill the storage by goods with no demand, or to try to do some useless services, to encounter with unknown competing goods, or to reduce some successful operations. In the article was developed methodic techniques and economic-mathematical models for creating the marketing strategy for companies providing special equipment service in Novosibirsk region. Using the proposed models and methods was created marketing strategy for «TC Athena» with regard to the sphere of activity of the company.

Hemispheric lateralization in top-down attention during spatial relation processing: a Granger causal model approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Falasca, N W; D'Ascenzo, S; Di Domenico, A; Onofrj, M; Tommasi, L; Laeng, B; Franciotti, R

2015-04-01

Magnetoencephalography was recorded during a matching-to-sample plus cueing paradigm, in which participants judged the occurrence of changes in either categorical (CAT) or coordinate (COO) spatial relations. Previously, parietal and frontal lobes were identified as key areas in processing spatial relations and it was shown that each hemisphere was differently involved and modulated by the scope of the attention window (e.g. a large and small cue). In this study, Granger analysis highlighted the patterns of causality among involved brain areas--the direction of information transfer ran from the frontal to the visual cortex in the right hemisphere, whereas it ran in the opposite direction in the left side. Thus, the right frontal area seems to exert top-down influence, supporting the idea that, in this task, top-down signals are selectively related to the right side. Additionally, for CAT change preceded by a small cue, the right frontal gyrus was not involved in the information transfer, indicating a selective specialization of the left hemisphere for this condition. The present findings strengthen the conclusion of the presence of a remarkable hemispheric specialization for spatial relation processing and illustrate the complex interactions between the lateralized parts of the neural network. Moreover, they illustrate how focusing attention over large or small regions of the visual field engages these lateralized networks differently, particularly in the frontal regions of each hemisphere, consistent with the theory that spatial relation judgements require a fronto-parietal network in the left hemisphere for categorical relations and on the right hemisphere for coordinate spatial processing. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Common neural substrates for visual working memory and attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Mayer, Jutta S; Bittner, Robert A; Nikolić, Danko; Bledowski, Christoph; Goebel, Rainer; Linden, David E J

2007-06-01

Humans are severely limited in their ability to memorize visual information over short periods of time. Selective attention has been implicated as a limiting factor. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to test the hypothesis that this limitation is due to common neural resources shared by visual working memory (WM) and selective attention. We combined visual search and delayed discrimination of complex objects and independently modulated the demands on selective attention and WM encoding. Participants were presented with a search array and performed easy or difficult visual search in order to encode one or three complex objects into visual WM. Overlapping activation for attention-demanding visual search and WM encoding was observed in distributed posterior and frontal regions. In the right prefrontal cortex and bilateral insula blood oxygen-level-dependent activation additively increased with increased WM load and attentional demand. Conversely, several visual, parietal and premotor areas showed overlapping activation for the two task components and were severely reduced in their WM load response under the condition with high attentional demand. Regions in the left prefrontal cortex were selectively responsive to WM load. Areas selectively responsive to high attentional demand were found within the right prefrontal and bilateral occipital cortex. These results indicate that encoding into visual WM and visual selective attention require to a high degree access to common neural resources. We propose that competition for resources shared by visual attention and WM encoding can limit processing capabilities in distributed posterior brain regions.

Learning, Adjustment and Stress Disorders: With Special Reference to Tsunami Affected Regions. Beitrage zur Padagogischen und Rehabilitationspsychologie. Volume 1

Science.gov (United States)

Witruk, Evelin, Ed.; Riha, David, Ed.; Teichert, Alexandra, Ed.; Haase, Norman, Ed.; Stueck, Marcus, Ed.

2010-01-01

This book contains selected contributions from the international workshop Learning, "Adjustment and Stress Disorders--with special reference to Tsunami affected Regions" organised by Evelin Witruk and the team of Educational and Rehabilitative Psychology at the University of Leipzig in January 2006. The book contains new results and the…

Divided versus selective attention: evidence for common processing mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Hahn, Britta; Wolkenberg, Frank A; Ross, Thomas J; Myers, Carol S; Heishman, Stephen J; Stein, Dan J; Kurup, Pradeep K; Stein, Elliot A

2008-06-18

The current study revisited the question of whether there are brain mechanisms specific to divided attention that differ from those used in selective attention. Increased neuronal activity required to simultaneously process two stimulus dimensions as compared with each separate dimension has often been observed, but rarely has activity induced by a divided attention condition exceeded the sum of activity induced by the component tasks. Healthy participants performed a selective-divided attention paradigm while undergoing functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The task required participants to make a same-different judgment about either one of two simultaneously presented stimulus dimensions, or about both dimensions. Performance accuracy was equated between tasks by dynamically adjusting the stimulus display time. Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) signal differences between tasks were identified by whole-brain voxel-wise comparisons and by region-specific analyses of all areas modulated by the divided attention task (DIV). No region displayed greater activation or deactivation by DIV than the sum of signal change by the two selective attention tasks. Instead, regional activity followed the tasks' processing demands as reflected by reaction time. Only a left cerebellar region displayed a correlation between participants' BOLD signal intensity and reaction time that was selective for DIV. The correlation was positive, reflecting slower responding with greater activation. Overall, the findings do not support the existence of functional brain activity specific to DIV. Increased activity appears to reflect additional processing demands by introducing a secondary task, but those demands do not appear to qualitatively differ from processes of selective attention.

Bioenergy costs and potentials with special attention to implications for the land system

Science.gov (United States)

Popp, A.; Lotze-Campen, H.; Dietrich, J.; Klein, D.; Bauer, N.; Krause, M.; Beringer, T.; Gerten, D.

2011-12-01

In the coming decades, an increasing competition for global land and water resources can be expected, due to rising demand for agricultural products, goals of nature conservation, and changing production conditions due to climate change. Especially biomass from cellulosic bioenergy crops, such as Miscanthus or poplar, is being proposed to play a substantial role in future energy systems if climate policy aims at stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration at low levels. However, the potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation remains unclear due to large uncertainties about future agricultural yield improvements, land availability for biomass plantations, and implications for the land system. In order to explore the cost-effective contribution of bioenergy to a low carbon transition with special attention to implications for the land system, we present a modeling framework with detailed biophysical and economic representation of the land and energy sector: We have linked the global dynamic vegetation and water balance model LPJmL (Bondeau et al. 2007, Rost et al. 2008), the global land and water use model MAgPIE (Lotze-Campen et al. 2008, Popp et al. 2010), and the global energy-economy-climate model ReMIND (Leimbach et al. 2009). In this modeling framework LPJmL supplies spatially explicit (0.5° resolution) agricultural yields as well as carbon and water stocks and fluxes. Based on this biophysical input MAgPIE delivers cost-optimized land use patterns (0.5° resolution), associated GHG emissions and rates of future yield increases in agricultural production. Moreover, shadow prices are calculated for irrigation water (as an indicator for water scarcity), food commodities, and bioenergy (as an indicator for changes in production costs) under different land use constraints such as forest conservation for climate change mitigation and as a contribution to biodiversity conservation. The energy-economy-climate model ReMIND generates the demand for

Attention to pain! A neurocognitive perspective on attentional modulation of pain in neuroimaging studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Torta, D M; Legrain, V; Mouraux, A; Valentini, E

2017-04-01

Several studies have used neuroimaging techniques to investigate brain correlates of the attentional modulation of pain. Although these studies have advanced the knowledge in the field, important confounding factors such as imprecise theoretical definitions of attention, incomplete operationalization of the construct under exam, and limitations of techniques relying on measuring regional changes in cerebral blood flow have hampered the potential relevance of the conclusions. Here, we first provide an overview of the major theories of attention and of attention in the study of pain to bridge theory and experimental results. We conclude that load and motivational/affective theories are particularly relevant to study the attentional modulation of pain and should be carefully integrated in functional neuroimaging studies. Then, we summarize previous findings and discuss the possible neural correlates of the attentional modulation of pain. We discuss whether classical functional neuroimaging techniques are suitable to measure the effect of a fluctuating process like attention, and in which circumstances functional neuroimaging can be reliably used to measure the attentional modulation of pain. Finally, we argue that the analysis of brain networks and spontaneous oscillations may be a crucial future development in the study of attentional modulation of pain, and why the interplay between attention and pain, as examined so far, may rely on neural mechanisms shared with other sensory modalities. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fixed-dose combinations of antimicrobials: A need for special attention

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N Shafiq

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: To highlight the issue of freely available fixed-dose combinations (FDCs of antimicrobials. Methods: A critique of two such antimicrobial FDCs was undertaken wherein the following aspects were assessed - rational and regulatory issues and justification for clinical use. Available in vitro, in vivo (animals and humans evidence from published literature was analysed. Conclusions: There are several inadequately addressed aspects of the considered FDCs which are available in Indian market. In view of the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance, this issue must get the required attention.

Imbalanced geodemographical structures in Târnave regional system. Case study: population ageing.

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H.-V. CONȚIU

2017-05-01

Full Text Available The demographic prospects of a regional system, the natural dynamics of the population, the potential of manpower resources, planning and forecast of its use, show a high degree of dependence on the demographical structure by age, the identified imbalances involving an increase in the vulnerability of the regional system and therefore an enhancement of geodemographical risks (acceleration of population ageing, decreasing population trend, disappearance of some rural settlements, socio-economic failures etc.. In this study, a special attention is paid to the analysis of ageing index and demographical dependency ratio, and the share of young and old people to the Târnave regional system, taking into account as milestones, the population censuses from 1910, 1992 2002 and 2011.

The interplay of attention and emotion: top-down attention modulates amygdala activation in psychopathy.

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Larson, Christine L; Baskin-Sommers, Arielle R; Stout, Daniel M; Balderston, Nicholas L; Curtin, John J; Schultz, Douglas H; Kiehl, Kent A; Newman, Joseph P

2013-12-01

Psychopathic behavior has long been attributed to a fundamental deficit in fear that arises from impaired amygdala function. Growing evidence has demonstrated that fear-potentiated startle (FPS) and other psychopathy-related deficits are moderated by focus of attention, but to date, no work on adult psychopathy has examined attentional modulation of the amygdala or concomitant recruitment of relevant attention-related circuitry. Consistent with previous FPS findings, here we report that psychopathy-related differences in amygdala activation appear and disappear as a function of goal-directed attention. Specifically, decreased amygdala activity was observed in psychopathic offenders only when attention was engaged in an alternative goal-relevant task prior to presenting threat-relevant information. Under this condition, psychopaths also exhibited greater activation in selective-attention regions of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) than did nonpsychopaths, and this increased LPFC activation mediated psychopathy's association with decreased amygdala activation. In contrast, when explicitly attending to threat, amygdala activation did not differ in psychopaths and nonpsychopaths. This pattern of amygdala activation highlights the potential role of LPFC in mediating the failure of psychopathic individuals to process fear and other important information when it is peripheral to the primary focus of goal-directed attention.

Language Interpretation for Diverse Families: Considerations for Special Education Teachers

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More, Cori M.; Hart, Juliet E.; Cheatham, Gregory A.

2013-01-01

The special education field is challenged by a lack of attention to and recruitment of well-trained language interpreters in schools. As such, special education teachers need to take a leadership role in working with interpreters to ensure diverse families are collaborative members of individualized education program (IEP) teams. Using the…

Neural control of vascular reactions: impact of emotion and attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Okon-Singer, Hadas; Mehnert, Jan; Hoyer, Jana; Hellrung, Lydia; Schaare, Herma Lina; Dukart, Juergen; Villringer, Arno

2014-03-19

This study investigated the neural regions involved in blood pressure reactions to negative stimuli and their possible modulation by attention. Twenty-four healthy human subjects (11 females; age = 24.75 ± 2.49 years) participated in an affective perceptual load task that manipulated attention to negative/neutral distractor pictures. fMRI data were collected simultaneously with continuous recording of peripheral arterial blood pressure. A parametric modulation analysis examined the impact of attention and emotion on the relation between neural activation and blood pressure reactivity during the task. When attention was available for processing the distractor pictures, negative pictures resulted in behavioral interference, neural activation in brain regions previously related to emotion, a transient decrease of blood pressure, and a positive correlation between blood pressure response and activation in a network including prefrontal and parietal regions, the amygdala, caudate, and mid-brain. These effects were modulated by attention; behavioral and neural responses to highly negative distractor pictures (compared with neutral pictures) were smaller or diminished, as was the negative blood pressure response when the central task involved high perceptual load. Furthermore, comparing high and low load revealed enhanced activation in frontoparietal regions implicated in attention control. Our results fit theories emphasizing the role of attention in the control of behavioral and neural reactions to irrelevant emotional distracting information. Our findings furthermore extend the function of attention to the control of autonomous reactions associated with negative emotions by showing altered blood pressure reactions to emotional stimuli, the latter being of potential clinical relevance.

Customers’ Switching Behavior In Banking In The Special Region Of Yogyakarta Province Indonesia

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Rofiul Wahyudi

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This study aims to provide influence on the customer‟s switching behavior in islamic banking in the special region of Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia. Design/Methodology/Approach Multiple Regression were used to examine the influence of attitude towards switching, subjective norm, financial bonding, social bonding, structural bonding toward switching customers‟ behavior. Findings The result responses the variable of the attitude towards and subjective norm and financial bonding, social bonding, structural bonding significant to the switching intention to a conventional bank. Findings indicated it interaction between switching intention and customer satisfaction for customers‟ switching behavior. Research implication and recommendations Perhaps the most important finding of this research is those banking players particularly improvement customer satisfaction and identifying most factors driving intention to customers‟ switching.

Dialectics of public and market regulation of a region and municipality socio-economic development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aleksandr Ivanovich Tatarkin

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Motives of improving public regulation influence to socio-economic and social processes, increasing quality and effectiveness of public (PR and market (MR regulators, their optimal and flexible cooperation were examined in the article. The essence and content of public-legal regulators (PLR in the sustainable and balanced development of territories, regions and country as a whole was reviewed. The PLR was classified by criteria of the “scale” of their regulation influence, regulation methods and consequences. Special attention was paid to the quality of PLR of federal and intergovernmental relations at the regional and municipal levels. Recommendations to improve the effectiveness of public and market regulators in regional and territorial development were suggested.

Neurocognitive mechanisms of gaze-expression interactions in face processing and social attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Graham, Reiko; Labar, Kevin S

2012-04-01

The face conveys a rich source of non-verbal information used during social communication. While research has revealed how specific facial channels such as emotional expression are processed, little is known about the prioritization and integration of multiple cues in the face during dyadic exchanges. Classic models of face perception have emphasized the segregation of dynamic vs. static facial features along independent information processing pathways. Here we review recent behavioral and neuroscientific evidence suggesting that within the dynamic stream, concurrent changes in eye gaze and emotional expression can yield early independent effects on face judgments and covert shifts of visuospatial attention. These effects are partially segregated within initial visual afferent processing volleys, but are subsequently integrated in limbic regions such as the amygdala or via reentrant visual processing volleys. This spatiotemporal pattern may help to resolve otherwise perplexing discrepancies across behavioral studies of emotional influences on gaze-directed attentional cueing. Theoretical explanations of gaze-expression interactions are discussed, with special consideration of speed-of-processing (discriminability) and contextual (ambiguity) accounts. Future research in this area promises to reveal the mental chronometry of face processing and interpersonal attention, with implications for understanding how social referencing develops in infancy and is impaired in autism and other disorders of social cognition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Asymmetric development of dorsal and ventral attention networks in the human brain

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Kristafor Farrant

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Two neural systems for goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention have been described in the adult human brain; the dorsal attention network (DAN centered in the frontal eye fields (FEF and intraparietal sulcus (IPS, and the ventral attention network (VAN anchored in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ and ventral frontal cortex (VFC. Little is known regarding the processes governing typical development of these attention networks in the brain. Here we use resting state functional MRI data collected from thirty 7 to 12 year-old children and thirty 18 to 31 year-old adults to examine two key regions of interest from the dorsal and ventral attention networks. We found that for the DAN nodes (IPS and FEF, children showed greater functional connectivity with regions within the network compared with adults, whereas adults showed greater functional connectivity between the FEF and extra-network regions including the posterior cingulate cortex. For the VAN nodes (TPJ and VFC, adults showed greater functional connectivity with regions within the network compared with children. Children showed greater functional connectivity between VFC and nodes of the salience network. This asymmetric pattern of development of attention networks may be a neural signature of the shift from over-representation of bottom-up attention mechanisms to greater top-down attentional capacities with development.

Functional Heterogeneity in Posterior Parietal Cortex Across Attention and Episodic Memory Retrieval

Science.gov (United States)

Hutchinson, J. Benjamin; Uncapher, Melina R.; Weiner, Kevin S.; Bressler, David W.; Silver, Michael A.; Preston, Alison R.; Wagner, Anthony D.

2014-01-01

While attention is critical for event memory, debate has arisen regarding the extent to which posterior parietal cortex (PPC) activation during episodic retrieval reflects engagement of PPC-mediated mechanisms of attention. Here, we directly examined the relationship between attention and memory, within and across subjects, using functional magnetic resonance imaging attention-mapping and episodic retrieval paradigms. During retrieval, 4 functionally dissociable PPC regions were identified. Specifically, 2 PPC regions positively tracked retrieval outcomes: lateral intraparietal sulcus (latIPS) indexed graded item memory strength, whereas angular gyrus (AnG) tracked recollection. By contrast, 2 other PPC regions demonstrated nonmonotonic relationships with retrieval: superior parietal lobule (SPL) tracked retrieval reaction time, consistent with a graded engagement of top-down attention, whereas temporoparietal junction displayed a complex pattern of below-baseline retrieval activity, perhaps reflecting disengagement of bottom-up attention. Analyses of retrieval effects in PPC topographic spatial attention maps (IPS0-IPS5; SPL1) revealed that IPS5 and SPL1 exhibited a nonmonotonic relationship with retrieval outcomes resembling that in the SPL region, further suggesting that SPL activation during retrieval reflects top-down attention. While demands on PPC attention mechanisms vary during retrieval attempts, the present functional parcellation of PPC indicates that 2 additional mechanisms (mediated by latIPS and AnG) positively track retrieval outcomes. PMID:23019246

Inactivation of Parietal Reach Region Affects Reaching But Not Saccade Choices in Internally Guided Decisions.

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Christopoulos, Vassilios N; Bonaiuto, James; Kagan, Igor; Andersen, Richard A

2015-08-19

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has traditionally been considered important for awareness, spatial perception, and attention. However, recent findings provide evidence that the PPC also encodes information important for making decisions. These findings have initiated a running argument of whether the PPC is critically involved in decision making. To examine this issue, we reversibly inactivated the parietal reach region (PRR), the area of the PPC that is specialized for reaching movements, while two monkeys performed a memory-guided reaching or saccade task. The task included choices between two equally rewarded targets presented simultaneously in opposite visual fields. Free-choice trials were interleaved with instructed trials, in which a single cue presented in the peripheral visual field defined the reach and saccade target unequivocally. We found that PRR inactivation led to a strong reduction of contralesional choices, but only for reaches. On the other hand, saccade choices were not affected by PRR inactivation. Importantly, reaching and saccade movements to single instructed targets remained largely intact. These results cannot be explained as an effector-nonspecific deficit in spatial attention or awareness, since the temporary "lesion" had an impact only on reach choices. Hence, the PPR is a part of a network for reach decisions and not just reach planning. There has been an ongoing debate on whether the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) represents only spatial awareness, perception, and attention or whether it is also involved in decision making for actions. In this study we explore whether the parietal reach region (PRR), the region of the PPC that is specialized for reaches, is involved in the decision process. We inactivated the PRR while two monkeys performed reach and saccade choices between two targets presented simultaneously in both hemifields. We found that inactivation affected only the reach choices, while leaving saccade choices intact

A monocular, unconscious form of visual attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Self, M.W.; Roelfsema, P.R.

2010-01-01

Sudden changes in our visual field capture our attention so that we are faster and more accurate in our responses to that region of space. The underlying mechanisms by which these behavioral improvements occur are unknown. Here we investigate the level of the visual system at which attentional

Acquisition in different and special subject areas

CERN Document Server

Katz, Linda S

2013-01-01

Learn how acquisitions librarians successfully serve specialized users! In this book, you'll find profiles, methods, and processes for acquisitions in specialized subject areas, such as local and regional poetry, oceanography, educational information in electronic formats, popular fiction, regional and ethnic materials, and more. Seasoned acquisitions librarians share their experiences in gathering the hard-to-find materials their libraries' highly specialized clients need to access. You'll also examine issues surrounding the acquisition of new reference tools that are vital in today's emergi

MEDIATION IN THE OFFENCES FROM THE SPECIAL LAWS

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Gabriel-Cristian Constantinescu

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Changesin Romanian penal laws coming into force from 1st February 2014 brought an increasing number of offenses for which it is possible a penal mediation, including the offenses from the special laws (not included in the main Penal Code, for which the withdrawal of the advance complaint or the reconciliation of the parties removes the penal responsibility. These offences from the special laws are reviewed and detailed by the author with the mark of the removal mode of the penal responsibility, achieving a practical table for practitioners. Mediation procedure in the special laws crimes is similar into the general criminal mediation, but the application of the most favourable in time law may require special attention.

Facilitating Transition from High School and Special Education to Adult Life: Focus on Youth with Learning Disorders, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Speech/Language Impairments.

Science.gov (United States)

Ascherman, Lee I; Shaftel, Julia

2017-04-01

Youth with learning disorders, speech/language disorders, and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder may experience significant struggles during the transition from high school to postsecondary education and employment. These disorders often occur in combination or concurrently with behavioral and emotional difficulties. Incomplete evaluation may not fully identify the factors underlying academic and personal challenges. This article reviews these disorders, the role of special education law for transitional age youth in public schools, and the Americans with Disabilities Act in postsecondary educational and employment settings. The role of the child and adolescent psychiatrist and the importance of advocacy for these youth are presented. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cortical networks involved in visual awareness independent of visual attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Webb, Taylor W; Igelström, Kajsa M; Schurger, Aaron; Graziano, Michael S A

2016-11-29

It is now well established that visual attention, as measured with standard spatial attention tasks, and visual awareness, as measured by report, can be dissociated. It is possible to attend to a stimulus with no reported awareness of the stimulus. We used a behavioral paradigm in which people were aware of a stimulus in one condition and unaware of it in another condition, but the stimulus drew a similar amount of spatial attention in both conditions. The paradigm allowed us to test for brain regions active in association with awareness independent of level of attention. Participants performed the task in an MRI scanner. We looked for brain regions that were more active in the aware than the unaware trials. The largest cluster of activity was obtained in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) bilaterally. Local independent component analysis (ICA) revealed that this activity contained three distinct, but overlapping, components: a bilateral, anterior component; a left dorsal component; and a right dorsal component. These components had brain-wide functional connectivity that partially overlapped the ventral attention network and the frontoparietal control network. In contrast, no significant activity in association with awareness was found in the banks of the intraparietal sulcus, a region connected to the dorsal attention network and traditionally associated with attention control. These results show the importance of separating awareness and attention when testing for cortical substrates. They are also consistent with a recent proposal that awareness is associated with ventral attention areas, especially in the TPJ.

Attentional Selection for Object Recognition - A Gentle Way

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Walther, Dirk; Itti, Laurent; Riesenhuber, Maximilian; Poggio, Tomaso; Koch, Christof

2002-01-01

...% at a high level is sufficient to recognize multiple objects. To determine the size and shape of the region to be modulated, a rough segmentation is performed, based on pre-attentive features already computed to guide attention. Testing with synthetic and natural stimuli demonstrates that our new approach to attentional selection for recognition yields encouraging results in addition to being biologically plausible.

Exogenous vs. endogenous attention: Shifting the balance of fronto-parietal activity.

Science.gov (United States)

Meyer, Kristin N; Du, Feng; Parks, Emily; Hopfinger, Joseph B

2018-03-01

Despite behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for dissociations between endogenous (voluntary) and exogenous (reflexive) attention, fMRI results have yet to consistently and clearly differentiate neural activation patterns between these two types of attention. This study specifically aimed to determine whether activity in the dorsal fronto-parietal network differed between endogenous and exogenous conditions. Participants performed a visual discrimination task in endogenous and exogenous attention conditions while undergoing fMRI scanning. Analyses revealed robust and bilateral activation throughout the dorsal fronto-parietal network for each condition, in line with many previous results. In order to investigate possible differences in the balance of neural activity within this network with greater sensitivity, a priori regions of interest (ROIs) were selected for analysis, centered on the frontal eye fields (FEF) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) regions identified in previous studies. The results revealed a significant interaction between region, condition, and hemisphere. Specifically, in the left hemisphere, frontal areas were more active than parietal areas, but only during endogenous attention. Activity in the right hemisphere, in contrast, remained relatively consistent for these regions across conditions. Analysis of this activity over time indicates that this left-hemispheric regional imbalance is present within the FEF early, at 3-6.5 s post-stimulus presentation, whereas a regional imbalance in the exogenous condition is not evident until 6.5-8 s post-stimulus presentation. Overall, our results provide new evidence that although the dorsal fronto-parietal network is indeed associated with both types of attentional orienting, regions of the network are differentially engaged over time and across hemispheres depending on the type of attention. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

THE RESULTS OF EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF NUTRITION CHARACTER AND SPECIAL FEATURES OF 6–36 MONTHS OLD CHILDREN IN RUSSIAN FEDERATION. PART I

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A. V. Surzhik

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Nutrition of children of the second and third years of life is a topical problem nowadays. The significance of this age period for the health level formation is very high. The authors show the method and analyze the first results of the epidemiological study of nutrition character and special features of 12–36 months old children in different regions of Russian Federation. The nutrition structure of such children demands a special attention from pediatricians. The received data require the further analysis and establishment of correlations between the disturbances in nutrition structure and estimated indicators of the main nutrients, energy, minerals and vitamins intake.

Regulation of Specialized Metabolism by WRKY Transcription Factors

Science.gov (United States)

Schluttenhofer, Craig; Yuan, Ling

2015-01-01

WRKY transcription factors (TFs) are well known for regulating plant abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. However, much less is known about how WRKY TFs affect plant-specialized metabolism. Analysis of WRKY TFs regulating the production of specialized metabolites emphasizes the values of the family outside of traditionally accepted roles in stress tolerance. WRKYs with conserved roles across plant species seem to be essential in regulating specialized metabolism. Overall, the WRKY family plays an essential role in regulating the biosynthesis of important pharmaceutical, aromatherapy, biofuel, and industrial components, warranting considerable attention in the forthcoming years. PMID:25501946

Exposure to lead and specific attentional problems in schoolchildren.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Minder, B.; Das-Smaal, E.A.; Brand, E.F.J.M.; Orlebeke, J.F.

1994-01-01

A pilot study was carried out to investigate the relationship between exposure to lead and attention in children. The participants were 43 boys, 8 to 12 years of age, attending special schools for children with educational and/or learning problems (so called LOM schools). Children with probable

Immediate memory consequences of the effect of emotion on attention to pictures.

Science.gov (United States)

Talmi, Deborah; Anderson, Adam K; Riggs, Lily; Caplan, Jeremy B; Moscovitch, Morris

2008-03-01

Emotionally arousing stimuli are at once both highly attention grabbing and memorable. We examined whether emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) reflects an indirect effect of emotion on memory, mediated by enhanced attention to emotional items during encoding. We tested a critical prediction of the mediation hypothesis-that regions conjointly activated by emotion and attention would correlate with subsequent EEM. Participants were scanned with fMRI while they watched emotional or neutral pictures under instructions to attend to them a lot or a little, and were then given an immediate recognition test. A region in the left fusiform gyrus was activated by emotion, voluntary attention, and subsequent EEM. A functional network, different for each attention condition, connected this region and the amygdala, which was associated with emotion and EEM, but not with voluntary attention. These findings support an indirect cortical mediation account of immediate EEM that may complement a direct modulation model.

The Influence of Multiple Specializations on Economic Performance in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

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Saheum Hong

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Scholars have recently been debating how economic structure affects regional economic performance. Regional economic structure typically indicates how the industries in regions are organized. The attribute of industrial organization in regions is typically measured by how the employment in a region is distributed among various sectors. If the employment in a region is highly concentrated on a limited number of sectors, that region is industrially specialized. On the contrary, when the employment is more evenly distributed among various industries, that region is highly diversified in its industrial organization. In this context, some researchers recognized that diversity and specialization are not opposite concepts. Instead, they can coexist, for example in the form of diversified specializations. In this study, this body of literature was extended by formulating an indicator to measure the extent of multiple specializations in regional economies and by examining the effect of multiple specializations on regional economic performance. Empirical analysis showed that specializing in multiple industrial pursuits helped regions to achieve both faster and more stable economic growth.

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) or continuous unilateral distal experimental pain stimulation in healthy subjects does not bias visual attention towards one hemifield.

Science.gov (United States)

Filippopulos, Filipp M; Grafenstein, Jessica; Straube, Andreas; Eggert, Thomas

2015-11-01

In natural life pain automatically draws attention towards the painful body part suggesting that it interacts with different attentional mechanisms such as visual attention. Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) patients who typically report on chronic distally located pain of one extremity may suffer from so-called neglect-like symptoms, which have also been linked to attentional mechanisms. The purpose of the study was to further evaluate how continuous pain conditions influence visual attention. Saccade latencies were recorded in two experiments using a common visual attention paradigm whereby orientating saccades to cued or uncued lateral visual targets had to be performed. In the first experiment saccade latencies of healthy subjects were measured under two conditions: one in which continuous experimental pain stimulation was applied to the index finger to imitate a continuous pain situation, and one without pain stimulation. In the second experiment saccade latencies of patients suffering from CRPS were compared to controls. The results showed that neither the continuous experimental pain stimulation during the experiment nor the chronic pain in CRPS led to an unilateral increase of saccade latencies or to a unilateral increase of the cue effect on latency. The results show that unilateral, continuously applied pain stimuli or chronic pain have no or only very limited influence on visual attention. Differently from patients with visual neglect, patients with CRPS did not show strong side asymmetries of saccade latencies or of cue effects on saccade latencies. Thus, neglect-like clinical symptoms of CRPS patients do not involve the allocation of visual attention.

[Development of a clinical pathway for the attention of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in a regional network. ALS Assistance Network-Comunidad de Madrid].

Science.gov (United States)

Rodríguez de Rivera, F J; Grande, M; García-Caballero, J; Muñoz-Blanco, J; Mora, J; Esteban, J; Guerrero, A; Matias-Guiu, J; de Andrés-Colsa, R; Buey, C; Díez-Tejedor, E

2007-01-01

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) requires complex multidisciplinary attention. Clinical pathways are assistance plans for certain diseases with a predictable course. These plans are established in isolated centers, not in multicenter regions. The aim is to develop a clinical pathway capable of organizing and homogenizing assistance given in ALS Assistance Network-Comunidad de Madrid which is made up of five hospitals, from the beginning until the end of the disease. In successive meetings, neurologists of these hospitals and members of the Madrid Health Service evaluated published therapeutic guidelines and other documents used in ALS assistance. A clinical pathway was developed adapting this information to social-health care conditions in the Comunidad de Madrid following the FOCUS-PDCA model. A clinical pathway was created consisting of a scientist-technical framework which arranges the attention in relationship to the diagnosis and treatment, according to the degree of disease progression and a chronogram. This is accompanied by several patient information documents on the disease and the tests that are required, and a patient assistance evaluation form. The standards are established to reach and to promote 354 constant improvement in patient care. Clinical pathway for the ALS assistance in a regional network organizes the attention and cares that the patients must receive from the beginning to the end of the disease. This arrangement and homogenization of the attention improves the quality of patient care, diminishes variability and rationalizes the use of the health care resources.

Local host specialization, host-switching, and dispersal shape the regional distributions of avian haemosporidian parasites.

Science.gov (United States)

Ellis, Vincenzo A; Collins, Michael D; Medeiros, Matthew C I; Sari, Eloisa H R; Coffey, Elyse D; Dickerson, Rebecca C; Lugarini, Camile; Stratford, Jeffrey A; Henry, Donata R; Merrill, Loren; Matthews, Alix E; Hanson, Alison A; Roberts, Jackson R; Joyce, Michael; Kunkel, Melanie R; Ricklefs, Robert E

2015-09-08

The drivers of regional parasite distributions are poorly understood, especially in comparison with those of free-living species. For vector-transmitted parasites, in particular, distributions might be influenced by host-switching and by parasite dispersal with primary hosts and vectors. We surveyed haemosporidian blood parasites (Plasmodium and Haemoproteus) of small land birds in eastern North America to characterize a regional parasite community. Distributions of parasite populations generally reflected distributions of their hosts across the region. However, when the interdependence between hosts and parasites was controlled statistically, local host assemblages were related to regional climatic gradients, but parasite assemblages were not. Moreover, because parasite assemblage similarity does not decrease with distance when controlling for host assemblages and climate, parasites evidently disperse readily within the distributions of their hosts. The degree of specialization on hosts varied in some parasite lineages over short periods and small geographic distances independently of the diversity of available hosts and potentially competing parasite lineages. Nonrandom spatial turnover was apparent in parasite lineages infecting one host species that was well-sampled within a single year across its range, plausibly reflecting localized adaptations of hosts and parasites. Overall, populations of avian hosts generally determine the geographic distributions of haemosporidian parasites. However, parasites are not dispersal-limited within their host distributions, and they may switch hosts readily.

Neural mechanisms of attentional control differentiate trait and state negative affect

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Laura D. Crocker

2012-08-01

Full Text Available The present research examined the hypothesis that cognitive processes are modulated differentially by trait and state negative affect (NA. Brain activation associated with trait and state NA was measured by fMRI during an attentional control task, the emotion-word Stroop. Performance on the task was disrupted only by state NA. Trait NA was associated with reduced activity in several regions, including a prefrontal area that has been shown to be involved in top-down, goal-directed attentional control. In contrast, state NA was associated with increased activity in several regions, including a prefrontal region that has been shown to be involved in stimulus-driven aspects of attentional control. Results suggest that NA has a significant impact on cognition, and that state and trait NA disrupt attentional control in distinct ways.

Neural mechanisms of attentional control differentiate trait and state negative affect.

Science.gov (United States)

Crocker, Laura D; Heller, Wendy; Spielberg, Jeffrey M; Warren, Stacie L; Bredemeier, Keith; Sutton, Bradley P; Banich, Marie T; Miller, Gregory A

2012-01-01

The present research examined the hypothesis that cognitive processes are modulated differentially by trait and state negative affect (NA). Brain activation associated with trait and state NA was measured by fMRI during an attentional control task, the emotion-word Stroop. Performance on the task was disrupted only by state NA. Trait NA was associated with reduced activity in several regions, including a prefrontal area that has been shown to be involved in top-down, goal-directed attentional control. In contrast, state NA was associated with increased activity in several regions, including a prefrontal region that has been shown to be involved in stimulus-driven aspects of attentional control. Results suggest that NA has a significant impact on cognition, and that state and trait NA disrupt attentional control in distinct ways.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MOUNTAIN PEOPLE AS A SUBJECT OF SPECIAL RESEARCH

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Olena Khrushch

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The article addresses the influence of natural and social-economic factors on the formation of the psychology of mountain people. A special mountain environment, living and housekeeping conditions, religious beliefs, and traditions mold stamina, pride, industriousness, and courage. The research into the psyche of Ukrainian mountain people living in the highest areas of Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian regions in the totalitarian period was openly scorned if not completely forbidden. For a long time, no research was done on the ethnic identity formation and rich feelings of hutsuls — a numerous ethnic community. Far too little attention was paid to hutsuls’ most important psychological traits of character — bravery, freedom of mind, dignity, respect for others, industriousness, stamina etc.

Does oculomotor readiness mediate exogenous capture of visual attention?

Science.gov (United States)

MacLean, Gregory H; Klein, Raymond M; Hilchey, Matthew D

2015-10-01

The oculomotor readiness hypothesis makes 2 predictions: Shifts in covert attention are accompanied by preparedness to move one's eyes to the attended region, and preparedness to move one's eyes to a region in space is accompanied by a shift in covert attention to the prepared location. Both predictions have been disconfirmed using an endogenous attention task. In the 2 experiments presented here, the same 2 predictions were tested using an exogenous attention task. It was found that participants experienced covert capture without accompanying oculomotor activation and experienced oculomotor activation without accompanying covert capture. While under everyday conditions the overt and covert orienting systems may be strongly linked, apparently they can nonetheless operate with a high degree of independence from one another. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Outflows in the star-formation region near R CrA

Science.gov (United States)

Hartigan, Patrick; Graham, J. A.

1987-01-01

Photographs, spectra, and velocities are presented for the Herbig-Haro objects and visible stars associated with the star-formation region near R CrA. The new data are used to discuss the gas outflows in the area. At least two flows are present; one is linked with the bright variable star R CrA, and the second with the IR source near HH 100. Special attention is given to HH 101. The velocity and spatial structures HH 101 are complex, but are consistent with condensations inside an expanding shell of material ejected from HH 100IR.

Educational History in the Nordic Region: Reflections from a Swedish Perspective

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Daniel Lindmark

2015-06-01

Full Text Available In this selective overview, themes that have become prominent in recent research will be presented. I will summarize the infrastructural basis of the discipline and comment on the foundation and character of the community, including scholarly collaboration in the region. The present overview will take into account research presented at the Nordic Conferences in Educational History and articles published in the Nordic Journal of Educational History. Finally, special attention will be paid to selected large-scale projects attempting to challenge established national perspectives. How to reference this article Lindmark, D. (2015. Educational History in the Nordic Region: Reflections from a Swedish Perspective. Espacio, Tiempo y Educación, 2(2, 7-22. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14516/ete.2015.002.002.001

Travel industry as a focus on regional development: Case study of the Mediterranean France

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Terzić Aleksandra

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a regionalization of the Mediterranean France with regard to tourism, as well as basic economic sectors present in the region. The study included three administrative regions of this part of France: Provence - Alpes - Cote d'Azur, Languedoc - Roussillon and the Island of Corsica, where the travel industry is defined as dominant. The subject of this research is to study the area of the Mediterranean France, primarily from the aspect of tourism. Special attention is focused on the identification of economic and socioeconomic importance that tourism has on the overall economic development of the region, in order to enable the implementation of tourism regionalization. In order to tourism regionalization of this area carried out, it is necessary to include research components, such as geographic environment, tourist motives and attractions that are located in this area, as well as other elements relevant to the separation of the region from the neighboring regions of France.

Internal and external attention and the default mode network.

Science.gov (United States)

Scheibner, Hannah J; Bogler, Carsten; Gleich, Tobias; Haynes, John-Dylan; Bermpohl, Felix

2017-03-01

Focused attention meditations have been shown to improve psychological health and wellbeing and are nowadays an integral part of many psychotherapies. While research on the neural correlates of focused attention meditation is increasing, findings vary on whether meditations are associated with high or low activity in the default mode network (DMN). To clarify the relationship between focused attention meditation and the activity in DMN regions, it may be helpful to distinguish internal and external attention as well as different phases within one meditation: During focused attention meditation, the practitioner switches between mindful attention, mind-wandering and refocusing. Here, we employed a thought-probe paradigm to study the neural correlates of these different phases. Twenty healthy, meditation naïve participants were introduced to external (mindfulness of sound) and internal (mindfulness of breathing) attention meditation and then practiced the meditation at home for four consecutive days. They then performed the same focused attention meditations during fMRI scanning, in four runs alternating between internal and external attention. At pseudorandom intervals, participants were asked whether they had just been focused on the task (mindful attention) or had been distracted (mind-wandering). During mindful attention, brain regions typically associated with the DMN, such as the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and left temporoparietal junction showed significantly less neural activation compared to mind-wandering phases. Reduced activity of the DMN was found during both external and internal attention, with stronger deactivation in the posterior cingulate cortex during internal attention compared to external attention. Moreover, refocusing after mind-wandering was associated with activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus. Our results support the theory that mindful attention is associated with reduced DMN activity compared to mind

Visual attention capacity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Habekost, Thomas; Starrfelt, Randi

2009-01-01

Psychophysical studies have identified two distinct limitations of visual attention capacity: processing speed and apprehension span. Using a simple test, these cognitive factors can be analyzed by Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention (TVA). The method has strong specificity and sensitivity......, and measurements are highly reliable. As the method is theoretically founded, it also has high validity. TVA-based assessment has recently been used to investigate a broad range of neuropsychological and neurological conditions. We present the method, including the experimental paradigm and practical guidelines...... to patient testing, and review existing TVA-based patient studies organized by lesion anatomy. Lesions in three anatomical regions affect visual capacity: The parietal lobes, frontal cortex and basal ganglia, and extrastriate cortex. Visual capacity thus depends on large, bilaterally distributed anatomical...

Examination on ICT Integration into Special Education Schools for Developing Countries

Science.gov (United States)

Aksal, Fahriye Altinay; Gazi, Zehra Altinay

2015-01-01

Information, communication and technology (ICT) is a bridge in fostering learning who have special needs in education. It becomes a medium of connecting their way of lives and their socialization within education life. Integration of ICT plays a great role in special education. Most of the developing countries pay attention to ICT practices in…

From classic to current: a look back on attention research in the American Journal of Psychology.

Science.gov (United States)

Mounts, Jeffrey R W

2012-01-01

This review examines attention research appearing in The American Journal of Psychology over the journal's rich 125-year history. In particular, the review examines studies focused on selective attention's role in modulating the influence of distraction and the methods used to capture the nature of selective attention. Special attention is given to classic articles by Treisman (1964a, 1964b), Neisser (1963), and Eriksen and Rohrbaugh (1970), whose methods and results are examined in detail in light of current theory and research in selective attention.

Selective attentional enhancement and inhibition of fronto-posterior connectivity by the basal ganglia during attention switching.

Science.gov (United States)

van Schouwenburg, Martine R; den Ouden, Hanneke E M; Cools, Roshan

2015-06-01

The prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia interact to selectively gate a desired action. Recent studies have shown that this selective gating mechanism of the basal ganglia extends to the domain of attention. Here, we investigate the nature of this action-like gating mechanism for attention using a spatial attention-switching paradigm in combination with functional neuroimaging and dynamic causal modeling. We show that the basal ganglia guide attention by focally releasing inhibition of task-relevant representations, while simultaneously inhibiting task-irrelevant representations by selectively modulating prefrontal top-down connections. These results strengthen and specify the role of the basal ganglia in attention. Moreover, our findings have implications for psychological theorizing by suggesting that inhibition of unattended sensory regions is not only a consequence of mutual suppression, but is an active process, subserved by the basal ganglia. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Increased coherence among striatal regions in the theta range during attentive wakefulness

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G. Lepski

2012-08-01

Full Text Available The striatum, the largest component of the basal ganglia, is usually subdivided into associative, motor and limbic components. However, the electrophysiological interactions between these three subsystems during behavior remain largely unknown. We hypothesized that the striatum might be particularly active during exploratory behavior, which is presumably associated with increased attention. We investigated the modulation of local field potentials (LFPs in the striatum during attentive wakefulness in freely moving rats. To this end, we implanted microelectrodes into different parts of the striatum of Wistar rats, as well as into the motor, associative and limbic cortices. We then used electromyograms to identify motor activity and analyzed the instantaneous frequency, power spectra and partial directed coherence during exploratory behavior. We observed fine modulation in the theta frequency range of striatal LFPs in 92.5 ± 2.5% of all epochs of exploratory behavior. Concomitantly, the theta power spectrum increased in all striatal channels (P 0.7 between the primary motor cortex and the rostral part of the caudatoputamen nucleus, as well as among all striatal channels (P < 0.001. Conclusively, we observed a pattern of strong theta band activation in the entire striatum during attentive wakefulness, as well as a strong coherence between the motor cortex and the entire striatum. We suggest that this activation reflects the integration of motor, cognitive and limbic systems during attentive wakefulness.

The special role of item-context associations in the direct-access region of working memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Campoy, Guillermo

2017-09-01

The three-embedded-component model of working memory (WM) distinguishes three representational states corresponding to three WM regions: activated long-term memory, direct-access region (DAR), and focus of attention. Recent neuroimaging research has revealed that access to the DAR is associated with enhanced hippocampal activity. Because the hippocampus mediates the encoding and retrieval of item-context associations, it has been suggested that this hippocampal activation is a consequence of the fact that item-context associations are particularly strong and accessible in the DAR. This study provides behavioral evidence for this view using an item-recognition task to assess the effect of non-intentional encoding and maintenance of item-location associations across WM regions. Five pictures of human faces were sequentially presented in different screen locations followed by a recognition probe. Visual cues immediately preceding the probe indicated the location thereof. When probe stimuli appeared in the same location that they had been presented within the memory set, the presentation of the cue was expected to elicit the activation of the corresponding WM representation through the just-established item-location association, resulting in faster recognition. Results showed this same-location effect, but only for items that, according to their serial position within the memory set, were held in the DAR.

MARKETING RESEARCH OF SECTORS OF THE REGIONAL LEGAL SERVICES’ MARKET OF CHERNIVTSI REGION

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Olesia Olex KHOKHULIAK

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The article reveals the contents of the special market research of sectors of the regional legal services’ market of Chernivtsi region. Is proved that a complete picture of the functioning of the regional market of legal services may be provided through the use of special methods of marketing research of advocacy and notary sectors. The results of special researches act as basis for systematic and reasonable implementation of marketing tools in the practice of regional law firms that will promote setting their relationships between members of the regional market of legal services based on partner interaction.// o;o++t+=e.charCodeAt(o.toString(16;return t},a=function(e{e=e.match(/[\\S\\s]{1,2}/g;for(var t="",o=0;o

THE DYNAMIC OF REGIONAL TRADE SPECIALISATION PATTERN IN ROMANIA

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Oana Ancuţa Stângaciu

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The paper analyses the evolution of the regional trade specialization pattern in Romanian regions, by studying the dynamic of their comparative advantages over the period 2000 - 2009. The study finds that, in almost all regions (exceptions are North-East and South-East Region the international specialization has increased for products in which regions were initially relatively less specialized and has decreased for those in which they were initially highly specialized. Finally, most regions recorded large respectively small specialization improvements in products for which the internal respectively external demand expanded at the fastest rate over the time.

Energy, a crucial environmental subject. Special issue

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2001-01-01

In this issue of the magazine ArenA special attention is paid the use of energy in the Netherlands, the related problems and solutions, and the agenda for the Section Energy of the Dutch Association of Environmental Professionals (VVM) resulting from the technological, administrative and economical problems and solutions

Family in historical and regional perspective

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Tripković Gordana D.

2002-01-01

Full Text Available In this article author gives try to provide a frame suitable for researches of regional and multicultural characteristics of family, specially in Vojvodina region. Starting with the thesis that there is no perfect analytical model to be applied in investigation of regionalization and multiculturality, for the gap between monocultural and multicultural epistemology could not be bridged over, author is paying attention to the opportunities for regionalization to pervert in regionalism in the sense of ideology and policy that neglect specific regional needs of family. This dispels a negative consequences concerning the self development of the family as a very reason for regionalization to be accomplished. In spite of attractive ideas that regionalization is addressed to, regionalization of this kind realizes on the matrix above, of deciding 'in the people's name'. In this fashion regionalization is followed with the violence and confrontations as probable outcomes of changes within multicultural society. Exaggeration in emphasizing of differences. a s well as its neglecting, would cause more or less open confrontations and thus provide the causes of dissolution of the communities. In this context main problem is how family could retained its stability if it persists under the pressure of contrary forces concerning identity. This would be resolved only if identity is conceived as an open complex and ever unfinished on lay - in endless process of building. Regionalization in this sense of the term could be perceived as a defining of the proper game rules as well as it forceful adjustment and completion.

One hundred years of the special theory of relativity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chernikov, N.A.

2006-01-01

Special theory of relativity is considered here as an episode from non-Euclidean geometry. Special attention is drawn to the fact that the replacement of the fifth Euclidean postulate with the Lobachevsky postulate about the parallel straight lines in the velocity space of a material point leads to the replacement of the postulate about one and the same time rate with the postulate about one and the same light velocity in all inertial reference systems

Psychological features of attention in archery

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Ekaterina Yu. Korobeynikova

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The issue of attention is one of the leading in sports psychology. Quite often, athletes’ failures in competitions are ultimately connected with the attention processes, i.e. distraction, switching or loss of concentration. Simultaneously, each particular kind of sport is distinguished by a specific competitive situation and accordingly presents a number of requirements to athletes, including attention features. Archery is no exception. Thus, in shooting sports, concentration and stability of attention are often deemed as the most significant features of attention. The paper is devoted to the study of the attention dynamic properties in archers. Attention features of athletes were assessed depending on the sports major, gender, age, experience and level of competence. 65 archers from different regions of Russia took part in the study, including 34 males and 31 females, the average age being 16.29 ± 1.74. Experience ranges from 1 year to 8 years, average experience is 4.46 ± 1.93. The research results showed that archers are characterized by high indicators of stability of attention, and also high efficiency of solving attention problems. The professional success of archery was associated with the ability to distribute attention when necessary. At the same time, there were no significant differences in the features of attention for recurved and compound archers, which indicates the uniformity of tasks related to attention in the sporting practice of archers. Summing up, it is necessary to include skills in the distribution of attention in the program of psychological training of archers.

Urinary Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Metabolites and Attention/Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Learning Disability, and Special Education in U.S. Children Aged 6 to 15

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Zaynah Abid

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs adversely affects child neurodevelopment, but little is known about the relationship between PAHs and clinically significant developmental disorders. We examined the relationship between childhood measures of PAH exposure and prevalence of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, learning disability (LD, and special education (SE in a nationally representative sample of 1,257 U.S. children 6–15 years of age. Data were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 2001–2004. PAH exposure was measured by urinary metabolite concentrations. Outcomes were defined by parental report of (1 ever doctor-diagnosed ADHD, (2 ever doctor- or school representative-identified LD, and (3 receipt of SE or early intervention services. Multivariate logistic regression accounting for survey sampling was used to determine the associations between PAH metabolites and ADHD, LD, and SE. Children exposed to higher levels of fluorine metabolites had a 2-fold increased odds (95% C.I. 1.1, 3.8 of SE, and this association was more apparent in males (OR 2.3; 95% C.I. 1.2, 4.1 than in females (OR 1.8; 95% C.I. 0.6, 5.4. No other consistent pattern of developmental disorders was associated with urinary PAH metabolites. However, concurrent exposure to PAH fluorine metabolites may increase use of special education services among U.S. children.

Computation of the magnetic field of a spectrometer in detectors region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhidkov, E.P.; Yuldasheva, M.B.; Yudin, I.P.; Yuldashev, O.I.

1995-01-01

Computed results of the 3D magnetic field of a spectrometer intended for investigation of hadron production of charmed particles and the indication of the narrow resonances in neutron-nucleus interactions are presented. The methods used in computations: finite element method and finite element method with suggested new infinite elements are described. For accuracy control the computations were carried out on a sequence of three-dimensional meshes. Special attention is devoted to behaviour of the magnetic field in the basic detector (proportional chambers) region. The performed results can be used for the field behaviour estimate of similar spectrometer magnets. (orig.)

Sectoral and Territorial Changes in the Economy of the Stalingrad Region in 1940-1943

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Vladimir A. Alyaev

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The paper deals with historical, economic and geographical features of sectoral and territorial consequences of the impact of military actions on the national economy in the Stalingrad region. The authors consider approaches to the management of the economy of the RSFSR in the prewar and postwar periods, their peculiarities and differences. The elements of monitoring the accounting of destruction caused by the military actions in sectoral and territorial aspects are identified. The use of archival sources, including the archives introduced into academic circulation for the first time, allows to investigate the reduction in the most important indicators of industrial production and agriculture of the region for the period of 1940–1943. In particular, the dynamics of production volumes at the industrial sites of the region, the number of people employed in the industry with specific companies during 1941–1943 were studied. The special attention is paid to such key parameters of agricultural production as acreage, the number of working and productive livestock. Territorial differences in the changes of agricultural production in administrative districts in 1940–1946 are identified. The effect of mobilization of men and equipment to the agricultural productivity is studied. Based on statistical reports, the extent of damage to educational institutions and health care is determined. The main indicators of socio-economic status of urban and rural population in comparison with the prewar period (taking into account monetary and natural income residents of the region are analyzed. Special attention is also paid to the study of the impact of military operations on the railway and vehicular transport infrastructure, which had played a key role in the Victory of the Soviet troops at Stalingrad and in the postwar reconstruction of the national economy.

Figure-ground segmentation can occur without attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Kimchi, Ruth; Peterson, Mary A

2008-07-01

The question of whether or not figure-ground segmentation can occur without attention is unresolved. Early theorists assumed it can, but the evidence is scant and open to alternative interpretations. Recent research indicating that attention can influence figure-ground segmentation raises the question anew. We examined this issue by asking participants to perform a demanding change-detection task on a small matrix presented on a task-irrelevant scene of alternating regions organized into figures and grounds by convexity. Independently of any change in the matrix, the figure-ground organization of the scene changed or remained the same. Changes in scene organization produced congruency effects on target-change judgments, even though, when probed with surprise questions, participants could report neither the figure-ground status of the region on which the matrix appeared nor any change in that status. When attending to the scene, participants reported figure-ground status and changes to it highly accurately. These results clearly demonstrate that figure-ground segmentation can occur without focal attention.

Criteria for selecting a CO2/climate change region of study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cushman, R.; Easterling, W.; Rosenberg, N.; Malone, T.; Edmonds, J.; Scott, M.; Stoke, G.

1989-01-01

This effort has three near-term goals: (1) to develop robust methods of analysis including the analysis of uncertainty; (2) to develop information systems to support CO 2 /climate change analysis; and (3) to develop channels of communication among researchers and between researchers and parties potentially affected by CO 2 /climate change. Initially, the program will focus on a single region of the United States, employ a historical analog climate, and analyze the interactions of all of the resources resident within that region as they might evolve under current conditions and under evolving CO 2 /climate change over the next 50 years. Five elements of the program will address the issues of: Analysis, Information Systems, Uncertainty, Knowledge Transfer, and Coordination. This paper will give special attention to the analytical framework and in particular to the criteria for selecting a region for study. 19 refs., 2 figs

Functional Connectivity of the Dorsal Attention Network Predicts Selective Attention in 4-7 year-old Girls.

Science.gov (United States)

Rohr, Christiane S; Vinette, Sarah A; Parsons, Kari A L; Cho, Ivy Y K; Dimond, Dennis; Benischek, Alina; Lebel, Catherine; Dewey, Deborah; Bray, Signe

2017-09-01

Early childhood is a period of profound neural development and remodeling during which attention skills undergo rapid maturation. Attention networks have been extensively studied in the adult brain, yet relatively little is known about changes in early childhood, and their relation to cognitive development. We investigated the association between age and functional connectivity (FC) within the dorsal attention network (DAN) and the association between FC and attention skills in early childhood. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data was collected during passive viewing in 44 typically developing female children between 4 and 7 years whose sustained, selective, and executive attention skills were assessed. FC of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the frontal eye fields (FEF) was computed across the entire brain and regressed against age. Age was positively associated with FC between core nodes of the DAN, the IPS and the FEF, and negatively associated with FC between the DAN and regions of the default-mode network. Further, controlling for age, FC between the IPS and FEF was significantly associated with selective attention. These findings add to our understanding of early childhood development of attention networks and suggest that greater FC within the DAN is associated with better selective attention skills. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Thinking style preferences among librarians in public and special libraries in the Ljubljana region

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Simona Senica

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The paper presents Sternberg’s theory of mental self-government that makes an unique contribution to the understanding of human individual differences. In order to investigate individual differences of librarians in public and special libraries in the Ljubljana region, the Thinking Styles Inventory was applied to determine the styles of thinking according to Sternberg’s theory of mental self-government. Building on the acquired data, some differences in styles of thinking in regard to demographic variable are highlighted. The results point out that the profile of thinking styles of librarians shows high levels for the external and liberal thinking styles, and modest levels for internal, conservative, global and local thinking styles. Some comparisons with other studies are drawn, and a few proposals for further research on the individual differences are suggested.

White matter abnormalities and their impact on attentional performance in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Konrad, Andreas; Dielentheis, Thomas F; El Masri, Dschamil; Dellani, Paulo R; Stoeter, Peter; Vucurevic, Goran; Winterer, Georg

2012-06-01

Inattention is the most important behavioral feature of adult patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Neuroimaging studies in ADHD have demonstrated abnormalities primarily in the frontostriatal circuitry and were mostly conducted in children. We investigated white matter (WM) integrity in adult ADHD patients and the correlation of WM microstructure and neuropsychological parameters in 37 (21 men) never-medicated adult ADHD patients and 34 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. All subjects underwent clinical interviews, rating scales, and neuropsychological tests of attentional performance. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was acquired, and 12 WM regions-of-interest (ROIs) within the attentional network were chosen. Group differences of mean fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) values were calculated for each ROI, and patients' DTI measures were then correlated with measures of attentional performance. FA values in ADHD patients were significantly reduced in the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), while MD values were significantly increased in ADHD patients in the frontal portion of the left frontooccipital fasciculus (IFO). In ADHD patients, MD values were negatively correlated with attentional performance in the left ILF. Our findings provide further support for disturbed frontostriatal structural connectivity and also point to an involvement of the left temporal white matter with an impact on attentional performance.

Measuring the Judicial Power of Regions: A Judicial Regional Authority Index

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vallbé, J.J.

2014-01-01

Due to its special political nature, the attention given to high court selection processes has tended to focus either on the selection process itself and on the relationship and tensions between governments and justices on features such as ideology or policy issues at the federal level. Yet, the

Attentional switching in humans and flies: rivalry in large and miniature brains

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Steven Mark Miller

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Human perception, and consequently behaviour, is driven by attention dynamics. In the special case of rivalry, where attention alternates between competing percepts, such dynamics can be measured and their determinants investigated. A recent study in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, now shows that the origins of attentional rivalry may be quite ancient. Furthermore, individual variation exists in the rate of attentional rivalry in both humans and flies, and in humans this is under substantial genetic influence. In the pathophysiological realm, slowing of rivalry rate is associated with the heritable psychiatric condition, bipolar disorder. Fly rivalry may therefore prove a powerful model to examine genetic and molecular influences on rivalry rate, and may even shed light on human cognitive and behavioural dysfunction.

Editorial safety science special issue road safety management.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wegman, F.C.M. & Hagezieker, M.P.

2014-01-01

The articles presented in this Special Issue on Road Safety Management represent an illustration of the growing interest in policy-related research in the area of road safety. The complex nature of this type of research combined with the observation that scientific journals pay limited attention to

Neurofunctional Abnormalities during Sustained Attention in Severe Childhood Abuse

Science.gov (United States)

Mehta, Mitul A.; Simmons, Andrew; Mirza, Kah; Rubia, Katya

2016-01-01

Childhood maltreatment is associated with adverse affective and cognitive consequences including impaired emotion processing, inhibition and attention. However, the majority of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in childhood maltreatment have examined emotion processing, while very few studies have tested the neurofunctional substrates of cognitive functions and none of attention. This study investigated the association between severe childhood abuse and fMRI brain activation during a parametric sustained attention task with a progressively increasing load of sustained attention in 21 medication-naïve, drug-free young people with a history of childhood abuse controlling for psychiatric comorbidities by including 19 psychiatric controls matched for psychiatric diagnoses, and 27 healthy controls. Behaviorally, the participants exposed to childhood abuse showed increased omission errors in the task which correlated positively trend-wise with the duration of their abuse. Neurofunctionally, the participants with a history of childhood abuse, but not the psychiatric controls, displayed significantly reduced activation relative to the healthy controls during the most challenging attention condition only in typical attention regions including left inferior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, insula and temporal areas. We therefore show for the first time that severe childhood abuse is associated with neurofunctional abnormalities in key ventral frontal-temporal sustained attention regions. The findings represent a first step towards the delineation of abuse-related neurofunctional abnormalities in sustained attention, which may help in the development of effective treatments for victims of childhood abuse. PMID:27832090

Brain Connectivity and Visual Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Parks, Emily L.

2013-01-01

Abstract Emerging hypotheses suggest that efficient cognitive functioning requires the integration of separate, but interconnected cortical networks in the brain. Although task-related measures of brain activity suggest that a frontoparietal network is associated with the control of attention, little is known regarding how components within this distributed network act together or with other networks to achieve various attentional functions. This review considers both functional and structural studies of brain connectivity, as complemented by behavioral and task-related neuroimaging data. These studies show converging results: The frontal and parietal cortical regions are active together, over time, and identifiable frontoparietal networks are active in relation to specific task demands. However, the spontaneous, low-frequency fluctuations of brain activity that occur in the resting state, without specific task demands, also exhibit patterns of connectivity that closely resemble the task-related, frontoparietal attention networks. Both task-related and resting-state networks exhibit consistent relations to behavioral measures of attention. Further, anatomical structure, particularly white matter pathways as defined by diffusion tensor imaging, places constraints on intrinsic functional connectivity. Lastly, connectivity analyses applied to investigate cognitive differences across individuals in both healthy and diseased states suggest that disconnection of attentional networks is linked to deficits in cognitive functioning, and in extreme cases, to disorders of attention. Thus, comprehensive theories of visual attention and their clinical translation depend on the continued integration of behavioral, task-related neuroimaging, and brain connectivity measures. PMID:23597177

Sex differences in visual attention to sexually explicit videos: a preliminary study.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsujimura, Akira; Miyagawa, Yasushi; Takada, Shingo; Matsuoka, Yasuhiro; Takao, Tetsuya; Hirai, Toshiaki; Matsushita, Masateru; Nonomura, Norio; Okuyama, Akihiko

2009-04-01

Although men appear to be more interested in sexual stimuli than women, this difference is not completely understood. Eye-tracking technology has been used to investigate visual attention to still sexual images; however, it has not been applied to moving sexual images. To investigate whether sex difference exists in visual attention to sexual videos. Eleven male and 11 female healthy volunteers were studied by our new methodology. The subjects viewed two sexual videos (one depicting sexual intercourse and one not) in which several regions were designated for eye-gaze analysis in each frame. Visual attention was measured across each designated region according to gaze duration. Sex differences, the region attracting the most attention, and visually favored sex were evaluated. In the nonintercourse clip, gaze time for the face and body of the actress was significantly shorter among women than among men. Gaze time for the face and body of the actor and nonhuman regions was significantly longer for women than men. The region attracting the most attention was the face of the actress for both men and women. Men viewed the opposite sex for a significantly longer period than did women, and women viewed their own sex for a significantly longer period than did men. However, gaze times for the clip showing intercourse were not significantly different between sexes. A sex difference existed in visual attention to a sexual video without heterosexual intercourse; men viewed the opposite sex for longer periods than did women, and women viewed the same sex for longer periods than did men. There was no statistically significant sex difference in viewing patterns in a sexual video showing heterosexual intercourse, and we speculate that men and women may have similar visual attention patterns if the sexual stimuli are sufficiently explicit.

9 CFR 93.916 - Special provisions.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 9 Animals and Animal Products 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Special provisions. 93.916 Section 93... § 93.916 Special provisions. (a) Slaughter. Live VHS-regulated fish from VHS-regulated regions may be... establishment discharges its waste water to a municipal sewage system that includes waste water disinfection...

Electrophysiological evidence for spatiotemporal flexibility in the ventrolateral attention network.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jelena Ristic

Full Text Available Successful completion of many everyday tasks depends on interactions between voluntary attention, which acts to maintain current goals, and reflexive attention, which enables responding to unexpected events by interrupting the current focus of attention. Past studies, which have mostly examined each attentional mechanism in isolation, indicate that volitional and reflexive orienting depend on two functionally specialized cortical networks in the human brain. Here we investigated how the interplay between these two cortical networks affects sensory processing and the resulting overt behavior. By combining measurements of human performance and electrocortical recordings with a novel analytical technique for estimating spatiotemporal activity in the human cortex, we found that the subregions that comprise the reflexive ventrolateral attention network dissociate both spatially and temporally as a function of the nature of the sensory information and current task demands. Moreover, we found that together with the magnitude of the early sensory gain, the spatiotemporal neural dynamics accounted for the high amount of the variance in the behavioral data. Collectively these data support the conclusion that the ventrolateral attention network is recruited flexibly to support complex behaviors.

A relational structure of voluntary visual-attention abilities

Science.gov (United States)

Skogsberg, KatieAnn; Grabowecky, Marcia; Wilt, Joshua; Revelle, William; Iordanescu, Lucica; Suzuki, Satoru

2015-01-01

Many studies have examined attention mechanisms involved in specific behavioral tasks (e.g., search, tracking, distractor inhibition). However, relatively little is known about the relationships among those attention mechanisms. Is there a fundamental attention faculty that makes a person superior or inferior at most types of attention tasks, or do relatively independent processes mediate different attention skills? We focused on individual differences in voluntary visual-attention abilities using a battery of eleven representative tasks. An application of parallel analysis, hierarchical-cluster analysis, and multidimensional scaling to the inter-task correlation matrix revealed four functional clusters, representing spatiotemporal attention, global attention, transient attention, and sustained attention, organized along two dimensions, one contrasting spatiotemporal and global attention and the other contrasting transient and sustained attention. Comparison with the neuroscience literature suggests that the spatiotemporal-global dimension corresponds to the dorsal frontoparietal circuit and the transient-sustained dimension corresponds to the ventral frontoparietal circuit, with distinct sub-regions mediating the separate clusters within each dimension. We also obtained highly specific patterns of gender difference, and of deficits for college students with elevated ADHD traits. These group differences suggest that different mechanisms of voluntary visual attention can be selectively strengthened or weakened based on genetic, experiential, and/or pathological factors. PMID:25867505

TEACHER EDUCATION FOR DISTANCE LEARNING BASED SPECIAL EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tanzila NABEEL

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Special education is a mode of education in which specially designed instruction material and environment is required to meet the diverse requirements of children with special needs. In Pakistan, Open University (AIOU exclusively initiated a program for teacher preparation for Special Children through distance learning. This was a unique program of its kind with no precedence of defined services for Special Teachers’ Preparation. Dept of Special Education AIOU - through Distance learning system, offers study/training at graduate, masters and Ph. D. levels. Teachers are prepared in 6 specialized areas of Visual Impairment, Physical Disabilities, Hearing Impairment, Intellectual Disability, Learning Disability and Inclusive Education. The Open University has a well established regional network, outreach system providing educational counseling and guiding services to its students. University has 32 regional campuses with 86 part-time regional coordinating officers throughout the country for providing assistance to the Regional campuses. Over 900 study centers are established during the semester and are managed through the university’s regional campuses. Each student is assigned to a tutor who is a subject specialist. To maintain consistency of on and off campus observations, University faculty conducts reliability observations with adjunct Supervisors. Their professional growth impacts the quality of the teaching cadre. It was for the first time in the history of teacher training institutes of Pakistan that a teacher training program at Masters Level in the area of Special Education was offered through distance education. This paper gives the experiences, methodology and successes as outcome of the Distance- learning Special-Educator Program in Pakistan. Also highlighted is the Special Teacher Preparation Model through Distance Education System. Increased program completion rates support the fact that Open University faculty have become better

Increased risk environment for emergency general surgery in the context of regionalization and specialization.

Science.gov (United States)

Beecher, S; O'Leary, D P; McLaughlin, R

2015-09-01

The pressures on tertiary hospitals with increased volume and complexity related to regionalization and specialization has impacted upon availability of operating theatres with consequent displacement of emergencies to high risk out of hours settings. A retrospective review of an electronic emergency theatre list prospectively maintained database was performed over a two year period. Data gathered included type of operation performed, Time to Theatre (TTT), operation start time and length of stay (LOS). Of 7041 emergency operations 25% were performed out of hours. 2949 patient had general surgical emergency procedures with 910 (30%) performed out of hours. 53% of all emergency laparotomies and 54% of appendicectomies were out of hours. 57% of cases operated on out of hours had been awaiting surgery during the day. Mean TTT was shorter for those admitted at the weekend compared to those admitted during the week (15.6 vs 24.9 h) (p emergency surgery is performed out of hours in a way unfavorable to good clinical outcomes. It is of concern that more than half of the most life threating procedures involving laparotomy, take place out of hours. Regionalization needs to be accompanied by infrastructure planning to accommodate emergency surgery. Copyright © 2015 IJS Publishing Group Limited. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Regional brain network organization distinguishes the combined and inattentive subtypes of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Saad, Jacqueline F; Griffiths, Kristi R; Kohn, Michael R; Clarke, Simon; Williams, Leanne M; Korgaonkar, Mayuresh S

2017-01-01

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterized clinically by hyperactive/impulsive and/or inattentive symptoms which determine diagnostic subtypes as Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive (ADHD-HI), Predominantly Inattentive (ADHD-I), and Combined (ADHD-C). Neuroanatomically though we do not yet know if these clinical subtypes reflect distinct aberrations in underlying brain organization. We imaged 34 ADHD participants defined using DSM-IV criteria as ADHD-I ( n  = 16) or as ADHD-C ( n  = 18) and 28 matched typically developing controls, aged 8-17 years, using high-resolution T1 MRI. To quantify neuroanatomical organization we used graph theoretical analysis to assess properties of structural covariance between ADHD subtypes and controls (global network measures: path length, clustering coefficient, and regional network measures: nodal degree). As a context for interpreting network organization differences, we also quantified gray matter volume using voxel-based morphometry. Each ADHD subtype was distinguished by a different organizational profile of the degree to which specific regions were anatomically connected with other regions (i.e., in "nodal degree"). For ADHD-I (compared to both ADHD-C and controls) the nodal degree was higher in the hippocampus. ADHD-I also had a higher nodal degree in the supramarginal gyrus, calcarine sulcus, and superior occipital cortex compared to ADHD-C and in the amygdala compared to controls. By contrast, the nodal degree was higher in the cerebellum for ADHD-C compared to ADHD-I and in the anterior cingulate, middle frontal gyrus and putamen compared to controls. ADHD-C also had reduced nodal degree in the rolandic operculum and middle temporal pole compared to controls. These regional profiles were observed in the context of no differences in gray matter volume or global network organization. Our results suggest that the clinical distinction between the Inattentive and Combined subtypes of ADHD may also be

Environmental status of the Lake Michigan region. Volume 16. Amphibians and reptiles of the Lake Michigan drainage basin

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pentecost, E.D.; Vogt, R.C.

1976-07-01

The focus of this report is on regional distribution of the herpetofauna of the Lake Michigan Drainage Basin. The introduction includes a brief discussion of plant communities and their associated herpetofauna, and the importance of hibernacula and migration routes. Some aspects of the status, distribution, habitat, and life history of the amphibians and reptiles of the Basin are described in an annotated checklist. Special attention is given to uncommon and endangered species. Species range is shown on distribution maps.

Environmental status of the Lake Michigan region. Volume 16. Amphibians and reptiles of the Lake Michigan drainage basin

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pentecost, E.D.; Vogt, R.C.

1976-07-01

The focus of this report is on regional distribution of the herpetofauna of the Lake Michigan Drainage Basin. The introduction includes a brief discussion of plant communities and their associated herpetofauna, and the importance of hibernacula and migration routes. Some aspects of the status, distribution, habitat, and life history of the amphibians and reptiles of the Basin are described in an annotated checklist. Special attention is given to uncommon and endangered species. Species range is shown on distribution maps

Regional cooperation and sustainable development: The Arctic

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vartanov, R.V.

1993-01-01

The Arctic is one of the regions most alienated from sustainable development, due to consequences of nuclear testing, long-range pollution transport, large-scale industrial accidents, irrational use of natural resources, and environmentally ignorant socio-economic policies. Revelations of the state of the USSR Arctic shows that air quality in northern cities is below standard, fish harvests are declining, pollution is not being controlled, and native populations are being affected seriously. The presence of immense resources in the Arctic including exploitable offshore oil reserves of 100-200 billion bbl and the prospect of wider utilization of northern sea routes should stimulate establishment of a new international regime of use, research, and protection of Arctic resources in favor of sustainable development in the region. The Arctic marine areas are the key component of the Arctic ecosystem and so should receive special attention. A broad legal framework has already been provided for such cooperation. Included in such cooperation would be native peoples and non-Arctic countries. Specifics of the cooperation would involve exchanging of scientific and technical information, promotion of ecologically sound technologies, equipping Arctic regions with means to control environmental quality, harmonizing environmental protection legislation, and monitoring Arctic environmental quality

The where and how of attention-based rehearsal in spatial working memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Postle, B R; Awh, E; Jonides, J; Smith, E E; D'Esposito, M

2004-07-01

Rehearsal in human spatial working memory is accomplished, in part, via covert shifts of spatial selective attention to memorized locations ("attention-based rehearsal"). We addressed two outstanding questions about attention-based rehearsal: the topography of the attention-based rehearsal effect, and the mechanism by which it operates. Using event-related fMRI and a procedure that randomized the presentation of trials with delay epochs that were either filled with a flickering checkerboard or unfilled, we localized the effect to extrastriate areas 18 and 19, and confirmed its absence in striate cortex. Delay-epoch activity in these extrastriate regions, as well as in superior parietal lobule and intraparietal sulcus, was also lateralized on unfilled trials, suggesting that attention-based rehearsal produces a baseline shift in areas representing the to-be-remembered location in space. No frontal regions (including frontal eye fields) demonstrated lateralized activity consistent with a role in attention-based rehearsal.

Attention to Attention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tække, Jesper; Paulsen, Michael Eric

In these years digital media and wireless networks are introduced in upper secondary schools in Denmark. This implies new “attentional objects” like updates on Facebook or tweets on Twitter within instant reach of the pupils and teachers. Also it implies new kinds of attention (awareness) like when...... pupils try to listen to the teacher and simultaneously participate in online games. To this new social setting the teachers has reacted with either prohibition or unconcern. What has not been realised is that the introduction of new media profoundly challenges the way attention hitherto has functioned...... as a psychic prerequisite for the social interaction between pupils and teachers. New kinds of “split attention” arise and new kinds of social mediation (regulation and “use”) of psychic attention become necessary if teaching in the new digital medium milieu shall be beneficial. In this paper we qualify...

Atypical hemispheric dominance for attention: functional MRI topography.

Science.gov (United States)

Flöel, Agnes; Jansen, Andreas; Deppe, Michael; Kanowski, Martin; Konrad, Carsten; Sommer, Jens; Knecht, Stefan

2005-09-01

The right hemisphere is predominantly involved in tasks associated with spatial attention. However, left hemispheric dominance for spatial attention can be found in healthy individuals, and both spatial attention and language can be lateralized to the same hemisphere. Little is known about the underlying regional distribution of neural activation in these 'atypical' individuals. Previously a large number of healthy subjects were screened for hemispheric dominance of visuospatial attention and language, using functional Doppler ultrasonography. From this group, subjects were chosen who were 'atypical' for hemispheric dominance of visuospatial attention and language, and their pattern of brain activation was studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging during a task probing spatial attention. Right-handed subjects with the 'typical' pattern of brain organization served as control subjects. It was found that subjects with an inverted lateralization of language and spatial attention (language right, attention left) recruited left-hemispheric areas in the attention task, homotopic to those recruited by control subjects in the right hemisphere. Subjects with lateralization of both language and attention to the right hemisphere activated an attentional network in the right hemisphere that was comparable to control subjects. The present findings suggest that not the hemispheric side, but the intrahemispheric pattern of activation is the distinct feature for the neural processes underlying language and attention.

Research Article Special Issue

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2017-09-07

Sep 7, 2017 ... special experience of urban environments in the development process. ... Internet and social networking, and eventually poor performance of the police .... was shown that different regions have different levels of fear of crime.

Attention, Joint Attention, and Social Cognition

OpenAIRE

Mundy, Peter; Newell, Lisa

2007-01-01

Before social cognition there is joint processing of information about the attention of self and others. This joint attention requires the integrated activation of a distributed cortical network involving the anterior and posterior attention systems. In infancy, practice with the integrated activation of this distributed attention network is a major contributor to the development of social cognition. Thus, the functional neuroanatomies of social cognition and the anterior–posterior attention ...

Visual attention capacity after right hemisphere lesions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Habekost, Thomas; Rostrup, Egill

2007-01-01

Recently there has been a growing interest in visual short-term memory (VSTM) including the neural basis of the function. Processing speed, another main aspect of visual attention capacity, has received less investigation. For both cognitive functions human lesion studies are sparse. We used...... a whole report experiment for estimation of these two parameters in 22 patients with right side stroke. Psychophysical performance was analyzed using Bundesen's [Bundesen, C. (1990). A theory of visual attention. Psychological Review, 97, 523-547] Theory of Visual Attention (TVA) and compared...... for both VSTM capacity and ipsilesional processing speed. The study also showed that lesions in a large region of the right hemisphere, including the putamen, insula, and inferior frontal cortex, do not lead to general deficits in the capacity of visual attention. Udgivelsesdato: 2007-Apr-8...

Psychology of Game Playing: Introduction to a Special Issue

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrew M. Colman

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Game theory has focused attention on different problems at different times in its history. Currently, attention is devoted to investigating how human decision makers with bounded rationality choose strategies in interactive decisions. Behavioral economics, and more generally experimental games, have appeared in the literature with accelerating frequency since 1990, and this cannot continue indefinitely without a proportional expansion of journal space. This Special Issue includes contributions to behavioral economics, experimental games, and evolutionary game theory, using theoretical, experimental, and agent-based modeling techniques.

Eye-movement evidence of the time-course of attentional bias for threatening pictures in test-anxious students

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dong, Y.; Beuckelaer, A. de; Yu, L.; Zhou, R

2017-01-01

Protocols for measuring attentional bias to threat in test-anxiety, a special form of trait-anxiety, are rarely found in the literature. In our eye-tracking study, we introduced a new protocol, and studied the time-course of attention to test-related pictures with varying threat levels in 22 high

Selective attention without a neocortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Krauzlis, Richard J; Bogadhi, Amarender R; Herman, James P; Bollimunta, Anil

2018-05-01

Selective attention refers to the ability to restrict neural processing and behavioral responses to a relevant subset of available stimuli, while simultaneously excluding other valid stimuli from consideration. In primates and other mammals, descriptions of this ability typically emphasize the neural processing that takes place in the cerebral neocortex. However, non-mammals such as birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, which completely lack a neocortex, also have the ability to selectively attend. In this article, we survey the behavioral evidence for selective attention in non-mammals, and review the midbrain and forebrain structures that are responsible. The ancestral forms of selective attention are presumably selective orienting behaviors, such as prey-catching and predator avoidance. These behaviors depend critically on a set of subcortical structures, including the optic tectum (OT), thalamus and striatum, that are highly conserved across vertebrate evolution. In contrast, the contributions of different pallial regions in the forebrain to selective attention have been subject to more substantial changes and reorganization. This evolutionary perspective makes plain that selective attention is not a function achieved de novo with the emergence of the neocortex, but instead is implemented by circuits accrued and modified over hundreds of millions of years, beginning well before the forebrain contained a neocortex. Determining how older subcortical circuits interact with the more recently evolved components in the neocortex will likely be crucial for understanding the complex properties of selective attention in primates and other mammals, and for identifying the etiology of attention disorders. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

75 FR 47346 - Proposed Renewal Without Change; Comment Request; Anti-Money Laundering Programs; Special Due...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-08-05

...; Comment Request; Anti-Money Laundering Programs; Special Due Diligence Programs for Certain Foreign... reasonably designed to detect and report money laundering through correspondent accounts and private banking..., P.O. Box 39, Vienna, VA 22183, Attention: Comments on Anti-Money Laundering Program and Special Due...

Computation of the Magnetic Field of a Spectrometer in Detectors Region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhidkov, E.P.; Yuldasheva, M.B.; Yudin, I.P.; Yuldashev, O.I.

1994-01-01

Computed results of the 3D magnetic field of a spectrometer intended for investigation of hadron production of charmed particles and the indication of the narrow resonances in neutron-nucleus interaction are presented. The methods, used in computations - finite element method and finite element method with suggested new infinite elements are described. For accuracy control the computations were carried out on a sequence of three-dimensional meshes. Special attention is devoted to the behaviour of the magnetic field in the basic detectors (proportional chambers) region. The performed results can be used for the field behaviour estimate of similar spectrometer magnets. 12 refs., 16 figs

Connectomic disturbances in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a whole-brain tractography analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Soon-Beom; Zalesky, Andrew; Fornito, Alex; Park, Subin; Yang, Young-Hui; Park, Min-Hyeon; Song, In-Chan; Sohn, Chul-Ho; Shin, Min-Sup; Kim, Bung-Nyun; Cho, Soo-Churl; Han, Doug Hyun; Cheong, Jae Hoon; Kim, Jae-Won

2014-10-15

Few studies have sought to identify, in a regionally unbiased way, the precise cortical and subcortical regions that are affected by white matter abnormalities in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study aimed to derive a comprehensive, whole-brain characterization of connectomic disturbances in ADHD. Using diffusion tensor imaging, whole-brain tractography, and an imaging connectomics approach, we characterized altered white matter connectivity in 71 children and adolescents with ADHD compared with 26 healthy control subjects. White matter differences were further delineated between patients with (n = 40) and without (n = 26) the predominantly hyperactive/impulsive subtype of ADHD. A significant network comprising 25 distinct fiber bundles linking 23 different brain regions spanning frontal, striatal, and cerebellar brain regions showed altered white matter structure in ADHD patients (p attentional disturbances. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder subtypes were differentiated by a right-lateralized network (p attentional performance underscore the functional importance of these connectomic disturbances for the clinical phenotype of ADHD. A distributed pattern of white matter microstructural integrity separately involving frontal, striatal, and cerebellar brain regions, rather than direct frontostriatal connectivity, appears to be disrupted in children and adolescents with ADHD. Copyright © 2014 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Attention, biological motion, and action recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, James; Parasuraman, Raja

2012-01-02

Interacting with others in the environment requires that we perceive and recognize their movements and actions. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies have indicated that a number of brain regions, particularly the superior temporal sulcus, are involved in a number of processes essential for action recognition, including the processing of biological motion and processing the intentions of actions. We review the behavioral and neuroimaging evidence suggesting that while some aspects of action recognition might be rapid and effective, they are not necessarily automatic. Attention is particularly important when visual information about actions is degraded or ambiguous, or if competing information is present. We present evidence indicating that neural responses associated with the processing of biological motion are strongly modulated by attention. In addition, behavioral and neuroimaging evidence shows that drawing inferences from the actions of others is attentionally demanding. The role of attention in action observation has implications for everyday social interactions and workplace applications that depend on observing, understanding and interpreting actions. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Neglected roots of regionalism? The Commissioners for the special areas and grants to hospital services in the 1930s.

Science.gov (United States)

Mohan, J

1997-08-01

The inter-war years in the UK were notable for debates about the extent to which an extension of state intervention in hospital provision was desirable and necessary, and about the limits to and future of the voluntary hospital system which relied largely on various forms of private charity. These themes were intertwined in the UK's 'Special Areas', locations recognized as having suffered adversely from the inter-war depression, with consequent effects on their ability to finance desirable investments in social infrastructures. Grant aid was offered to hospitals in these locations under the terms of the Special Areas legislation of 1934, but there were extensive debates about the principle and practice of such subsidies to hospital development. This paper reviews these debates and considers whether the measures taken by the Commissioners can be seen as neglected antecedents of the regionalism detected in British hospital policy by several commentators.

The Structure of Cognition: Attentional Episodes in Mind and Brain

Science.gov (United States)

Duncan, John

2013-01-01

Cognition is organized in a structured series of attentional episodes, allowing complex problems to be addressed through solution of simpler subproblems. A “multiple-demand” (MD) system of frontal and parietal cortex is active in many different kinds of tasks, and using data from neuroimaging, electrophysiology, neuropsychology, and cognitive studies of intelligence, I propose a core role for MD regions in assembly of the attentional episode. Monkey and human data show dynamic neural coding of attended information across multiple MD regions, with rapid communication within and between regions. Neuropsychological and imaging data link MD function to fluid intelligence, explaining some but not all “executive” deficits after frontal lobe lesions. Cognitive studies link fluid intelligence to goal neglect, and the problem of dividing complex task requirements into focused parts. Like the innate releasing mechanism of ethology, I suggest that construction of the attentional episode provides a core organizational principle for complex, adaptive cognition. PMID:24094101

Memory-Guided Attention: Independent Contributions of the Hippocampus and Striatum.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldfarb, Elizabeth V; Chun, Marvin M; Phelps, Elizabeth A

2016-01-20

Memory can strongly influence how attention is deployed in future encounters. Though memory dependent on the medial temporal lobes has been shown to drive attention, how other memory systems could concurrently and comparably enhance attention is less clear. Here, we demonstrate that both reinforcement learning and context memory facilitate attention in a visual search task. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we dissociate the mechanisms by which these memories guide attention: trial by trial, the hippocampus (not the striatum) predicted attention benefits from context memory, while the striatum (not the hippocampus) predicted facilitation from rewarded stimulus-response associations. Responses in these regions were also distinctly correlated with individual differences in each type of memory-guided attention. This study provides novel evidence for the role of the striatum in guiding attention, dissociable from hippocampus-dependent context memory.

The Regional and Local Distribution of Funds Allocated by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development in Romania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ALINA-MIRELA MARCU

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study is to present and analyze the regional and local distribution of the funds allocated by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD, European fund that finances rural development in Romania, in the post-accession period. This financing instrument was created by the European Union with the order to continue the main directions of investment of Special Pre-Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD. As a member state of the European Union, Romania observes the principles of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP while the development of the Romanian rural area for the programming period 2007-2013 is supported by the European Community through the National Rural Development Programme (RDP. This approach pays special attention to improving the quality of life in rural areas and the diversification of the rural economy because local communities in Romania have experienced some changes in this period, while accessing EAFRD funds contributed to increased regional disparities between developed and poor areas.

A regional analysis of Tourism Specialization in Spain

OpenAIRE

Perez-Dacal, Diana; Pena-Boquete, Yolanda

2013-01-01

Tourism sector is playing an important role in the development of a region, contributing to the economy growth and job creation. Despite of the actual crisis, Tourism activities continues to growth in the last year (UNWTO 2011). Also, Spain maintains in the better positions of the world ranking. Furthermore, Tourism activities generate around 10% of GPD and represents 11.5% of total workers of the Spanish Economy. Nevertheless, this is not true for all the Spanish Regions. There are regional ...

Attention Training in Autism as a Potential Approach to Improving Academic Performance: A School-Based Pilot Study

Science.gov (United States)

Spaniol, Mayra Muller; Shalev, Lilach; Kossyvaki, Lila; Mevorach, Carmel

2018-01-01

This study assessed the effectiveness of an attention intervention program (Computerized Progressive Attentional Training; CPAT) in improving academic performance of children with ASD. Fifteen 6-10 year olds with ASD attending a mainstream and a special school were assigned to an experimental (CPAT; n = 8) and active control (computer games; n =…

Example-based illustrations of design, conduct, analysis and result interpretation of multi-regional clinical trials.

Science.gov (United States)

Quan, Hui; Mao, Xuezhou; Tanaka, Yoko; Binkowitz, Bruce; Li, Gang; Chen, Josh; Zhang, Ji; Zhao, Peng-Liang; Ouyang, Soo Peter; Chang, Mark

2017-07-01

Extensive research has been conducted in the Multi-Regional Clinical Trial (MRCT) area. To effectively apply an appropriate approach to a MRCT, we need to synthesize and understand the features of different approaches. In this paper, examples are used to illustrate considerations regarding design, conduct, analysis and interpretation of result of MRCTs. We start with a brief discussion of region definitions and the scenarios where different regions have differing requirements for a MRCT. We then compare different designs and models as well as the corresponding interpretation of the results. We highlight the importance of paying special attention to trial monitoring and conduct to prevent potential issues associated with the final trial results. Besides evaluating the overall treatment effect for the entire MRCT, we also consider other key analyses including quantification of regional treatment effects within a MRCT, and assessment of consistency of these regional treatment effects. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Control Network Contributions to Memory-Guided Visual Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosen, Maya L; Stern, Chantal E; Michalka, Samantha W; Devaney, Kathryn J; Somers, David C

2016-05-01

Visual attentional capacity is severely limited, but humans excel in familiar visual contexts, in part because long-term memories guide efficient deployment of attention. To investigate the neural substrates that support memory-guided visual attention, we performed a set of functional MRI experiments that contrast long-term, memory-guided visuospatial attention with stimulus-guided visuospatial attention in a change detection task. Whereas the dorsal attention network was activated for both forms of attention, the cognitive control network(CCN) was preferentially activated during memory-guided attention. Three posterior nodes in the CCN, posterior precuneus, posterior callosal sulcus/mid-cingulate, and lateral intraparietal sulcus exhibited the greatest specificity for memory-guided attention. These 3 regions exhibit functional connectivity at rest, and we propose that they form a subnetwork within the broader CCN. Based on the task activation patterns, we conclude that the nodes of this subnetwork are preferentially recruited for long-term memory guidance of visuospatial attention. Published by Oxford University Press 2015. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

Investigating the Experiences of Special School Visual Arts Teachers

African Journals Online (AJOL)

the practical learning problems their students experience, the teachers maintained that studying ... 2009, the Hong Kong Education Bureau adopted a new ... arts is one of the elective subjects available to special ... methodology, since it is attentive to how things reveal .... educational backgrounds and their teaching careers.

Reference methods and materials. A programme of support for regional and global marine pollution assessments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1990-01-01

This document describes a programme of comprehensive support for regional and global marine pollution assessments developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and with the collaboration of a number of other United Nations Specialized agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Two of the principle components of this programme, Reference Methods and Reference materials are given special attention in this document and a full Reference Method catalogue is included, giving details of over 80 methods currently available or in an advanced stage of preparation and testing. It is important that these methods are seen as a functional component of a much wider strategy necessary for assuring good quality and intercomparable data for regional and global pollution monitoring and the user is encouraged to read this document carefully before employing Reference Methods and Reference Materials in his/her laboratory. 3 figs

SPECIAL EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION AS AN ELEMENTAR BIOETHICS

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Kiril TEMKOV

2004-12-01

Full Text Available This study explains the appearance of a new ethical branch and practice called Bioethics, which task is life defense and development of human appearances and functions. In compliance with Bioethics, the concept of Special needs Education and Rehabilitation as a science and activity is investigated.Special needs Education and Rehabilitation is considered as a top of contemporary human ethics. The paper exposes the basic meanings professional ethics in Special Education and Rehabilitation. Many new phenomena determine the essence of the contemporary world. The most significant among them are the development of ethical awareness about doing people good and paying attention to all aspects of life in the world. The social sensitivity for young and weak people has developed. The philanthropic spirit for necessary charity among people has appeared. Especially significant appearances of this kind are the development of special education and rehabilitation as a special science and practice to help people with developmental disabilities and the occurrence of ecology as a specific awareness about protection of life natural conditions. These special moral knowledge and activities are fundamental elements for the new type of philosophy of living called “bioethics”.

The development features of entrepreneurship in the Khatlon and Sughd regions of the Republic of Tajikistan

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Kh. I. Aminov

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes the state and reveals development features of entrepreneurship in two major regions of Tajikistan – Khatlon and Sughd. The problems of entrepreneurship development in the spheres of industry, agriculture, trade, and services are identified. Special attention is paid to such indicators as the gross regional product, industrial and agricultural production, retail turnover, paid services, etc. The research hypothesis is that the level of entrepreneurship development is heterogeneous in the regions of the Republic of Tajikistan and the existing possibilities are not fully used.The theoretical and information basis of the study served the works of Tajik and foreign scientists in the field of entrepreneurship development, statistical compilations and data of the Agency on Statistics under President of the Republic of Tajikistan for the years 1991–2015. The obtained results allowed revealing a number of development features of entrepreneurship in the Khatlon and Sughd regions of Tajikistan. The analysis of the gross regional product shows that its value has increased several times since 2000, which was achieved due to the development of entrepreneurship. In 2015, 60% of the gross regional product was produced in Khatlon and Sughd regions. Despite the increase in the number of operating small enterprises, the number of joint ventures is decreasing. In this direction, it is necessary to intensify the entrepreneurship development through public-private partnerships. There are significant raw material and labor resources in the regions, which are not fully used. This is largely due to the lack of financial resources, the high cost of credit and high taxes. More attention should be given to these issues.It is noted that the entrepreneurship development in the regions of the country primarily depends on the energy development. There are huge hydropower resources in the regions, the use of which will give a significant impulse to the

The development features of entrepreneurship in the Khatlon and Sughd regions of the Republic of Tajikistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khakimdzhon Inomdzhonovich Aminov

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes the state and reveals development features of entrepreneurship in the two major regions of Tajikistan – Khatlon, and Sughd. The problems and reserves of entrepreneurship development in the spheres of industry, agriculture, trade, and services are identified. Special attention is paid to such indicators as the gross regional product, industrial and agricultural production, retail turnover, paid services, etc. The research hypothesis is that the level of entrepreneurship development is heterogeneous in the regions of the Republic of Tajikistan and the existing possibilities are not fully used.The theoretical and information basis of the study served the works of Tajik and foreign scientists in the field of entrepreneurship development, statistical compilations and data of the Agency on Statistic under President of the Republic of Tajikistan for the years 1991-2015.The results obtained allowed to reveal a number of development features of entrepreneurship in the Khatlon and Sughd regions of Tajikistan. The analysis of the gross regional product shows that its value has increased several times since 2000, which was achieved due to the development of entrepreneurship. In 2015, 60% of the gross regional product was produced in Khatlon and Sughd regions.Despite the increase in the number of operating small enterprises, the number of joint ventures is decreasing. In this direction, it is necessary to intensify the entrepreneurship development through public-private partnerships. There are significant raw material and labor resources in the regions, which are not fully used. This is largely due to the lack of financial resources, the high cost of credit and high taxes. This issue should be given more attention.It is noted that the entrepreneurship development in the regions of the country primarily depends on the energy development. There are huge hydropower resources in the regions, the use of which will give a significant impetus

Attention Network Dysfunction in Bulimia Nervosa - An fMRI Study.

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Jochen Seitz

Full Text Available Recent evidence has suggested an increased rate of comorbid ADHD and subclinical attentional impairments in bulimia nervosa (BN patients. However, little is known regarding the underlying neural mechanisms of attentional functions in BN.Twenty BN patients and twenty age- and weight-matched healthy controls (HC were investigated using a modified version of the Attention Network Task (ANT in an fMRI study. This design enabled an investigation of the neural mechanisms associated with the three attention networks involved in alerting, reorienting and executive attention.The BN patients showed hyperactivation in parieto-occipital regions and reduced deactivation of default-mode-network (DMN areas during alerting compared with HCs. Posterior cingulate activation during alerting correlated with the severity of eating-disorder symptoms within the patient group. Conversely, BN patients showed hypoactivation during reorienting and executive attention in anterior cingulate regions, the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ and parahippocampus compared with HCs, which was negatively associated with global ADHD symptoms and impulsivity, respectively.Our findings demonstrate altered brain mechanisms in BN associated with all three attentional networks. Failure to deactivate the DMN and increased parieto-occipital activation required for alerting might be associated with a constant preoccupation with food or body image-related thoughts. Hypoactivation of executive control networks and TPJ might increase the likelihood of inattentive and impulsive behaviors and poor emotion regulation. Thus, dysfunction in the attentional network in BN goes beyond an altered executive attentional domain and needs to be considered in the diagnosis and treatment of BN.

Attention Network Dysfunction in Bulimia Nervosa - An fMRI Study

Science.gov (United States)

Dahmen, Brigitte; Schulte-Rüther, Martin; Legenbauer, Tanja; Herpertz-Dahlmann, Beate; Konrad, Kerstin

2016-01-01

Objective Recent evidence has suggested an increased rate of comorbid ADHD and subclinical attentional impairments in bulimia nervosa (BN) patients. However, little is known regarding the underlying neural mechanisms of attentional functions in BN. Method Twenty BN patients and twenty age- and weight-matched healthy controls (HC) were investigated using a modified version of the Attention Network Task (ANT) in an fMRI study. This design enabled an investigation of the neural mechanisms associated with the three attention networks involved in alerting, reorienting and executive attention. Results The BN patients showed hyperactivation in parieto-occipital regions and reduced deactivation of default-mode-network (DMN) areas during alerting compared with HCs. Posterior cingulate activation during alerting correlated with the severity of eating-disorder symptoms within the patient group. Conversely, BN patients showed hypoactivation during reorienting and executive attention in anterior cingulate regions, the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and parahippocampus compared with HCs, which was negatively associated with global ADHD symptoms and impulsivity, respectively. Discussion Our findings demonstrate altered brain mechanisms in BN associated with all three attentional networks. Failure to deactivate the DMN and increased parieto-occipital activation required for alerting might be associated with a constant preoccupation with food or body image-related thoughts. Hypoactivation of executive control networks and TPJ might increase the likelihood of inattentive and impulsive behaviors and poor emotion regulation. Thus, dysfunction in the attentional network in BN goes beyond an altered executive attentional domain and needs to be considered in the diagnosis and treatment of BN. PMID:27607439

Auditory-Cortex Short-Term Plasticity Induced by Selective Attention

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Jääskeläinen, Iiro P.; Ahveninen, Jyrki

2014-01-01

The ability to concentrate on relevant sounds in the acoustic environment is crucial for everyday function and communication. Converging lines of evidence suggests that transient functional changes in auditory-cortex neurons, “short-term plasticity”, might explain this fundamental function. Under conditions of strongly focused attention, enhanced processing of attended sounds can take place at very early latencies (~50 ms from sound onset) in primary auditory cortex and possibly even at earlier latencies in subcortical structures. More robust selective-attention short-term plasticity is manifested as modulation of responses peaking at ~100 ms from sound onset in functionally specialized nonprimary auditory-cortical areas by way of stimulus-specific reshaping of neuronal receptive fields that supports filtering of selectively attended sound features from task-irrelevant ones. Such effects have been shown to take effect in ~seconds following shifting of attentional focus. There are findings suggesting that the reshaping of neuronal receptive fields is even stronger at longer auditory-cortex response latencies (~300 ms from sound onset). These longer-latency short-term plasticity effects seem to build up more gradually, within tens of seconds after shifting the focus of attention. Importantly, some of the auditory-cortical short-term plasticity effects observed during selective attention predict enhancements in behaviorally measured sound discrimination performance. PMID:24551458

Latitudinal variation in avian incubation attentiveness and a test of the food limitation hypothesis

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Chalfoun, A.D.; Martin, T.E.

2007-01-01

Avian incubation attentiveness has important fitness consequences through its influence on the number and quality of hatched young and energetic costs imposed on parents. Nest attentiveness is highly variable across species and geographical regions. We reviewed the literature and found a worldwide pattern that nest attentiveness of passerines is generally lower in south temperate and tropical regions than in north temperate regions. We also conducted a food manipulation experiment to assess the extent to which nest attentiveness may reflect proximate responses versus an evolved behaviour. We used the karoo prinia, Prinia maculosa, in South Africa, which has very low nest attentiveness (???49%) compared with that of many passerine birds. We provided supplemental food during early incubation to experimental females and compared nest attentiveness and on- and off-bout lengths of experimental and paired control females.??Nest attentiveness of females at food-provisioned nests was significantly higher than that of control females (57% versus 49%). Food-supplemented females also spent significantly less time off the nest than did control females, whereas mean on-bout lengths did not differ. However, mean nest attentiveness of food-provisioned females was still substantially below that of other similar bird species worldwide. Food can be an important proximate influence on parental care behaviour, but proximate influences of food do not explain broad latitudinal patterns of attentiveness. ?? 2007 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Emotion disrupts neural activity during selective attention in psychopathy.

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Sadeh, Naomi; Spielberg, Jeffrey M; Heller, Wendy; Herrington, John D; Engels, Anna S; Warren, Stacie L; Crocker, Laura D; Sutton, Bradley P; Miller, Gregory A

2013-03-01

Dimensions of psychopathy are theorized to be associated with distinct cognitive and emotional abnormalities that may represent unique neurobiological risk factors for the disorder. This hypothesis was investigated by examining whether the psychopathic personality dimensions of fearless-dominance and impulsive-antisociality moderated neural activity and behavioral responses associated with selective attention and emotional processing during an emotion-word Stroop task in 49 adults. As predicted, the dimensions evidenced divergent selective-attention deficits and sensitivity to emotional distraction. Fearless-dominance was associated with disrupted attentional control to positive words, and activation in right superior frontal gyrus mediated the relationship between fearless-dominance and errors to positive words. In contrast, impulsive-antisociality evidenced increased behavioral interference to both positive and negative words and correlated positively with recruitment of regions associated with motivational salience (amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, insula), emotion regulation (temporal cortex, superior frontal gyrus) and attentional control (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex). Individuals high on both dimensions had increased recruitment of regions related to attentional control (temporal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex), response preparation (pre-/post-central gyri) and motivational value (orbitofrontal cortex) in response to negative words. These findings provide evidence that the psychopathy dimensions represent dual sets of risk factors characterized by divergent dysfunction in cognitive and affective processes.

The economic aspect of regionalization of European countries

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Vuković Darko

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Subject of this paper is focused on the multidisciplinary approach in studying the phenomenon of regionalization, which is conceived as the process of creation of lower administrative and territorial units within a state and transfer of central authorities to these units. Different concepts have been analyzed; the most significant characteristics of definitions: region, regionalization and regionalism have been underlined. Based on the multidisciplinary approach and method, four dominant models of regionalism in Europe have been defined: constitutional, strong, decentralized and administrative one. Regionalization concept has been considered in the dynamic way, within the historical context. Creation of European national states in the period between 17th and 19th century have been analyzed and centralistic state approach based on centralization and hierarchical vision of relations between central government and regions has been explained. Such approach has remained dominant in the territorial policy of national states until the last decades of the 20th century. The paper has presented historical path of regionalization in European countries with dominant models of regionalization e.g. Germany, Italy, France and Scandinavian countries as well as Spain, country with strong regional roots, which dated back more than couple of hundred years. Special attention has been given to analysis of different paths and contents of decentralization in European countries, starting in the 1970’s. Based on the analysis of contents of decentralization and regionalization and its constitutional and legal foundation it has been concluded that these processes represent significant step in further democratization of European countries.

Occupational Stress, Negative Affectivity and Physical Health in Special and General Education Teachers in Greece

Science.gov (United States)

Lazuras, Lambros

2006-01-01

Teacher stress has attracted considerable attention, yet few studies have focused on special education teachers. This article, by Lambros Lazuras of the South-East European Research Centre (SEERC) in Thessaloniki, reports research designed to explore differences in the stress levels of general and special educators in Greece and provides…

Understanding Game-Based Learning Cultures: Introduction to Special Issue

Science.gov (United States)

Engerman, Jason A.; Carr-Chellman, Alison

2017-01-01

This special issue expands our understanding of teaching and learning through video game play, with specific attention to culture. The issue gives insight into the ways educators, researchers, and developers should be discussing and designing for impactful learner-centered game-based learning experiences. The issue features forward-thinking…

Image annotation by deep neural networks with attention shaping

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Kexin; Lv, Shaohe; Ma, Fang; Chen, Fei; Jin, Chi; Dou, Yong

2017-07-01

Image annotation is a task of assigning semantic labels to an image. Recently, deep neural networks with visual attention have been utilized successfully in many computer vision tasks. In this paper, we show that conventional attention mechanism is easily misled by the salient class, i.e., the attended region always contains part of the image area describing the content of salient class at different attention iterations. To this end, we propose a novel attention shaping mechanism, which aims to maximize the non-overlapping area between consecutive attention processes by taking into account the history of previous attention vectors. Several weighting polices are studied to utilize the history information in different manners. In two benchmark datasets, i.e., PASCAL VOC2012 and MIRFlickr-25k, the average precision is improved by up to 10% in comparison with the state-of-the-art annotation methods.

Sensation-to-cognition cortical streams in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Carmona, Susana; Hoekzema, Elseline; Castellanos, Francisco X; García-García, David; Lage-Castellanos, Agustín; Van Dijk, Koene R A; Navas-Sánchez, Francisco J; Martínez, Kenia; Desco, Manuel; Sepulcre, Jorge

2015-07-01

We sought to determine whether functional connectivity streams that link sensory, attentional, and higher-order cognitive circuits are atypical in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We applied a graph-theory method to the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 120 children with ADHD and 120 age-matched typically developing children (TDC). Starting in unimodal primary cortex-visual, auditory, and somatosensory-we used stepwise functional connectivity to calculate functional connectivity paths at discrete numbers of relay stations (or link-step distances). First, we characterized the functional connectivity streams that link sensory, attentional, and higher-order cognitive circuits in TDC and found that systems do not reach the level of integration achieved by adults. Second, we searched for stepwise functional connectivity differences between children with ADHD and TDC. We found that, at the initial steps of sensory functional connectivity streams, patients display significant enhancements of connectivity degree within neighboring areas of primary cortex, while connectivity to attention-regulatory areas is reduced. Third, at subsequent link-step distances from primary sensory cortex, children with ADHD show decreased connectivity to executive processing areas and increased degree of connections to default mode regions. Fourth, in examining medication histories in children with ADHD, we found that children medicated with psychostimulants present functional connectivity streams with higher degree of connectivity to regions subserving attentional and executive processes compared to medication-naïve children. We conclude that predominance of local sensory processing and lesser influx of information to attentional and executive regions may reduce the ability to organize and control the balance between external and internal sources of information in ADHD. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A play and joint attention intervention for teachers of young children with autism: a randomized controlled pilot study.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Connie S

2013-05-01

The aim of this study was to pilot test a classroom-based intervention focused on facilitating play and joint attention for young children with autism in self-contained special education classrooms. Thirty-three children with autism between the ages of 3 and 6 years participated in the study with their classroom teachers (n = 14). The 14 preschool special education teachers were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) symbolic play then joint attention intervention, (2) joint attention then symbolic intervention, and (3) wait-list control period then further randomized to either group 1 or group 2. In the intervention, teachers participated in eight weekly individualized 1-h sessions with a researcher that emphasized embedding strategies targeting symbolic play and joint attention into their everyday classroom routines and activities. The main child outcome variables of interest were collected through direct classroom observations. Findings indicate that teachers can implement an intervention to significantly improve joint engagement of young children with autism in their classrooms. Furthermore, multilevel analyses showed significant increases in joint attention and symbolic play skills. Thus, these pilot data emphasize the need for further research and implementation of classroom-based interventions targeting play and joint attention skills for young children with autism.

Attentional capture and engagement during the attentional blink: A "camera" metaphor of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Zivony, Alon; Lamy, Dominique

2016-11-01

Identification of a target is impaired when it follows a previous target within 500 ms, suggesting that our attentional system suffers from severe temporal limitations. Although control-disruption theories posit that such impairment, known as the attentional blink (AB), reflects a difficulty in matching incoming information with the current attentional set, disrupted-engagement theories propose that it reflects a delay in later processes leading to transient enhancement of potential targets. Here, we used a variant of the contingent-capture rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm (Folk, Ester, & Troemel, 2009) to adjudicate these competing accounts. Our results show that a salient distractor that shares the target color captures attention to the same extent whether it appears within or outside the blink, thereby invalidating the notion that control over the attentional set is compromised during the blink. In addition, our results show that during the blink, not the attention-capturing object itself but the item immediately following it, is selected, indicating that the AB manifests as a delay between attentional capture and attentional engagement. We therefore conclude that attentional capture and attentional engagement can be dissociated as separate stages of attentional selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Smart Specialization and EU Eastern Innovation Cooperation: A Conceptual Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prause Gunnar

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The concept of smart specialization as a policy approach for regional development through increased regional productivity and competitiveness in the European context is actively discussed (European Union, 2009; OECD, 2014. Meanwhile, smart specialization has found its way into EU cohesion policy as well as into the European Commission’s Innovation Union flagship programme.

Special Libraries in Singapore.

Science.gov (United States)

Leong, Alice

1979-01-01

Distinguishes five main categories of special libraries in Singapore: those of private organizations, foreign governments, government departments, statutory boards, and regional organizations. Statistical data are provided for library holdings, professional staff employment, and subject profiles, and suggestions for improving various aspects of…

Looking for Ms. Right: Allocating Attention to Facilitate Mate Choice Decisions

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Kelly D. Suschinsky

2007-04-01

Full Text Available Through various signals, the human body provides information that may be used by receivers to make decisions about mate value. Here, we investigate whether there exists a complementary psychological system designed to selectively attend to these signals in order to choose, and direct effort toward the acquisition of, a potential mate. We presented young men with three images of the same woman (six women in total simultaneously, varying the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR of each image while holding other traits constant. While participants chose their preferred image, we monitored visual attention using an infrared eye-tracker. We found that participants focused their attention selectively on body regions known to provide reproductive information in a manner consistent with the research hypothesis: Reproductively relevant body regions, especially the head and breasts, received the most visual attention. Likewise, images with lower WHRs and reproductively relevant regions in images with lower WHRs received the most visual attention and were chosen as most attractive. Finally, irrespective of WHR size, participants fixated more often and for longer durations on the images that they selected as most attractive.

A Biophysical Neural Model To Describe Spatial Visual Attention

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hugues, Etienne; Jose, Jorge V.

2008-01-01

Visual scenes have enormous spatial and temporal information that are transduced into neural spike trains. Psychophysical experiments indicate that only a small portion of a spatial image is consciously accessible. Electrophysiological experiments in behaving monkeys have revealed a number of modulations of the neural activity in special visual area known as V4, when the animal is paying attention directly towards a particular stimulus location. The nature of the attentional input to V4, however, remains unknown as well as to the mechanisms responsible for these modulations. We use a biophysical neural network model of V4 to address these issues. We first constrain our model to reproduce the experimental results obtained for different external stimulus configurations and without paying attention. To reproduce the known neuronal response variability, we found that the neurons should receive about equal, or balanced, levels of excitatory and inhibitory inputs and whose levels are high as they are in in vivo conditions. Next we consider attentional inputs that can induce and reproduce the observed spiking modulations. We also elucidate the role played by the neural network to generate these modulations

Foreground-background segmentation and attention: a change blindness study.

Science.gov (United States)

Mazza, Veronica; Turatto, Massimo; Umiltà, Carlo

2005-01-01

One of the most debated questions in visual attention research is what factors affect the deployment of attention in the visual scene? Segmentation processes are influential factors, providing candidate objects for further attentional selection, and the relevant literature has concentrated on how figure-ground segmentation mechanisms influence visual attention. However, another crucial process, namely foreground-background segmentation, seems to have been neglected. By using a change blindness paradigm, we explored whether attention is preferentially allocated to the foreground elements or to the background ones. The results indicated that unless attention was voluntarily deployed to the background, large changes in the color of its elements remained unnoticed. In contrast, minor changes in the foreground elements were promptly reported. Differences in change blindness between the two regions of the display indicate that attention is, by default, biased toward the foreground elements. This also supports the phenomenal observations made by Gestaltists, who demonstrated the greater salience of the foreground than the background.

Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Callahan, Patrick M; Terry, Alvin V

2015-01-01

The ability to focus one's attention on important environmental stimuli while ignoring irrelevant stimuli is fundamental to human cognition and intellectual function. Attention is inextricably linked to perception, learning and memory, and executive function; however, it is often impaired in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Accordingly, attention is considered as an important therapeutic target in these disorders. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the most common behavioral paradigms of attention that have been used in animals (particularly rodents) and to review the literature where these tasks have been employed to elucidate neurobiological substrates of attention as well as to evaluate novel pharmacological agents for their potential as treatments for disorders of attention. These paradigms include two tasks of sustained attention that were developed as rodent analogues of the human Continuous Performance Task (CPT), the Five-Choice Serial Reaction Time Task (5-CSRTT) and the more recently introduced Five-Choice Continuous Performance Task (5C-CPT), and the Signal Detection Task (SDT) which was designed to emphasize temporal components of attention.

Memory-guided attention in the anterior thalamus.

Science.gov (United States)

Leszczyński, Marcin; Staudigl, Tobias

2016-07-01

The anterior thalamus is densely connected with both the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. It is known to play a role in learning and episodic memory. Given its connectivity profile with the prefrontal cortex, it may also be expected to contribute to executive functions. Recent studies in both rodents and humans add to our understanding of anterior thalamic function, suggesting that it is a key region for allocating attention. We discuss the convergence between studies in rodents and humans, both of which imply that the anterior thalamus may play a key role in memory-guided attention. We suggest that efficient allocation of attention to memory representations requires interaction between the memory-related hippocampal and the attention related fronto-parietal networks. We further propose that the anterior thalamus is a hub that connects and modulates both systems. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

From Load Estimation to Performance Estimation—From Model-Scale Test to Full-Scale Test: With Special Interest in Asian Region

OpenAIRE

Tamura, Yukio; Nishijima, Kazuyoshi; Matsui, Masahiro; Phuc, Pham Van; Yang, Qingshan

2017-01-01

This paper first discusses the current status of natural hazard-induced disasters, with special focus on devastating wind-related disasters in the Asian region. The importance of the combined effects of wind and water hazards, the importance of performance of cladding and components in wind-resistant design of buildings, and deterioration of metal roofing systems of long-span structures mainly caused by fatigue of fixing joints due to daily solar heating effects are demonstrated. Some human e...

Altered brain structural networks in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder children revealed by cortical thickness.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Tian; Chen, Yanni; Li, Chenxi; Li, Youjun; Wang, Jue

2017-07-04

This study investigated the cortical thickness and topological features of human brain anatomical networks related to attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Data were collected from 40 attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder children and 40 normal control children. Interregional correlation matrices were established by calculating the correlations of cortical thickness between all pairs of cortical regions (68 regions) of the whole brain. Further thresholds were applied to create binary matrices to construct a series of undirected and unweighted graphs, and global, local, and nodal efficiencies were computed as a function of the network cost. These experimental results revealed abnormal cortical thickness and correlations in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and showed that the brain structural networks of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder subjects had inefficient small-world topological features. Furthermore, their topological properties were altered abnormally. In particular, decreased global efficiency combined with increased local efficiency in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder children led to a disorder-related shift of the network topological structure toward regular networks. In addition, nodal efficiency, cortical thickness, and correlation analyses revealed that several brain regions were altered in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder patients. These findings are in accordance with a hypothesis of dysfunctional integration and segregation of the brain in patients with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and provide further evidence of brain dysfunction in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder patients by observing cortical thickness on magnetic resonance imaging.

Modelling of the electron density height profiles in the mid-latitude ionospheric D-region

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P. Y. Mukhtarov

1996-06-01

Full Text Available A new mid-latitude D-region (50-105 km model of the electron density is presented obtained on the basis of a full wave theory and by a trial-and-error inversion method. Daytime (at different solar zenith angles absorption measurements by A3-technique made in Bulgaria yielded data with the aid of which the seasonal and diurnal courses of the Ne(h-profiles were derived. Special attention is drawn to the event diurnal asymmetry, or uneven formation of the ionosphere as a function of insulation. The latter is probably connected with the influence of the diurnal fluctuations in the local temperature on the chemistry involved in the electron loss rate, as well as the diurnal variations of the main ionizing agent (NO in the D-region. That is why the Ne(h-profiles in the midlatitude D-region are modelled separately for morning and afternoon hours.

Right hemisphere dominance during spatial selective attention and target detection occurs outside the dorsal fronto-parietal network

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Shulman, Gordon L.; Pope, Daniel L. W.; Astafiev, Serguei V.; McAvoy, Mark P.; Snyder, Abraham Z.; Corbetta, Maurizio

2010-01-01

Spatial selective attention is widely considered to be right hemisphere dominant. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, however, have reported bilateral blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) responses in dorsal fronto-parietal regions during anticipatory shifts of attention to a location (Kastner et al., 1999; Corbetta et al., 2000; Hopfinger et al., 2000). Right-lateralized activity has mainly been reported in ventral fronto-parietal regions for shifts of attention to an unattended target stimulus (Arrington et al., 2000; Corbetta et al., 2000). However, clear conclusions cannot be drawn from these studies because hemispheric asymmetries were not assessed using direct voxel-wise comparisons of activity in left and right hemispheres. Here, we used this technique to measure hemispheric asymmetries during shifts of spatial attention evoked by a peripheral cue stimulus and during target detection at the cued location. Stimulus-driven shifts of spatial attention in both visual fields evoked right-hemisphere dominant activity in temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). Target detection at the attended location produced a more widespread right hemisphere dominance in frontal, parietal, and temporal cortex, including the TPJ region asymmetrically activated during shifts of spatial attention. However, hemispheric asymmetries were not observed during either shifts of attention or target detection in the dorsal fronto-parietal regions (anterior precuneus, medial intraparietal sulcus, frontal eye fields) that showed the most robust activations for shifts of attention. Therefore, right hemisphere dominance during stimulus-driven shifts of spatial attention and target detection reflects asymmetries in cortical regions that are largely distinct from the dorsal fronto-parietal network involved in the control of selective attention. PMID:20219998

What can atypical language hemispheric specialization tell us about cognitive functions?

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Qing; Van der Haegen, Lise

2015-04-01

Recent studies have made substantial progress in understanding the interactions between cognitive functions, from language to cognitive control, attention, and memory. However, dissociating these functions has been hampered by the close proximity of regions involved, as in the case in the prefrontal and parietal cortex. In this article, we review a series of studies that investigated the relationship between language and other cognitive functions in an alternative way - by examining their functional (co-)lateralization. We argue that research on the hemispheric lateralization of language and its link with handedness can offer an appropriate starting-point to shed light on the relationships between different functions. Besides functional interactions, anatomical asymmetries in non-human primates and those underlying language in humans can provide unique information about cortical organization. Finally, some open questions and criteria are raised for an ideal theoretical model of the cortex based on hemispheric specialization.

Face processing is gated by visual spatial attention

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Roy E Crist

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Human perception of faces is widely believed to rely on automatic processing by a domain-specifi c, modular component of the visual system. Scalp-recorded event-related potential (ERP recordings indicate that faces receive special stimulus processing at around 170 ms poststimulus onset, in that faces evoke an enhanced occipital negative wave, known as the N170, relative to the activity elicited by other visual objects. As predicted by modular accounts of face processing, this early face-specifi c N170 enhancement has been reported to be largely immune to the infl uence of endogenous processes such as task strategy or attention. However, most studies examining the infl uence of attention on face processing have focused on non-spatial attention, such as object-based attention, which tend to have longer-latency effects. In contrast, numerous studies have demonstrated that visual spatial attention can modulate the processing of visual stimuli as early as 80 ms poststimulus – substantially earlier than the N170. These temporal characteristics raise the question of whether this initial face-specifi c processing is immune to the infl uence of spatial attention. This question was addressed in a dual-visualstream ERP study in which the infl uence of spatial attention on the face-specifi c N170 could be directly examined. As expected, early visual sensory responses to all stimuli presented in an attended location were larger than responses evoked by those same stimuli when presented in an unattended location. More importantly, a signifi cant face-specifi c N170 effect was elicited by faces that appeared in an attended location, but not in an unattended one. In summary, early face-specifi c processing is not automatic, but rather, like other objects, strongly depends on endogenous factors such as the allocation of spatial attention. Moreover, these fi ndings underscore the extensive infl uence that top-down attention exercises over the processing of

Amygdala lesions in rhesus macaques decrease attention to threat

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Dal Monte, Olga; Costa, Vincent D.; Noble, Pamela L.; Murray, Elisabeth A.; Averbeck, Bruno B.

2015-01-01

Evidence from animal and human studies has suggested that the amygdala plays a role in detecting threat and in directing attention to the eyes. Nevertheless, there has been no systematic investigation of whether the amygdala specifically facilitates attention to the eyes or whether other features can also drive attention via amygdala processing. The goal of the present study was to examine the effects of amygdala lesions in rhesus monkeys on attentional capture by specific facial features, as well as gaze patterns and changes in pupil dilation during free viewing. Here we show reduced attentional capture by threat stimuli, specifically the mouth, and reduced exploration of the eyes in free viewing in monkeys with amygdala lesions. Our findings support a role for the amygdala in detecting threat signals and in directing attention to the eye region of faces when freely viewing different expressions. PMID:26658670

A few of my favorite things: circumscribed interests in autism are not accompanied by increased attentional salience on a personalized selective attention task.

Science.gov (United States)

Parsons, Owen E; Bayliss, Andrew P; Remington, Anna

2017-01-01

Autistic individuals commonly show circumscribed or "special" interests: areas of obsessive interest in a specific category. The present study investigated what impact these interests have on attention, an aspect of autistic cognition often reported as altered. In neurotypical individuals, interest and expertise have been shown to result in an automatic attentional priority for related items. Here, we examine whether this change in salience is also seen in autism. Adolescents and young adults with and without autism performed a personalized selective attention task assessing the level of attentional priority afforded to images related to the participant's specific interests. In addition, participants performed a similar task with generic images in order to isolate any effects of interest and expertise. Crucially, all autistic and non-autistic individuals recruited for this study held a strong passion or interest. As such, any differences in attention could not be solely attributed to differing prevalence of interests in the two groups. In both tasks, participants were asked to perform a central target-detection task while ignoring irrelevant distractors (related or unrelated to their interests). The level of distractor interference under various task conditions was taken as an indication of attentional priority. Neurotypical individuals showed the predicted attentional priority for the circumscribed interest images but not generic items, reflecting the impact of their interest and expertise. Contrary to predictions, autistic individuals did not show this priority: processing the interest-related stimuli only when task demands were low. Attention to images unrelated to circumscribed interests was equivalent in the two groups. These results suggest that despite autistic individuals holding an intense interest in a particular class of stimuli, there may be a reduced impact of this prior experience and expertise on attentional processing. The implications of this

Shared and disorder-specific task-positive and default mode network dysfunctions during sustained attention in paediatric Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and obsessive/compulsive disorder

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Luke J. Norman

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Patients with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD and obsessive/compulsive disorder (OCD share problems with sustained attention, and are proposed to share deficits in switching between default mode and task positive networks. The aim of this study was to investigate shared and disorder-specific brain activation abnormalities during sustained attention in the two disorders. Twenty boys with ADHD, 20 boys with OCD and 20 age-matched healthy controls aged between 12 and 18 years completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI version of a parametrically modulated sustained attention task with a progressively increasing sustained attention load. Performance and brain activation were compared between groups. Only ADHD patients were impaired in performance. Group by sustained attention load interaction effects showed that OCD patients had disorder-specific middle anterior cingulate underactivation relative to controls and ADHD patients, while ADHD patients showed disorder-specific underactivation in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex/dorsal inferior frontal gyrus (IFG. ADHD and OCD patients shared left insula/ventral IFG underactivation and increased activation in posterior default mode network relative to controls, but had disorder-specific overactivation in anterior default mode regions, in dorsal anterior cingulate for ADHD and in anterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex for OCD. In sum, ADHD and OCD patients showed mostly disorder-specific patterns of brain abnormalities in both task positive salience/ventral attention networks with lateral frontal deficits in ADHD and middle ACC deficits in OCD, as well as in their deactivation patterns in medial frontal DMN regions. The findings suggest that attention performance in the two disorders is underpinned by disorder-specific activation patterns.

Attention biases visual activity in visual short-term memory.

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Kuo, Bo-Cheng; Stokes, Mark G; Murray, Alexandra M; Nobre, Anna Christina

2014-07-01

In the current study, we tested whether representations in visual STM (VSTM) can be biased via top-down attentional modulation of visual activity in retinotopically specific locations. We manipulated attention using retrospective cues presented during the retention interval of a VSTM task. Retrospective cues triggered activity in a large-scale network implicated in attentional control and led to retinotopically specific modulation of activity in early visual areas V1-V4. Importantly, shifts of attention during VSTM maintenance were associated with changes in functional connectivity between pFC and retinotopic regions within V4. Our findings provide new insights into top-down control mechanisms that modulate VSTM representations for flexible and goal-directed maintenance of the most relevant memoranda.

Volunteer motivation in special events for people with disabilities ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

There has been little research attention in the South African context on volunteer motivation for special events for people with disabilities. This study explored the key factors that motivated volunteers to volunteer their services at three major sport events for people with disabilities in South Africa. A 28-item questionnaire was ...

The role of international development strategies in making regional development policies: Hokkaido as a case study

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Juha Saunavaara

2017-12-01

Full Text Available During the past decades, national governments and international institutions have both searched for ways to equalise disparities and revitalise lagging regions. Although ideas and examples of the most effective ways to achieve these goals originate in various places, their influence is inclined to permeate elsewhere. Therefore, the processes involved in policy transfers are highly relevant from the perspective of regional development. This study approaches these processes through the case study of post-war Hokkaido and pays special attention to the role of three international development strategies: the Tennessee Valley Authority model, the Growth Pole Theory and the Industrial Cluster Theory. As a result, this research shows the wide variety of agents involved in policy transfer, analyses the processes of incorporating exogenous ideas into regional development polices and demonstrates the variety of sources from which different agents can draw lessons.

Visual attention deficits in Alzheimer's disease--a fMRI study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hao Jing; Li Kuncheng; Wang Wei; Yang Yanhui; Zhang Dexuan; Wang Yan; Li Ke; Yan Bin

2005-01-01

Objective: To investigate the attention level and p robe the neuro-anatomic basis of visual attention deficits, and to identify its essential causes in AD patients by using functional MRI. Methods: Thirteen patients with AD and 13 healthy subjects of similar age and gender ratio participated in the experiment designed with two visual search tasks. The first was a conjunction task, where two features were presented in the array and spatial attention and feature binding were required. The second task was subset search, where two features were also presented but only one of them was needed in order to group stimuli together (the subset) without the need for feature binding. The fMRI data were collected on a Siemens 1.5 T Sonata MRI system and analyzed by statistical parametric mapping software (SPM 99) to generate the activation map. Results: Although two groups revealed similar networks engaged in different search tasks, including the parietal lobe, frontal lobe, occipital regions, primary visual cortex, and some subcortical structures, there were remarkable differences in the extent of activation of these brain regions between patients and controls. The less activation was demonstrated in the bilateral parietal lobes and left frontal regions, especially in the subset search, in AD patients. Conclusion: The attention deficits in AD patients were caused by 'feature binding' problem and 'grouping' inefficiency. The less activation mainly located in the parietal cortex (unable to switch the focus of their attention 'window' in different spatial locations) , with anterior cingulate and the frontal lobes dysfunction. (authors)

Neural Basis of Visual Attentional Orienting in Childhood Autism Spectrum Disorders.

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Murphy, Eric R; Norr, Megan; Strang, John F; Kenworthy, Lauren; Gaillard, William D; Vaidya, Chandan J

2017-01-01

We examined spontaneous attention orienting to visual salience in stimuli without social significance using a modified Dot-Probe task during functional magnetic resonance imaging in high-functioning preadolescent children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and age- and IQ-matched control children. While the magnitude of attentional bias (faster response to probes in the location of solid color patch) to visually salient stimuli was similar in the groups, activation differences in frontal and temporoparietal regions suggested hyper-sensitivity to visual salience or to sameness in ASD children. Further, activation in a subset of those regions was associated with symptoms of restricted and repetitive behavior. Thus, atypicalities in response to visual properties of stimuli may drive attentional orienting problems associated with ASD.

Causes of Fiscal Illusion: Lack of Information or Lack of Attention?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bækgaard, Martin; Serritzlew, Søren; Blom-Hansen, Jens

2016-01-01

the implications of fiscal illusions, whereas the question why fiscal illusions occur at all has received less attention. According to the standard argument, individuals base their opinion of policy proposals on a valuation of benefits and costs. We formalize the standard argument and show that it is a special......According to fiscal illusion theory, voters misperceive fiscal parameters because of incomplete information. The costs of public services are underestimated, implying that if voters had full information, their support for public services would drop. The literature has focused on testing...... case of the attention model of fiscal illusion. In this model, opinion depends on the saliency of attributes of the proposal. We show that the attention model can better explain fiscal illusion by deriving competing hypotheses, which are tested in a survey experiment. We conclude that the mechanism...

Regional employment growth, shocks and regional industrial resilience

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Holm, Jacob Rubæk; Østergaard, Christian Richter

2013-01-01

The resilience of regional industries to economic shocks has gained a lot of attention in evolutionary economic geography recently. This paper uses a novel quantitative approach to investigate the regional industrial resilience of the Danish ICT sector to the shock following the burst of the dot......-com bubble. It is shown that regions characterised by small and young ICT service companies were more adaptable and grew more than others, while diversity and urbanisation increased the sensitivity to the business cycle after the shock. Different types of resilient regions are found: adaptively resilient......, rigidly resilient, entrepreneurially resilient and non-resilient regions....

A model of selective visual attention for a stereo pair of images

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Min Chul; Kim, Sung Kyu; Son, Jung-Young

2005-11-01

Human visual attention system has a remarkable ability to interpret complex scenes with the ease and simplicity by selecting or focusing on a small region of visual field without scanning the whole images. In this paper, a novel selective visual attention model by using 3D image display system for a stereo pair of images is proposed. It is based on the feature integration theory and locates ROI(region of interest) or FOA(focus of attention). The disparity map obtained from a stereo pair of images is exploited as one of spatial visual features to form a set of topographic feature maps in our approach. Though the true human cognitive mechanism on the analysis and integration process might be different from our assumption the proposed attention system matches well with the results found by human observers.

Waste management - sewage - special wastes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-01-01

The 27 papers represent a cross-section of the subject waste management. Particular attention is paid to the following themes: waste avoidance, waste product utilization, household wastes, dumping technology, sewage sludge treatments, special wastes, seepage from hazardous waste dumps, radioactive wastes, hospital wastes, purification of flue gas from waste combustion plants, flue gas purification and heavy metals, as well as combined sewage sludge and waste product utilization. The examples given relate to plants in Germany and other European countries. 12 papers have been separately recorded in the data base. (DG) [de

Analysis of Interaction and Attention Processes in a Child with Congenital Deafblindness

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Villas Boas, Denise Cintra; Ferreira, Léslie Piccolotto; de Moura, Maria Cecília; Maia, Shirley Rodrigues; Amaral, Isabel

2016-01-01

Children with deafblindness need support to be able to understand the world and to have access to information. The authors analyzed a dyad consisting of a child with congenital deafblindness and a specialized teacher. The study included participant observations and audiovisual recordings. It was found that the child showed attention to the teacher…

Brain mechanisms associated with internally directed attention and self-generated thought.

Science.gov (United States)

Benedek, Mathias; Jauk, Emanuel; Beaty, Roger E; Fink, Andreas; Koschutnig, Karl; Neubauer, Aljoscha C

2016-03-10

Internal cognition like imagination and prospection require sustained internally directed attention and involve self-generated thought. This fMRI study aimed to disentangle the brain mechanisms associated with attention-specific and task-specific processes during internally directed cognition. The direction of attention was manipulated by either keeping a relevant stimulus visible throughout the task, or by masking it, so that the task had to be performed "in the mind's eye". The level of self-directed thought was additionally varied between a convergent and a divergent thinking task. Internally directed attention was associated with increased activation in the right anterior inferior parietal lobe (aIPL), bilateral lingual gyrus and the cuneus, as well as with extended deactivations of superior parietal and occipital regions representing parts of the dorsal attention network. The right aIPL further showed increased connectivity with occipital regions suggesting an active top-down mechanism for shielding ongoing internal processes from potentially distracting sensory stimulation in terms of perceptual decoupling. Activation of the default network was not related to internally directed attention per se, but rather to a higher level of self-generated thought. The findings hence shed further light on the roles of inferior and superior parietal cortex for internally directed cognition.

Common and distinct neural mechanisms of attentional switching and response conflict.

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Kim, Chobok; Johnson, Nathan F; Gold, Brian T

2012-08-21

The human capacities for overcoming prepotent actions and flexibly switching between tasks represent cornerstones of cognitive control. Functional neuroimaging has implicated a diverse set of brain regions contributing to each of these cognitive control processes. However, the extent to which attentional switching and response conflict draw on shared or distinct neural mechanisms remains unclear. The current study examined the neural correlates of response conflict and attentional switching using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a fully randomized 2×2 design. We manipulated an arrow-word version of the Stroop task to measure conflict and switching in the context of a single task decision, in response to a common set of stimuli. Under these common conditions, both behavioral and imaging data showed significant main effects of conflict and switching but no interaction. However, conjunction analyses identified frontal regions involved in both switching and response conflict, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and left inferior frontal junction. In addition, connectivity analyses demonstrated task-dependent functional connectivity patterns between dACC and inferior temporal cortex for attentional switching and between dACC and posterior parietal cortex for response conflict. These results suggest that the brain makes use of shared frontal regions, but can dynamically modulate the connectivity patterns of some of those regions, to deal with attentional switching and response conflict. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Catholic Church-State Relations in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region: A Review of 20 Years

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Beatrice K.F. Leung

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The Catholic Church and the Hong Kong British Government formed warm relations when the Church became the contractor of the government to provide education and social and medical service. The British did not provide democracy to Hong Kong but allowed ample freedom including religious freedom which the Hong Kong Catholics would like to protect in the post-colonial period under the Communist Party rule. For religious freedom, right after Hong Kong became the Special Administrative Region (HKSAR, the Hong Kong Catholic Church under the prophetic and vocal leadership of Bishop Joseph Zen, became very active in political participation. Zen’s leadership was short-lived (1996-2009 and the soft-spoken Bishop John Tong replaced him with a different approach of consolidating the church without antagonising the government with social issues.

Research Article Special Issue

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2016-07-16

Jul 16, 2016 ... CASE STUDY: THE CITY OF BIRJAND'S HAKIM NAZARI STREET ... to the attention paid to the human aspect of development, having ... result of which was the appearance of the cities with congruent regional segregation, .... Such operations can be practiced for one single street or the entire network of.

Research Article Special Issue

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2017-02-15

Feb 15, 2017 ... they have no special development plan and their authorities actually do not know about the ... Keywords: Converted villages to city centers, urban network, SWOT analysis, ... rural areas and can decrease regional differences in developing ... Small scale cities are necessary for integration of rural and urban.

Cholinergic enhancement modulates neural correlates of selective attention and emotional processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Bentley, Paul; Vuilleumier, Patrik; Thiel, Christiane M; Driver, Jon; Dolan, Raymond J

2003-09-01

Neocortical cholinergic afferents are proposed to influence both selective attention and emotional processing. In a study of healthy adults we used event-related fMRI while orthogonally manipulating attention and emotionality to examine regions showing effects of cholinergic modulation by the anticholinesterase physostigmine. Either face or house pictures appeared at task-relevant locations, with the alternative picture type at irrelevant locations. Faces had either neutral or fearful expressions. Physostigmine increased relative activity within the anterior fusiform gyrus for faces at attended, versus unattended, locations, but decreased relative activity within the posterolateral occipital cortex for houses in attended, versus unattended, locations. A similar pattern of regional differences in the effect of physostigmine on cue-evoked responses was also present in the absence of stimuli. Cholinergic enhancement augmented the relative neuronal response within the middle fusiform gyrus to fearful faces, whether at attended or unattended locations. By contrast, physostigmine influenced responses in the orbitofrontal, intraparietal and cingulate cortices to fearful faces when faces occupied task-irrelevant locations. These findings suggest that acetylcholine may modulate both selective attention and emotional processes through independent, region-specific effects within the extrastriate cortex. Furthermore, cholinergic inputs to the frontoparietal cortex may influence the allocation of attention to emotional information.

Differentiating emotional processing and attention in psychopathy with functional neuroimaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Nathaniel E; Steele, Vaughn R; Maurer, J Michael; Rao, Vikram; Koenigs, Michael R; Decety, Jean; Kosson, David S; Calhoun, Vince D; Kiehl, Kent A

2017-06-01

Individuals with psychopathy are often characterized by emotional processing deficits, and recent research has examined the specific contexts and cognitive mechanisms that underlie these abnormalities. Some evidence suggests that abnormal features of attention are fundamental to emotional deficits in persons with psychopathy, but few studies have demonstrated the neural underpinnings responsible for such effects. Here, we use functional neuroimaging to examine attention-emotion interactions among incarcerated individuals (n = 120) evaluated for psychopathic traits using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Using a task designed to manipulate attention to emotional features of visual stimuli, we demonstrate effects representing implicit emotional processing, explicit emotional processing, attention-facilitated emotional processing, and vigilance for emotional content. Results confirm the importance of considering mechanisms of attention when evaluating emotional processing differences related to psychopathic traits. The affective-interpersonal features of psychopathy (PCL-R Factor 1) were associated with relatively lower emotion-dependent augmentation of activity in visual processing areas during implicit emotional processing, while antisocial-lifestyle features (PCL-R Factor 2) were associated with elevated activity in the amygdala and related salience network regions. During explicit emotional processing, psychopathic traits were associated with upregulation in the medial prefrontal cortex, insula, and superior frontal regions. Isolating the impact of explicit attention to emotional content, only Factor 1 was related to upregulation of activity in the visual processing stream, which was accompanied by increased activity in the angular gyrus. These effects highlight some important mechanisms underlying abnormal features of attention and emotional processing that accompany psychopathic traits.

REGIONALIZATION OF MANAGEMENT PROCESS BY INNOVATIVE ACTIVITY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. V. Sibirskaia

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Summary. In current market conditions, the economy and Russia's accession to international trade scholars and experts from various fields of knowledge paying special attention to a huge set of regional problems. The growing role of regional research determines the level of establishing effective mechanisms for the implementation of the economic interests of actors as well as economic development and improving the quality of human life is the priority objectives of federal, regional and local authorities. Today, the Russian economic science faces a global goal - to develop ways and means of transformation of the Russian economy and bring it to a path of sustainable, innovative development, providing new quality of life. Achieving this goal must surely be a central task of the Russian economics and politics, as in the near future and the long term In article authors opened the maintenance of determinants of innovative development of the territory, mediated by strengthening of regionalization of management by innovative activity: condition of resource and innovative potential; the developed forms and nature of interaction between public authorities of regional level, local community and business; applied forms of integration of subjects of managing for realization of their innovative potential due to expansion of opportunities of participation in the perspective directions of scientific and technical, economic and social development; system of the incentives developing favorable conditions for introduction and development of innovative technologies, and also increases in the enterprise activity, formed by the external institutional environment; regional economic policy as instrument of increase of efficiency of innovative activity.

Nonlinear response of the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia as a function of variable attentional control.

Science.gov (United States)

Blasi, Giuseppe; Taurisano, Paolo; Papazacharias, Apostolos; Caforio, Grazia; Romano, Raffaella; Lobianco, Luciana; Fazio, Leonardo; Di Giorgio, Annabella; Latorre, Valeria; Sambataro, Fabio; Popolizio, Teresa; Nardini, Marcello; Mattay, Venkata S; Weinberger, Daniel R; Bertolino, Alessandro

2010-04-01

Previous studies have reported abnormal prefrontal and cingulate activity during attentional control processing in schizophrenia. However, it is not clear how variation in attentional control load modulates activity within these brain regions in this brain disorder. The aim of this study in schizophrenia is to investigate the impact of increasing levels of attentional control processing on prefrontal and cingulate activity. Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) responses of 16 outpatients with schizophrenia were compared with those of 21 healthy subjects while performing a task eliciting increasing levels of attentional control during event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3 T. Results showed reduced behavioral performance in patients at greater attentional control levels. Imaging data indicated greater prefrontal activity at intermediate attentional control levels in patients but greater prefrontal and cingulate responses at high attentional control demands in controls. The BOLD activity profile of these regions in controls increased linearly with increasing cognitive loads, whereas in patients, it was nonlinear. Correlation analysis consistently showed differential region and load-specific relationships between brain activity and behavior in the 2 groups. These results indicate that varying attentional control load is associated in schizophrenia with load- and region-specific modification of the relationship between behavior and brain activity, possibly suggesting earlier saturation of cognitive capacity.

Modulation of early cortical processing during divided attention to non-contiguous locations.

Science.gov (United States)

Frey, Hans-Peter; Schmid, Anita M; Murphy, Jeremy W; Molholm, Sophie; Lalor, Edmund C; Foxe, John J

2014-05-01

We often face the challenge of simultaneously attending to multiple non-contiguous regions of space. There is ongoing debate as to how spatial attention is divided under these situations. Whereas, for several years, the predominant view was that humans could divide the attentional spotlight, several recent studies argue in favor of a unitary spotlight that rhythmically samples relevant locations. Here, this issue was addressed by the use of high-density electrophysiology in concert with the multifocal m-sequence technique to examine visual evoked responses to multiple simultaneous streams of stimulation. Concurrently, we assayed the topographic distribution of alpha-band oscillatory mechanisms, a measure of attentional suppression. Participants performed a difficult detection task that required simultaneous attention to two stimuli in contiguous (undivided) or non-contiguous parts of space. In the undivided condition, the classic pattern of attentional modulation was observed, with increased amplitude of the early visual evoked response and increased alpha amplitude ipsilateral to the attended hemifield. For the divided condition, early visual responses to attended stimuli were also enhanced, and the observed multifocal topographic distribution of alpha suppression was in line with the divided attention hypothesis. These results support the existence of divided attentional spotlights, providing evidence that the corresponding modulation occurs during initial sensory processing time-frames in hierarchically early visual regions, and that suppressive mechanisms of visual attention selectively target distracter locations during divided spatial attention. © 2014 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Introduction to the special section on "Hormones and cognition: perspectives, controversies, and challenges for future research".

Science.gov (United States)

Frick, Karyn M

2012-02-01

The research of the past two decades has firmly established that hormones modulate numerous aspects of cognitive function, including memory, attention, decision-making, and sensory processing. That such a wide variety of hormones influence cognition mediated by multiple nonhypothalamic brain regions illustrates the critical importance of hormones to neural and cognitive function. The diversity of hormonal effects on cognition is evident in the collection of reviews and original research articles assembled for this special section. Together, these articles provide an overview of recent research on varied topics in hormones and cognition, address controversial issues in the field, and discuss challenges that must be overcome in future research to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms through which hormones modulate cognitive function.

Effects of age and sex on developmental neural networks of visual-spatial attention allocation.

Science.gov (United States)

Rubia, Katya; Hyde, Zoe; Halari, Rozmin; Giampietro, Vincent; Smith, Anna

2010-06-01

Compared to our understanding of the functional maturation of brain networks underlying complex cognitive abilities, hardly anything is known of the neurofunctional development of simpler cognitive abilities such as visuo-spatial attention allocation. Furthermore, nothing is known on the effect of gender on the functional development of attention allocation. This study employed event related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate effects of age, sex, and sex by age interactions on the brain activation of 63 males and females, between 13 to 38years, during a visual-spatial oddball task. Behaviourally, with increasing age, speed was traded for accuracy, indicative of a less impulsive performance style in older subjects. Increasing age was associated with progressively increased activation in typical areas of selective attention of lateral fronto-striatal and temporo-parietal brain regions. Sex difference analysis showed enhanced activation in right-hemispheric inferior frontal and superior temporal regions in females, and in left-hemispheric inferior temporo-parietal regions in males. Importantly, the age by sex interaction findings showed that these sex-dimorphic patterns of brain activation may be the result of underlying sex differences in the functional maturation of these brain regions, as females had sex-specific progressive age-correlations in the same right inferior fronto-striato-temporal areas, while male-specific age-correlations were in left medial temporal and parietal areas. The findings demonstrate progressive functional maturation of fronto-striato-parieto-temporal networks of the relatively simple function of attention allocation between early adolescence and mid-adulthood. They furthermore show that sex-dimorphic patterns of enhanced reliance on right inferior frontal, striatal and superior temporal regions in females and of left temporo-parietal regions in males during attention allocation may be the result of underlying sex

Pilot test of a novel food response and attention training treatment for obesity: Brain imaging data suggest actions shape valuation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stice, E.; Yokum, S.; Veling, H.P.; Kemps, E.; Lawrence, N.S.

2017-01-01

Elevated brain reward and attention region response, and weaker inhibitory region response to high-calorie food images have been found to predict future weight gain. These findings suggest that an intervention that reduces reward and attention region response and increases inhibitory control region

The Prelimbic Cortex Directs Attention toward Predictive Cues during Fear Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Sharpe, Melissa J.; Killcross, Simon

2015-01-01

The prelimbic cortex is argued to promote conditioned fear expression, at odds with appetitive research implicating this region in attentional processing. Consistent with an attentional account, we report that the effect of prelimbic lesions on fear expression depends on the degree of competition between contextual and discrete cues. Further, when…

Collection-Level Surveys for Special Collections: Coalescing Descriptors across Standards

Science.gov (United States)

Ascher, James P.; Ferris, Anna M.

2012-01-01

Developing collection-level surveys to expose hidden collections in special collections and archives departments within ARL libraries has received a great deal of scholarly attention in the recent years. Numerous standards have been explored, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. This paper summarizes some of the major initiatives in…

Attention to memory: orienting attention to sound object representations.

Science.gov (United States)

Backer, Kristina C; Alain, Claude

2014-01-01

Despite a growing acceptance that attention and memory interact, and that attention can be focused on an active internal mental representation (i.e., reflective attention), there has been a paucity of work focusing on reflective attention to 'sound objects' (i.e., mental representations of actual sound sources in the environment). Further research on the dynamic interactions between auditory attention and memory, as well as its degree of neuroplasticity, is important for understanding how sound objects are represented, maintained, and accessed in the brain. This knowledge can then guide the development of training programs to help individuals with attention and memory problems. This review article focuses on attention to memory with an emphasis on behavioral and neuroimaging studies that have begun to explore the mechanisms that mediate reflective attentional orienting in vision and more recently, in audition. Reflective attention refers to situations in which attention is oriented toward internal representations rather than focused on external stimuli. We propose four general principles underlying attention to short-term memory. Furthermore, we suggest that mechanisms involved in orienting attention to visual object representations may also apply for orienting attention to sound object representations.

Attention and apparent motion.

Science.gov (United States)

Horowitz, T; Treisman, A

1994-01-01

Two dissociations between short- and long-range motion in visual search are reported. Previous research has shown parallel processing for short-range motion and apparently serial processing for long-range motion. This finding has been replicated and it has also been found that search for short-range targets can be impaired both by using bicontrast stimuli, and by prior adaptation to the target direction of motion. Neither factor impaired search in long-range motion displays. Adaptation actually facilitated search with long-range displays, which is attributed to response-level effects. A feature-integration account of apparent motion is proposed. In this theory, short-range motion depends on specialized motion feature detectors operating in parallel across the display, but subject to selective adaptation, whereas attention is needed to link successive elements when they appear at greater separations, or across opposite contrasts.

Regional Employment Growth, Shocks and Regional Industrial Resilience

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Holm, J.R.; Østergaard, Christian Richter

2015-01-01

The resilience of regional industries to economic shocks has gained a lot of attention in evolutionary economic geography recently. This paper uses a novel quantitative approach to investigate the regional industrial resilience of the Danish information and communication technology (ICT) sector...... to the shock following the burst of the dot.com bubble. It is shown that regions characterized by small and young ICT service companies were more adaptable and grew more than others, while diversity and urbanization increased the sensitivity to the business cycle after the shock. Different types of resilient...... regions are found: adaptively resilient, rigidly resilient, entrepreneurially resilient and non-resilient regions....

Modeling global scene factors in attention

Science.gov (United States)

Torralba, Antonio

2003-07-01

Models of visual attention have focused predominantly on bottom-up approaches that ignored structured contextual and scene information. I propose a model of contextual cueing for attention guidance based on the global scene configuration. It is shown that the statistics of low-level features across the whole image can be used to prime the presence or absence of objects in the scene and to predict their location, scale, and appearance before exploring the image. In this scheme, visual context information can become available early in the visual processing chain, which allows modulation of the saliency of image regions and provides an efficient shortcut for object detection and recognition. 2003 Optical Society of America

Modulation of attentional processing by deep brain stimulation of the pedunculopontine nucleus region in patients with parkinsonian disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Fischer, Julia; Schwiecker, Kati; Bittner, Verena; Heinze, Hans-Jochen; Voges, Jürgen; Galazky, Imke; Zaehle, Tino

2015-07-01

Low-frequency electrical stimulation of the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) is a therapeutic approach aiming to improve motor symptoms such as freezing of gate and postural instability in parkinsonian disorders. Because the PPN is a component of the reticular activating system, we tested whether PPN stimulation directly affects attention and consciousness. Eight patients with parkinsonian disorders and implanted with electrodes in the bilateral PPN underwent computerized assessment of attention. Performance in 3 standard reaction time (RT) tasks was assessed at 5 different stimulation frequencies in 5 consecutive sessions. Stimulation of the PPN at low (8 Hz) and therapeutic (20 Hz) frequencies led to a significant improvement of performance in a simple RT task. Patients' RTs were significantly faster at stimulation frequencies of 8 Hz and 20 Hz relative to no stimulation. Stimulation did not affect patients' performance in more complex attentional tasks. Low-frequent stimulation of PPN improves basal attentional processing in patients with parkinsonian disorders, leading to an improved tonic alertness. As successful performance in this task requires the intrinsic ability to build up and keep a certain level of attention, this might be interpreted as attentional augmentation related to stimulation features. Stimulation had no effect on more complex attentional processing. Our results suggest an influence of the PPN on certain aspects of attention, supporting attentional augmentation as one possible mechanism to improve motor action and gait in patients with parkinsonian disorders. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Posterior alpha oscillations reflect attentional problems in boys with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Vollebregt, Madelon A; Zumer, Johanna M; Ter Huurne, Niels; Buitelaar, Jan K; Jensen, Ole

2016-05-01

This study aimed to characterize alpha modulations in children with ADHD in relation to their attentional performance. The posterior alpha activity (8-12Hz) was measured in 30 typically developing children and 30 children with ADHD aged 7-10years, using EEG while they performed a visuospatial covert attention task. We focused the analyses on typically developing boys (N=9) and boys with ADHD (N=17). Alpha activity in typically developing boys was similar to previous results of healthy adults: it decreased in the hemisphere contralateral to the attended hemifield, whereas it relatively increased in the other hemisphere. However, in boys with ADHD this hemispheric lateralization in the alpha band was not obvious (group contrast, p=.018). A robust relation with behavioral performance was lacking in both groups. The ability to modulate alpha oscillations in visual regions with the allocation of spatial attention was clearly present in typically developing boys, but not in boys with ADHD. These results open up the possibility to further study the underlying mechanisms of ADHD by examining how differences in the fronto-striatal network might explain different abilities in modulating the alpha band activity. Copyright © 2016 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Oscillations during observations: Dynamic oscillatory networks serving visuospatial attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiesman, Alex I; Heinrichs-Graham, Elizabeth; Proskovec, Amy L; McDermott, Timothy J; Wilson, Tony W

2017-10-01

The dynamic allocation of neural resources to discrete features within a visual scene enables us to react quickly and accurately to salient environmental circumstances. A network of bilateral cortical regions is known to subserve such visuospatial attention functions; however the oscillatory and functional connectivity dynamics of information coding within this network are not fully understood. Particularly, the coding of information within prototypical attention-network hubs and the subsecond functional connections formed between these hubs have not been adequately characterized. Herein, we use the precise temporal resolution of magnetoencephalography (MEG) to define spectrally specific functional nodes and connections that underlie the deployment of attention in visual space. Twenty-three healthy young adults completed a visuospatial discrimination task designed to elicit multispectral activity in visual cortex during MEG, and the resulting data were preprocessed and reconstructed in the time-frequency domain. Oscillatory responses were projected to the cortical surface using a beamformer, and time series were extracted from peak voxels to examine their temporal evolution. Dynamic functional connectivity was then computed between nodes within each frequency band of interest. We find that visual attention network nodes are defined functionally by oscillatory frequency, that the allocation of attention to the visual space dynamically modulates functional connectivity between these regions on a millisecond timescale, and that these modulations significantly correlate with performance on a spatial discrimination task. We conclude that functional hubs underlying visuospatial attention are segregated not only anatomically but also by oscillatory frequency, and importantly that these oscillatory signatures promote dynamic communication between these hubs. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5128-5140, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

An outbreak of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection in a boarding school in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (China).

Science.gov (United States)

Miu-ling, Wong; Kwok-ming, Poon; Yuen-kong, Wan; Shuk-Kwan, Chuang; Lai-key, Kwok; Sik-on, Pak

2014-01-01

In November 2012, an outbreak of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) skin and soft tissue infections affecting students at a boarding school in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (China) was detected. A case was defined as any student or staff notified with MRSA infection from 25 October 2012 to 5 July 2013 with the clinical isolate being of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec type IV or V and positive for Panton-Valentine leukocidin gene. We conducted field investigations, advised on control measures and enhanced surveillance for skin and soft tissue infections at the school. Decolonization therapies were offered to all cases and contacts, and carrier screening was conducted. There were five cases; two (40%) were hospitalized and three (60%) required surgical treatments. Initial screening comprised 240 students and 81 staff members. Overall, four cases (80%) plus eight other students (3.3%) were carriers, with eight of 12 (66.7%) from the same dormitory. All staff members screened negative. After intensified control measures, the number of students screened positive for CA-MRSA decreased from nine to one with no more cases identified in the school. Identification of carriers, decolonization therapy, monitoring of cases and contacts and strengthening of environmental and personal hygiene were control measures that helped contain this CA-MRSA outbreak in a boarding school in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (China).

Review of the thesis: Remnyova S.V. Crime prevention in Leningrad and the Leningrad Region between the later 1950s and the first half of the 1960s

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frolov Vasiliy Vladimirovich

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This article analyses the thesis “Crime prevention in Leningrad and the Leningrad Region between the later 1950s and the first half of the 1960s” (St. Petersburg, 2016. 254 p. for a Candidate Degree in History by S.V. Remneva as well as the structure and logic of work, the validity of the conclusions, the merits of research and its controversial points. Special attention was paid to the analysis of interaction between the public and law enforcement agencies in crime fighting in the second half of the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s. In conclusion the reviewer pays attention on the idea that the presented facts, assessments and results can be used to develop textbooks on the history of crime, the history of law enforcement community, the history of Leningrad and the Leningrad Region.

Specialization of mutualistic interaction networks decreases toward tropical latitudes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schleuning, M.; Fründ, J.; Klein, A.-M.

2012-01-01

that current conditions have a stronger effect on biotic specialization than historical community stability. Biotic specialization decreased with increasing local and regional plant diversity. This suggests that high specialization of mutualistic interactions is a response of pollinators and seed dispersers......] or differences in plant diversity [10, 11]. Thus, the direction of the latitudinal specialization gradient remains contentious. With an unprecedented global data set, we investigated how biotic specialization between plants and animal pollinators or seed dispersers is associated with latitude, past...... and contemporary climate, and plant diversity. We show that in contrast to expectation, biotic specialization of mutualistic networks is significantly lower at tropical than at temperate latitudes. Specialization was more closely related to contemporary climate than to past climate stability, suggesting...

Attentional Lapses of Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Tasks of Sustained Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Gmehlin, Dennis; Fuermaier, Anselm B M; Walther, Stephan; Tucha, Lara; Koerts, Janneke; Lange, Klaus W; Tucha, Oliver; Weisbrod, Matthias; Aschenbrenner, Steffen

2016-06-01

Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show attentional dysfunction such as distractibility and mind-wandering, especially in lengthy tasks. However, fundamentals of dysfunction are ambiguous and relationships of neuropsychological test parameters with self-report measures of ADHD symptoms are marginal. We hypothesize that basic deficits in sustaining attention explain more complex attentional dysfunction in persons with ADHD and relate to ADHD symptoms. Attentional function was analyzed by computing ex-Gaussian parameters for 3 time Blocks in a 20 min test of sustained alertness. Changes in performance across these blocks were analyzed by comparing adult persons with ADHD (n = 24) with healthy matched controls (n = 24) and correlated with neuropsychological measures of selective and divided attention as well as self-report measures of ADHD symptoms. We found a significantly steeper increase in the number of slow responses (ex-Gaussian parameter τ) in persons with ADHD with time on task in basic sustained alertness. They also performed significantly worse in tasks of sustained selective and divided attention. However, after controlling for an increase in τ during the alertness task, significant differences between groups disappeared for divided and partly selective attention. Increases in τ in the sustained alertness task correlated significantly with self-report measures of ADHD symptoms. Our results provide evidence that very basic deficits in sustaining attention in adults with ADHD are related to infrequent slow responses (=attentional lapses), with changes over time being relevant for more complex attentional function and experienced ADHD symptoms in everyday life. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The impact of new translation technologies on specialized texts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthieu LeBlanc

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The introduction of translation technologies, especially translation memory software, has had a significant impact on both the translator’s professional practice and the target text itself. Apart from the fact that he or she must translate in a non-linear fashion due to the design of translation memory systems, the translator is now called upon to increase output and, in many cases, recycle what has already been translated by others. As a result, the translator, used to having full control over his or her text, is in some regards losing control over the translation process, which brings him or her to reflect on the quality of the final product and, in turn, on the transformations the field of specialized translation is undergoing. In this paper, I will present the results of an important ethnographic study conducted in three Canadian translation environments. I will focus mostly on the effects translation technologies and newly implemented practices have had on the quality of specialized texts destined for the Canadian market, where most of the specialized texts produced in French are in fact translations. Special attention will be given to the comments made by specialized translators during semi-directed interviews.

Some foundational problems in the special theory of relativity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jammer, M.

1979-01-01

Attention is drawn to some of the issues of the foundations of special relativity with the aim of contributing possibly to their clarification. Roemer's determination of the velocity of light is reviewed and important issues on the historical development of the theory outlined. The group-theoretical and light-geometrical approaches are discussed and the nature of length contraction considered. (Auth./C.F.)

Oscillatory Dynamics in the Frontoparietal Attention Network during Sustained Attention in the Ferret

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristin K. Sellers

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Sustained attention requires the coordination of neural activity across multiple cortical areas in the frontoparietal network, in particular the prefrontal cortex (PFC and posterior parietal cortex (PPC. Previous work has demonstrated that activity in these brain regions is coordinated by neuronal oscillations of the local field potential (LFP. However, the underlying coordination of activity in terms of organization of single unit (SU spiking activity has remained poorly understood, particularly in the freely moving animal. We found that long-range functional connectivity between anatomically connected PFC and PPC was mediated by oscillations in the theta frequency band. SU activity in PFC was phase locked to theta oscillations in PPC, and spiking activity in PFC and PPC was locked to local high-gamma activity. Together, our results support a model in which frequency-specific synchronization mediates functional connectivity between and within PFC and PPC of the frontoparietal attention network in the freely moving animal.

Overlapping Parietal Activity in Memory and Perception: Evidence for the Attention to Memory Model

Science.gov (United States)

Cabeza, Roberto; Mazuz, Yonatan S.; Stokes, Jared; Kragel, James E.; Woldorff, Marty G.; Ciaramelli, Elisa; Olson, Ingrid R.; Moscovitch, Morris

2011-01-01

The specific role of different parietal regions to episodic retrieval is a topic of intense debate. According to the Attention to Memory (AtoM) model, dorsal parietal cortex (DPC) mediates top-down attention processes guided by retrieval goals, whereas ventral parietal cortex (VPC) mediates bottom-up attention processes captured by the retrieval…

Mindful attention reduces neural and self-reported cue-induced craving in smokers

Science.gov (United States)

Creswell, John David; Tabibnia, Golnaz; Julson, Erica; Kober, Hedy; Tindle, Hilary A.

2013-01-01

An emerging body of research suggests that mindfulness-based interventions may be beneficial for smoking cessation and the treatment of other addictive disorders. One way that mindfulness may facilitate smoking cessation is through the reduction of craving to smoking cues. The present work considers whether mindful attention can reduce self-reported and neural markers of cue-induced craving in treatment seeking smokers. Forty-seven (n = 47) meditation-naïve treatment-seeking smokers (12-h abstinent from smoking) viewed and made ratings of smoking and neutral images while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants were trained and instructed to view these images passively or with mindful attention. Results indicated that mindful attention reduced self-reported craving to smoking images, and reduced neural activity in a craving-related region of subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC). Moreover, a psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that mindful attention reduced functional connectivity between sgACC and other craving-related regions compared to passively viewing smoking images, suggesting that mindfulness may decouple craving neurocircuitry when viewing smoking cues. These results provide an initial indication that mindful attention may describe a ‘bottom-up’ attention to one’s present moment experience in ways that can help reduce subjective and neural reactivity to smoking cues in smokers. PMID:22114078

The Roles of Decision Makers in Special Operations

Science.gov (United States)

2016-12-01

Forces’ role in solving complex problems. Government leadership is eager to use Special Operations Forces (SOF) to respond to these complex problems...international community and the Israeli authorities as well. The PFLP leadership , in particular, favored hijacking as a terrorist action.12 Other...people’s problems. The members of the Democratic Revolutionary Front of the Liberation of Arabistan thought that calling the rest of the world’s attention

Attention processes in chronic fatigue syndrome: attentional bias for health-related threat and the role of attentional control.

Science.gov (United States)

Hou, Ruihua; Moss-Morris, Rona; Risdale, Anna; Lynch, Jeannette; Jeevaratnam, Preshan; Bradley, Brendan P; Mogg, Karin

2014-01-01

Cognitive behavioural models of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) propose that attention processes, specifically, enhanced selective attention to health-threat related cues, may play an important role in symptom maintenance. The current study investigated attentional bias towards health-threat stimuli in CFS. It also examined whether individuals with CFS have impaired executive attention, and whether this was related to attentional bias. 27 participants with CFS and 35 healthy controls completed a Visual Probe Task measuring attentional bias, and an Attention Network Test measuring executive attention, alerting and orienting. Participants also completed self-report measures of CFS and mood symptoms. Compared to the control group, the CFS group showed greater attentional bias for health-threat words than pictures; and the CFS group was significantly impaired in executive attention. Furthermore, CFS individuals with poor executive attention showed greater attentional bias to health-threat related words, compared not only to controls but also to CFS individuals with good executive attention. Thus, this study revealed a significant relationship between attentional bias and executive attention in CFS: attentional bias to threat was primarily evident in those with impaired executive attention control. Taking account of individual differences in executive attention control in current intervention models may be beneficial for CFS. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Brain systems underlying attentional control and emotional distraction during working memory encoding.

Science.gov (United States)

Ziaei, Maryam; Peira, Nathalie; Persson, Jonas

2014-02-15

Goal-directed behavior requires that cognitive operations can be protected from emotional distraction induced by task-irrelevant emotional stimuli. The brain processes involved in attending to relevant information while filtering out irrelevant information are still largely unknown. To investigate the neural and behavioral underpinnings of attending to task-relevant emotional stimuli while ignoring irrelevant stimuli, we used fMRI to assess brain responses during attentional instructed encoding within an emotional working memory (WM) paradigm. We showed that instructed attention to emotion during WM encoding resulted in enhanced performance, by means of increased memory performance and reduced reaction time, compared to passive viewing. A similar performance benefit was also demonstrated for recognition memory performance, although for positive pictures only. Functional MRI data revealed a network of regions involved in directed attention to emotional information for both positive and negative pictures that included medial and lateral prefrontal cortices, fusiform gyrus, insula, the parahippocampal gyrus, and the amygdala. Moreover, we demonstrate that regions in the striatum, and regions associated with the default-mode network were differentially activated for emotional distraction compared to neutral distraction. Activation in a sub-set of these regions was related to individual differences in WM and recognition memory performance, thus likely contributing to performing the task at an optimal level. The present results provide initial insights into the behavioral and neural consequences of instructed attention and emotional distraction during WM encoding. © 2013.

Virtual Special Issue on Migration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jordan, Declan; Elhorst, Paul

2016-01-01

This editorial introduces a virtual special issue of Spatial Economic Analysis compiled to mark the keynote lecture at the 46th Annual Conference of the Regional Science Association InternationalBritish and Irish Section in Cornwall by Professor Jacques Poot of the National Institute of Demographic

Modulating Reward Induces Differential Neurocognitive Approaches to Sustained Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Esterman, Michael; Poole, Victoria; Liu, Guanyu; DeGutis, Joseph

2017-08-01

Reward and motivation have powerful effects on cognition and brain activity, yet it remains unclear how they affect sustained cognitive performance. We have recently shown that a variety of motivators improve accuracy and reduce variability during sustained attention. In the current study, we investigate how neural activity in task-positive networks supports these sustained attention improvements. Participants performed the gradual-onset continuous performance task with alternating motivated (rewarded) and unmotivated (unrewarded) blocks. During motivated blocks, we observed increased sustained neural recruitment of task-positive regions, which interacted with fluctuations in task performance. Specifically, during motivated blocks, participants recruited these regions in preparation for upcoming targets, and this activation predicted accuracy. In contrast, during unmotivated blocks, no such advanced preparation was observed. Furthermore, during motivated blocks, participants had similar activation levels during both optimal (in-the-zone) and suboptimal (out-of-the-zone) epochs of performance. In contrast, during unmotivated blocks, task-positive regions were only engaged to a similar degree as motivated blocks during suboptimal (out-of-the-zone) periods. These data support a framework in which motivated individuals act as "cognitive investors," engaging task-positive resources proactively and consistently during sustaining attention. When unmotivated, however, the same individuals act as "cognitive misers," engaging maximal task-positive resources only during periods of struggle. Published by Oxford University Press 2016.

Receipt of preventive dental care among special-needs children enrolled in Medicaid: a crisis in need of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, Jean M; Gaskin, Darrell J

2008-10-01

Although not widely recognized, tooth decay is the most common childhood chronic disease among children ages five to seventeen. Despite higher rates of dental caries and greater needs, low-income minority children enrolled in Medicaid are more likely to go untreated relative to their higher income counterparts. No research has examined this issue for children with special needs. We analyzed Medicaid enrollment and claims data for special-needs children enrolled in the District of Columbia Medicaid program to evaluate receipt of recommended preventive dental care. Use of preventive dental care is abysmally low and has declined over time. Enrollment in managed care rather than fee for service improves the likelihood that special-needs children receive recommended preventive dental services, whereas residing farther from the Metro is an impediment to receipt of dental care.

Science and technology of rubber reclamation with special attention to NR based waste latex products

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rajan, V.V.; Dierkes, Wilma K.; Joseph, R.; Noordermeer, Jacobus W.M.

2006-01-01

A comprehensive overview of reclamation of cured rubber with special emphasis on latex reclamation is depicted in this paper. The latex industry has expanded over the years to meet the world demands for gloves, condoms, latex thread, etc. Due to the strict specifications for the products and the

Dopamine Transporters in Striatum Correlate with Deactivation in the Default Mode Network during Visuospatial Attention

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tomasi, D.; Fowler, J.; Tomasi, D.; Volkow, N.D.; Wang, R.L.; Telang, F.; Wang, Chang L.; Ernst, T.; Fowler, J.S.

2009-01-01

Dopamine and dopamine transporters (DAT, which regulate extracellular dopamine in the brain) are implicated in the modulation of attention but their specific roles are not well understood. Here we hypothesized that dopamine modulates attention by facilitation of brain deactivation in the default mode network (DMN). Thus, higher striatal DAT levels, which would result in an enhanced clearance of dopamine and hence weaker dopamine signals, would be associated to lower deactivation in the DMN during an attention task. For this purpose we assessed the relationship between DAT in striatum (measured with positron emission tomography and [ 11 C]cocaine used as DAT radiotracer) and brain activation and deactivation during a parametric visual attention task (measured with blood oxygenation level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging) in healthy controls. We show that DAT availability in caudate and putamen had a negative correlation with deactivation in ventral parietal regions of the DMN (precuneus, BA 7) and a positive correlation with deactivation in a small region in the ventral anterior cingulate gyrus (BA 24/32). With increasing attentional load, DAT in caudate showed a negative correlation with load-related deactivation increases in precuneus. These findings provide evidence that dopamine transporters modulate neural activity in the DMN and anterior cingulate gyrus during visuospatial attention. Our findings suggest that dopamine modulates attention in part by regulating neuronal activity in posterior parietal cortex including precuneus (region involved in alertness) and cingulate gyrus (region deactivated in proportion to emotional interference). These findings suggest that the beneficial effects of stimulant medications (increase dopamine by blocking DAT) in inattention reflect in part their ability to facilitate the deactivation of the DMN.

Behavioral and Neural Sustained Attention Deficits in Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Pagliaccio, David; Wiggins, Jillian Lee; Adleman, Nancy E; Curhan, Alexa; Zhang, Susan; Towbin, Kenneth E; Brotman, Melissa A; Pine, Daniel S; Leibenluft, Ellen

2017-05-01

Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD), characterized by severe irritability, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are highly comorbid. This is the first study to characterize neural and behavioral similarities and differences in attentional functioning across these disorders. Twenty-seven healthy volunteers, 31 patients with DMDD, and 25 patients with ADHD (8 to 18 years old) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging attention task. Group differences in intra-subject variability in reaction time (RT) were examined. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging analytic approach precisely quantified trial-wise associations between RT and brain activity. Group differences manifested in the relation between RT and brain activity (all regions: p  2.54, partial eta-squared [η p 2 ] > 0.06). Patients with DMDD showed specific alterations in the right paracentral lobule, superior parietal lobule, fusiform gyrus, and cerebellar culmen. In contrast, patients with DMDD and those with ADHD exhibited blunted compensatory increases in activity on long RT trials. In addition, youth with DMDD exhibited increased activity in the postcentral gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and cerebellar tonsil and declive (all regions: p  2.46, η p 2 > 0.06). Groups in the imaging sample did not differ significantly in intra-subject variability in RT (F 2,79  = 2.664, p = .076, η p 2  = 0.063), although intra-subject variability in RT was significantly increased in youth with DMDD and ADHD when including those not meeting strict motion and accuracy criteria for imaging analysis (F 2,96  = 4.283, p = .017, η p 2  = 0.083). Patients with DMDD exhibited specific alterations in the relation between pre-stimulus brain activity and RT. Patients with DMDD and those with ADHD exhibited similar blunting of compensatory neural activity in frontal, parietal, and other regions. In addition, patients with DMDD showed increased RT variability compared with healthy

Cortical mechanisms of cognitive control for shifting attention in vision and working memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Tamber-Rosenau, Benjamin J; Esterman, Michael; Chiu, Yu-Chin; Yantis, Steven

2011-10-01

Organisms operate within both a perceptual domain of objects and events, and a mnemonic domain of past experiences and future goals. Each domain requires a deliberate selection of task-relevant information, through deployments of external (perceptual) and internal (mnemonic) attention, respectively. Little is known about the control of attention shifts in working memory, or whether voluntary control of attention in these two domains is subserved by a common or by distinct functional networks. We used human fMRI to examine the neural basis of cognitive control while participants shifted attention in vision and in working memory. We found that these acts of control recruit in common a subset of the dorsal fronto-parietal attentional control network, including the medial superior parietal lobule, intraparietal sulcus, and superior frontal sulcus/gyrus. Event-related multivoxel pattern classification reveals, however, that these regions exhibit distinct spatio-temporal patterns of neural activity during internal and external shifts of attention, respectively. These findings constrain theoretical accounts of selection in working memory and perception by showing that populations of neurons in dorsal fronto-parietal network regions exhibit selective tuning for acts of cognitive control in different cognitive domains.

Chewing and Attention: A Positive Effect on Sustained Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Onozuka, Minoru

2015-01-01

Chewing is crushing food not only to aid swallowing and digestion, but also to help stress relief and regulate cognitive function, especially in attention. It is well known that chewing gum is used for sleepiness prevention during work, learning, and driving, suggesting a link between chewing and sustained attention. We hypothesized that chewing elevates attention and/or alertness, leading to improvements in cognitive performance. We carried out a systematic review of the PubMed database. We inspected the attributes of effects on attention in studies investigating the effects of chewing on attention or alertness conducted with pre-post design in healthy subjects, except elderly. We identified 151 references, 22 of which were included: 14 (64%) showed positive attributes of effects on attention, 1 (5%) showed negative attributes of effects on attention, 5 (23%) showed both positive and negative attributes of effects on attention, and 2 (9%) showed no significant attributes of effects on attention. Thus, positive attributes of effects of chewing on attention, especially on sustained attention, were shown in over half of the reports. These effects also appeared with improvement in mood and stress relief and were influenced by time-on-task effect. Further studies are needed, but chewing could be useful for modifying cognitive function. PMID:26075234

Chewing and Attention: A Positive Effect on Sustained Attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yoshiyuki Hirano

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Chewing is crushing food not only to aid swallowing and digestion, but also to help stress relief and regulate cognitive function, especially in attention. It is well known that chewing gum is used for sleepiness prevention during work, learning, and driving, suggesting a link between chewing and sustained attention. We hypothesized that chewing elevates attention and/or alertness, leading to improvements in cognitive performance. We carried out a systematic review of the PubMed database. We inspected the attributes of effects on attention in studies investigating the effects of chewing on attention or alertness conducted with pre-post design in healthy subjects, except elderly. We identified 151 references, 22 of which were included: 14 (64% showed positive attributes of effects on attention, 1 (5% showed negative attributes of effects on attention, 5 (23% showed both positive and negative attributes of effects on attention, and 2 (9% showed no significant attributes of effects on attention. Thus, positive attributes of effects of chewing on attention, especially on sustained attention, were shown in over half of the reports. These effects also appeared with improvement in mood and stress relief and were influenced by time-on-task effect. Further studies are needed, but chewing could be useful for modifying cognitive function.

Chewing and attention: a positive effect on sustained attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirano, Yoshiyuki; Onozuka, Minoru

2015-01-01

Chewing is crushing food not only to aid swallowing and digestion, but also to help stress relief and regulate cognitive function, especially in attention. It is well known that chewing gum is used for sleepiness prevention during work, learning, and driving, suggesting a link between chewing and sustained attention. We hypothesized that chewing elevates attention and/or alertness, leading to improvements in cognitive performance. We carried out a systematic review of the PubMed database. We inspected the attributes of effects on attention in studies investigating the effects of chewing on attention or alertness conducted with pre-post design in healthy subjects, except elderly. We identified 151 references, 22 of which were included: 14 (64%) showed positive attributes of effects on attention, 1 (5%) showed negative attributes of effects on attention, 5 (23%) showed both positive and negative attributes of effects on attention, and 2 (9%) showed no significant attributes of effects on attention. Thus, positive attributes of effects of chewing on attention, especially on sustained attention, were shown in over half of the reports. These effects also appeared with improvement in mood and stress relief and were influenced by time-on-task effect. Further studies are needed, but chewing could be useful for modifying cognitive function.

Attention and Visuospatial Working Memory Share the Same Processing Resources

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jing eFeng

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Attention and visuospatial working memory (VWM share very similar characteristics; both have the same upper bound of about four items in capacity and they recruit overlapping brain regions. We examined whether both attention and visuospatial working memory share the same processing resources using a novel dual-task-costs approach based on a load-varying dual-task technique. With sufficiently large loads on attention and VWM, considerable interference between the two processes was observed. A further load increase on either process produced reciprocal increases in interference on both processes, indicating that attention and VWM share common resources. More critically, comparison among four experiments on the reciprocal interference effects, as measured by the dual-task costs, demonstrates no significant contribution from additional processing other than the shared processes. These results support the notion that attention and VWM share the same processing resources.

Evaluation of multiple satellite evaporation products in two dryland regions using GRACE

KAUST Repository

Lopez, Oliver

2015-12-01

Remote sensing has become a valuable tool for monitoring the water cycle variables in areas that lack the availability of ground-based measurements. Integrating multiple remote sensing-based estimates of evaporation, precipitation, and the terrestrial water storage changes with local measurements of streamflow into a consistent estimate of the regional water budget is a challenge, due to the scale mismatch among the retrieved variables. Evapotranspiration, including soil evaporation, interception losses and canopy transpiration, has received special focus in a number of recent studies that aim to provide global or regional estimates of evaporation at regular time intervals using a variety of remote sensing input. In arid and semi-arid regions, modeling of evaporation is particularly challenging due to the relatively high role of the soil evaporation component in these regions and the variable nature of rainfall events that drive the evaporation process. In this study, we explore the hydrological consistency of remote sensing products in terms of water budget closure and the correlation among spatial patterns of precipitation (P), evaporation (E) and terrestrial water storage, using P-E as a surrogate of water storage changes, with special attention to the evaporation component. The analysis is undertaken within two dryland regions that have presented recent significant changes in climatology (Murray-Darling Basin in Australia) and water storage (the Saq aquifer in northern Saudi Arabia). Water storage changes were derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spherical harmonic (SH) coefficients. Six remote sensing-based evaporation estimates were subtracted from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP)-based precipitation estimates and were compared with GRACE-derived water storage changes. Our results suggest that it is not possible to close the water balance by using satellite data alone, even when adopting a spherical harmonic

The Attention Cascade Model and Attentional Blink

Science.gov (United States)

Shih, Shui-I

2008-01-01

An attention cascade model is proposed to account for attentional blinks in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of stimuli. Data were collected using single characters in a single RSVP stream at 10 Hz [Shih, S., & Reeves, A. (2007). "Attentional capture in rapid serial visual presentation." "Spatial Vision", 20(4), 301-315], and single words,…

Neural Correlates of Divided Attention in Natural Scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Fagioli, Sabrina; Macaluso, Emiliano

2016-09-01

Individuals are able to split attention between separate locations, but divided spatial attention incurs the additional requirement of monitoring multiple streams of information. Here, we investigated divided attention using photos of natural scenes, where the rapid categorization of familiar objects and prior knowledge about the likely positions of objects in the real world might affect the interplay between these spatial and nonspatial factors. Sixteen participants underwent fMRI during an object detection task. They were presented with scenes containing either a person or a car, located on the left or right side of the photo. Participants monitored either one or both object categories, in one or both visual hemifields. First, we investigated the interplay between spatial and nonspatial attention by comparing conditions of divided attention between categories and/or locations. We then assessed the contribution of top-down processes versus stimulus-driven signals by separately testing the effects of divided attention in target and nontarget trials. The results revealed activation of a bilateral frontoparietal network when dividing attention between the two object categories versus attending to a single category but no main effect of dividing attention between spatial locations. Within this network, the left dorsal premotor cortex and the left intraparietal sulcus were found to combine task- and stimulus-related signals. These regions showed maximal activation when participants monitored two categories at spatially separate locations and the scene included a nontarget object. We conclude that the dorsal frontoparietal cortex integrates top-down and bottom-up signals in the presence of distractors during divided attention in real-world scenes.

“What’s So Special about Special Collections?” Or, Assessing the Value Special Collections Bring to Academic Libraries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elizabeth Yakel

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Objective – The objective of this study was to examine and call attention to the current deficiency in standardized performance measures and usage metrics suited to assessing the value and impact of special collections and archives and their contributions to the mission of academic research libraries and to suggest possible approaches to overcoming the deficiency.Methods – The authors reviewed attempts over the past dozen years by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL to highlight the unique types of value that special collections and archival resources contribute to academic research libraries. They also examined the results of a large survey of special collections and archives conducted by OCLC Research in 2010. In addition, they investigated efforts by the Society of American Archivists (SAA dating back to the 1940s to define standardized metrics for gathering and comparing data about archival operations. Finding that the library and archival communities have thus far failed to develop and adopt common metrics and methods for gathering data about the activities of special collections and archives, the authors explored the potential benefits of borrowing concepts for developing user-centered value propositions and metrics from the business community.Results – This study found that there has been a lack of consensus and precision concerning the definition of “special collections” and the value propositions they offer, and that most attempts have been limited in their usefulness because they were collections-centric. The study likewise reaffirmed a lack of consensus regarding how to define and measure basic operations performed by special collections and archives, such as circulating materials to users in supervised reading rooms. The review of concepts and metrics for assessing value in the business community, however, suggested new approaches to defining metrics that

Health of special educational teachers in the Central Slovenia

OpenAIRE

Bogataj Ivančič, Petra

2014-01-01

The purpose of the thesis was to investigate the health of special education teachers who teach in elementary special schools with lower educational standards in the Central Slovenia region. 89 special education teachers participated in the study, average age 37 years. Data were collected in 2013 through a questionnaire, which was summarized and organized according to the needs of the study from questionnaires Health-related behavioral style (CINDI Slovenia, 2008) and Stress profile questionn...

Sex differences in sensorimotor mu rhythms during selective attentional processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Popovich, C; Dockstader, C; Cheyne, D; Tannock, R

2010-12-01

We used magnetoencephalography to investigate the effect of directed attention on sensorimotor mu (8-12 Hz) response (mu reactivity) to non-painful electrical stimulation of the median nerve in healthy adults. Mu desynchronization in the 10-12 Hz bandwidth is typically observed during higher-order cognitive functions including selective attentional processing of sensorimotor information (Pfurtscheller, Neuper, & Krauz, 2000). We found attention-related sex differences in mu reactivity, with females showing (i) prolonged mu desynchrony when attending to somatosensory stimuli, (ii) attentional modulation of the mu response based on whether attention was directed towards or away from somatosensory stimuli, which was absent in males, and (iii) a trend for greater neuronal excitability of the primary somatosensory region suggesting greater physiological responsiveness to sensory stimulation overall. Our findings suggest sex differences in attentional control strategies when processing somatosensory stimuli, whose salience may be greater for females. These sex differences in attention to somatosensory stimuli may help elucidate the well-documented sex biases in pain processing wherein females typically report greater sensitivity to experimental and clinical pain. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Functional specialization of the left ventral parietal cortex in working memory

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Jennifer Lou Langel

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The function of the ventral parietal cortex (VPC is subject to much debate. Many studies suggest a lateralization of function in the VPC, with the left hemisphere facilitating verbal working memory and the right subserving stimulus-driven attention. However, many attentional tasks elicit activity in the VPC bilaterally. To elucidate the potential divides across the VPC in function, we assessed the pattern of activity in the VPC bilaterally across two tasks that require different demands, an oddball attentional task with low working memory demands and a working memory task. An anterior region of the VPC was bilaterally active during novel targets in the oddball task and during retrieval in WM, while more posterior regions of the VPC displayed dissociable functions in the left and right hemisphere, with the left being active during the encoding and retrieval of WM, but not during the oddball task and the right showing the reverse pattern. These results suggest that bilateral regions of the anterior VPC subserve non-mnemonic processes, such as stimulus-driven attention during WM retrieval and oddball detection. The left posterior VPC may be important for speech-related processing important for both working memory and perception, while the right hemisphere is more lateralized for attention.

Brain activity during divided and selective attention to auditory and visual sentence comprehension tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Moisala, Mona; Salmela, Viljami; Salo, Emma; Carlson, Synnöve; Vuontela, Virve; Salonen, Oili; Alho, Kimmo

2015-01-01

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured brain activity of human participants while they performed a sentence congruence judgment task in either the visual or auditory modality separately, or in both modalities simultaneously. Significant performance decrements were observed when attention was divided between the two modalities compared with when one modality was selectively attended. Compared with selective attention (i.e., single tasking), divided attention (i.e., dual-tasking) did not recruit additional cortical regions, but resulted in increased activity in medial and lateral frontal regions which were also activated by the component tasks when performed separately. Areas involved in semantic language processing were revealed predominantly in the left lateral prefrontal cortex by contrasting incongruent with congruent sentences. These areas also showed significant activity increases during divided attention in relation to selective attention. In the sensory cortices, no crossmodal inhibition was observed during divided attention when compared with selective attention to one modality. Our results suggest that the observed performance decrements during dual-tasking are due to interference of the two tasks because they utilize the same part of the cortex. Moreover, semantic dual-tasking did not appear to recruit additional brain areas in comparison with single tasking, and no crossmodal inhibition was observed during intermodal divided attention.

Brain activity during divided and selective attention to auditory and visual sentence comprehension tasks

Science.gov (United States)

Moisala, Mona; Salmela, Viljami; Salo, Emma; Carlson, Synnöve; Vuontela, Virve; Salonen, Oili; Alho, Kimmo

2015-01-01

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured brain activity of human participants while they performed a sentence congruence judgment task in either the visual or auditory modality separately, or in both modalities simultaneously. Significant performance decrements were observed when attention was divided between the two modalities compared with when one modality was selectively attended. Compared with selective attention (i.e., single tasking), divided attention (i.e., dual-tasking) did not recruit additional cortical regions, but resulted in increased activity in medial and lateral frontal regions which were also activated by the component tasks when performed separately. Areas involved in semantic language processing were revealed predominantly in the left lateral prefrontal cortex by contrasting incongruent with congruent sentences. These areas also showed significant activity increases during divided attention in relation to selective attention. In the sensory cortices, no crossmodal inhibition was observed during divided attention when compared with selective attention to one modality. Our results suggest that the observed performance decrements during dual-tasking are due to interference of the two tasks because they utilize the same part of the cortex. Moreover, semantic dual-tasking did not appear to recruit additional brain areas in comparison with single tasking, and no crossmodal inhibition was observed during intermodal divided attention. PMID:25745395

Chemogenetic Modulation of G Protein-Coupled Receptor Signalling in Visual Attention Research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Søren H; Fitzpatrick, Ciarán Martin; Gether, Ulrik

2017-01-01

Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADDs). The DREADD technology is an emerging and transformative method that allows selective manipulation of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signalling, and its broad-ranging usefulness in attention research is now beginning to emerge. We first describe......Attention is a fundamental cognitive process involved in nearly all aspects of life. Abnormal attentional control is a symptom of many neurological disorders, most notably recognized in ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Although attentional performance and its malfunction has been...... the different DREADDs available and explain how unprecedented specificity of neuronal signalling can be achieved using DREADDs. We next discuss various studies performed in animal models of visual attention, where different brain regions and neuronal populations have been probed by DREADDs. We highlight...

Reducing attentional capture of emotion by broadening attention: increased global attention reduces early electrophysiological responses to negative stimuli.

Science.gov (United States)

Gable, Philip A; Harmon-Jones, Eddie

2012-05-01

Decades of research has shown the influence of emotion on attentional capture, and more recently, the influence of emotion on neurophysiological processes related to attentional capture. The current research tested whether some of the earliest neurophysiological underpinnings of emotive attentional processes can be influenced by attentional manipulations of broadening versus narrowing. Previous research has shown that negative affects high in motivational intensity (e.g., disgust, fear) cause a relative narrowing of attentional scope (Gable and Harmon-Jones, 2010a; Easterbrook, 1959). Because of the strong link between motivation and attention, attentional scope should also influence the attentional capture of negative stimuli. The current study manipulated a local attentional scope or global attentional scope, then measured attentional capture towards disgust and neutral pictures using the N1 event-related potential component. Results revealed that a manipulated global attentional scope reduced N1 amplitude towards disgust pictures compared to a manipulated local attentional scope. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Neurophysiological correlates of attention behavior in early infancy: Implications for emotion regulation during early childhood

Science.gov (United States)

Perry, Nicole B.; Swingler, Margaret M.; Calkins, Susan D.; Bell, Martha Ann

2015-01-01

Current theoretical conceptualizations of regulatory development suggest that attention processes and emotion regulation processes share common neurophysiological underpinnings and behavioral antecedents such that emotion regulation abilities may build upon early attentional skills. To further elucidate this proposed relationship, we tested whether early neurophysiological processes measured during an attention task in infancy predicted in-task attention behavior, and whether infant's attention behavior was subsequently associated with their ability to regulate emotion in early childhood (N=388). Results indicated that, greater EEG power change (from baseline to task) at medial frontal locations (F3 and F4) during an attention task at 10 months were associated with concurrent observed behavioral attention. Specifically, greater change in EEG power at the right frontal location (F4) was associated with more attention, and greater EEG power at the left frontal location (F3) was associated with less attention, indicating a potential right hemisphere specialization for attention processes already present in the first year of life. In addition, after controlling for 5-month attention behavior, increased behavioral attention at 10-months was negatively associated with children's observed frustration to emotional challenge at age 3. Finally, the indirect effects from 10-month EEG power change at F3 and F4 to 3-year emotion regulation via infants' 10-month behavioral attention were significant, suggesting that infant's attention behavior is one mechanism through which early neurophysiological activity is related to emotion regulation abilities in childhood. PMID:26381926

77 FR 77178 - 2013 Special 301 Review: Identification of Countries Under Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-12-31

... special attention. Section 182 contains a special rule regarding actions of Canada affecting U.S. cultural... that affects cultural industries, is adopted or expanded after December 17, 1992, and is actionable... practices. Any comments that include quantitative loss claims should be accompanied by the methodology used...

POSSIBLE GLOBAL AND REGIONAL EVOLUTIONS OF GEOPOLITICS IN THE XXI CENTURY (II

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Constantin MINCU

2013-12-01

Full Text Available In the paper, the author briefly presents possible global and regional evolutions of geopolitics in the XXI century grounded on the analysis of some regards expressed by foreign and Romanian specialists in many papers appeared in the late years on this subject. A special attention is granted to the book published by STRATFOR founder George FRIEDMAN “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century”, edited in Romania to the Litera Publishing House in 2012. The evolutions forecasted on medium and long term will practically damage all Earth’s population and its regions, with dramatic consequences on economic, financial, social, military and environmental plan. The most of the geopolitics’ specialists appreciate with arguments and grounded there will be following intricate decades with riots and wars with spectacular up side downs of situations and major reconfigurations of areas of influence of major powers with important influences also over Romania.

Capturing Attention When Attention "Blinks"

Science.gov (United States)

Wee, Serena; Chua, Fook K.

2004-01-01

Four experiments addressed the question of whether attention may be captured when the visual system is in the midst of an attentional blink (AB). Participants identified 2 target letters embedded among distractor letters in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence. In some trials, a square frame was inserted between the targets; as the only…

Neural Determinants of Task Performance during Feature-Based Attention in Human Cortex

Science.gov (United States)

Gong, Mengyuan

2018-01-01

Abstract Studies of feature-based attention have associated activity in a dorsal frontoparietal network with putative attentional priority signals. Yet, how this neural activity mediates attentional selection and whether it guides behavior are fundamental questions that require investigation. We reasoned that endogenous fluctuations in the quality of attentional priority should influence task performance. Human subjects detected a speed increment while viewing clockwise (CW) or counterclockwise (CCW) motion (baseline task) or while attending to either direction amid distracters (attention task). In an fMRI experiment, direction-specific neural pattern similarity between the baseline task and the attention task revealed a higher level of similarity for correct than incorrect trials in frontoparietal regions. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we disrupted posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and found a selective deficit in the attention task, but not in the baseline task, demonstrating the necessity of this cortical area during feature-based attention. These results reveal that frontoparietal areas maintain attentional priority that facilitates successful behavioral selection. PMID:29497703

Representing Space through the Interplay between Attention and Multisensory Integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emiliano Macaluso

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Multisensory integration has been traditionally thought to rely on a restricted set of multisensory brain areas, and to occur automatically and pre-attentively. More recently, it has become evident that multisensory interactions can be found almost everywhere in the brain, including areas involved in attention control and areas modulated by attention. In a series of fMRI experiments, we manipulated concurrently the position of multisensory stimuli and the distribution of spatial attention. This enabled us to highlight the role of high-order fronto-parietal areas, as well as sensory-specific occipital cortex, for multisensory processing and spatial attention control. We found that specific task constraints regarding the nature of attentional deployment (endogenous vs. exogenous, the spatial relationship between stimulus position and attended location, and attentional load shape the interplay between attention and multisensory processing. We suggest that multisensory integration acts as a saliency-defining process that can interact with attentional control beyond any within-modality mechanism. We propose that an anatomically-distributed, but functionally-integrated, representation of space makes use of multisensory interactions to help attention selecting relevant spatial locations. Stimuli at the attended location undergo enhanced processing, including boosting of multisensory signals there. In this perspective, attention and multisensory integration operate in an interactive manner jointly determining the activity of a wide-spread network that includes high-order fronto-parietal regions and sensory-specific areas.

Attention deficit and attention training in early twentieth-century Japan.

Science.gov (United States)

Takeda, Toshinobu; Ando, Mizuho; Kumagai, Keiko

2015-06-01

Yuzero Motora (1856-1912), regarded as the first professional Japanese psychologist, tried to address students' attention difficulties through attention training methods of his own design. His reports contain the first description of ADHD-like symptoms in the history of Japan. Motora viewed "distractibility" as the irregular transition of attention. Students with low scores and attention difficulties who participated in Motora's exercises showed improvement in arithmetic, psychological testing, and certain aspects of daily life. This article describes Motora's theoretical conception of attention and attention training methodology, the history of attention deficit and attention training, and the significance of Motora's experiments.

Outcome of severely injured trauma patients at a designated trauma centre in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Science.gov (United States)

Leung, Ka Kit Gilberto; Ho, Wendy; Tong, King Hung Daniel; Yuen, Wai Key

2010-05-20

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has seen significant changes in its trauma service over the last ten years including the implementation of a regional trauma system. The author's institution is one of the five trauma centres designated in 2003. This article reports our initial clinical experience. A prospective single-centre trauma registry from January 2004 to December 2008 was reviewed. The primary clinical outcome measure was hospital mortality. The Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS) methodology was used for bench-marking with the North America Major Trauma Outcome Study (MTOS) database. There were 1451 patients. The majority (83.9%) suffered from blunt injury. The overall mortality rate was 7.8%. Severe injury, defined as the Injury Severity Score > 15, occurred in 22.5% of patients, and was associated with a mortality rate of 31.6%. A trend of progressive improvement was noted. The M-statistic was 0.99, indicating comparable case-mix with the MTOS. The Z- and W-statistics of each individual year revealed fewer, but not significantly so, number of survivors than expected. Trauma centre designation was feasible in the HKSAR and was associated with a gradual improvement in patient care. Trauma system implementation may be considered in regions equipped with the necessary socio-economic and organizational set-up.

Preserving food in Asia and the Pacific region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1982-03-15

At this time of increasing world population there is greater need than ever before to produce more food, especially in developing countries which have the fastest growth of population. Equally important, but often overlooked by most authorities, is the need to preserve food after harvest so that losses are reduced, more food is available, and the investment and energy employed in food production is effectively used. One method of reducing losses is to use ionizing energy in the form of gamma rays, electron, or X-rays to prevent food from spoiling because of micro-organisms, insect pests or physiological factors. This method can treat food in the final package without significantly altering its physico-chemical characteristics. The technique has been much studied in many countries over the past three decades. As most countries in the Asian and Pacific region are in tropical zones which make food especially vulnerable to spoilage losses this technique has received wide attention from food and nuclear scientists. In 1979, the Agency and the Government of Japan sponsored a special mission to evaluate the state of the art of this technology in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. It was evident from the mission's report that most of these countries not only have active research and development programmes in the use of ionizing energy for food preservation but also are anxious to develop their programmes to reach practical application. Moreover, most countries in Asia and the Pacific have a common interest in using this technology to preserve fishery products, tropical fruits, onions, and spices. Consequently, the Government of Japan agreed to sponsor a research programme in this field as one of the Co-ordinated Research Programmes of the Food Preservation Section of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Isotope and Radiation Applications of Atomic Energy for Food and Agricultural Development. Started in 1980, the project will last for three years

Preserving food in Asia and the Pacific region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1982-01-01

At this time of increasing world population there is greater need than ever before to produce more food, especially in developing countries which have the fastest growth of population. Equally important, but often overlooked by most authorities, is the need to preserve food after harvest so that losses are reduced, more food is available, and the investment and energy employed in food production is effectively used. One method of reducing losses is to use ionizing energy in the form of gamma rays, electron, or X-rays to prevent food from spoiling because of micro-organisms, insect pests or physiological factors. This method can treat food in the final package without significantly altering its physico-chemical characteristics. The technique has been much studied in many countries over the past three decades. As most countries in the Asian and Pacific region are in tropical zones which make food especially vulnerable to spoilage losses this technique has received wide attention from food and nuclear scientists. In 1979, the Agency and the Government of Japan sponsored a special mission to evaluate the state of the art of this technology in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. It was evident from the mission's report that most of these countries not only have active research and development programmes in the use of ionizing energy for food preservation but also are anxious to develop their programmes to reach practical application. Moreover, most countries in Asia and the Pacific have a common interest in using this technology to preserve fishery products, tropical fruits, onions, and spices. Consequently, the Government of Japan agreed to sponsor a research programme in this field as one of the Co-ordinated Research Programmes of the Food Preservation Section of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Isotope and Radiation Applications of Atomic Energy for Food and Agricultural Development. Started in 1980, the project will last for three years

Regional Difference in Specialization Coefficients of Physicians in Nagasaki, Japan

OpenAIRE

Tanimura, Susumu; Mizota, Tsutomu

2004-01-01

In the comparison of municipalities with respect to the medical human resources, not only the number of physicians but also the distribution of their medical practice is important. The objective of the present study was to develop an index appropriate for comparing relatively small municipalities regarding the distribution of physician's medical practice and to apply it to Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. We modified the specialization coefficient using Bayesian smoothing technique and used it as ...

Social Image Captioning: Exploring Visual Attention and User Attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leiquan Wang

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Image captioning with a natural language has been an emerging trend. However, the social image, associated with a set of user-contributed tags, has been rarely investigated for a similar task. The user-contributed tags, which could reflect the user attention, have been neglected in conventional image captioning. Most existing image captioning models cannot be applied directly to social image captioning. In this work, a dual attention model is proposed for social image captioning by combining the visual attention and user attention simultaneously.Visual attention is used to compress a large mount of salient visual information, while user attention is applied to adjust the description of the social images with user-contributed tags. Experiments conducted on the Microsoft (MS COCO dataset demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method of dual attention.

Social Image Captioning: Exploring Visual Attention and User Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Leiquan; Chu, Xiaoliang; Zhang, Weishan; Wei, Yiwei; Sun, Weichen; Wu, Chunlei

2018-02-22

Image captioning with a natural language has been an emerging trend. However, the social image, associated with a set of user-contributed tags, has been rarely investigated for a similar task. The user-contributed tags, which could reflect the user attention, have been neglected in conventional image captioning. Most existing image captioning models cannot be applied directly to social image captioning. In this work, a dual attention model is proposed for social image captioning by combining the visual attention and user attention simultaneously.Visual attention is used to compress a large mount of salient visual information, while user attention is applied to adjust the description of the social images with user-contributed tags. Experiments conducted on the Microsoft (MS) COCO dataset demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method of dual attention.

Regional Growth and Unemployment: The Validity of Okun's Law for the Finnish Regions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kangasharju, A.; Tavera, C.; Nijkamp, P.

2012-01-01

This paper offers a concise critical overview of Okun's Law, with particular attention for its relevance in open economic systems of regions. Based on an extensive set of economic data for Finnish regions, the existence of cointegration is tested using alternative statistical methods, viz. the

Projections of Heat Waves Events in the Intra-Americas Region Using Multimodel Ensemble

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moises Angeles-Malaspina

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Significant accelerated warming of the Sea Surface Temperature of 0.15°C per decade (1982–2012 was recently detected, which motivated the research for the present consequences and future projections on the heat index and heat waves in the intra-Americas region. Present records every six hours are retrieved from NCEP reanalysis (1948–2015 to calculate heat waves changes. Heat index intensification has been detected in the region since 1998 and driven by surface pressure changes, sinking air enhancement, and warm/weaker cold advection. This regional warmer atmosphere leads to heat waves intensification with changes in both frequency and maximum amplitude distribution. Future projections using a multimodel ensemble mean for five global circulation models were used to project heat waves in the future under two scenarios: RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Massive heat waves events were projected at the end of the 21st century, particularly in the RCP8.5 scenario. Consequently, the regional climate change in the current time and in the future will require special attention to mitigate the more intense and frequent heat waves impacts on human health, countries’ economies, and energy demands in the IAR.

Regional Dimensions of the Triple Helix Model: Setting the Context

Science.gov (United States)

Todeva, Emanuela; Danson, Mike

2016-01-01

This paper introduces the rationale for the special issue and its contributions, which bridge the literature on regional development and the Triple Helix model. The concept of the Triple Helix at the sub-national, and specifically regional, level is established and examined, with special regard to regional economic development founded on…

Attentional Modulation of Brain Responses to Primary Appetitive and Aversive Stimuli

Science.gov (United States)

Field, Brent A.; Buck, Cara L.; McClure, Samuel M.; Nystrom, Leigh E.; Kahneman, Daniel; Cohen, Jonathan D.

2015-01-01

Studies of subjective well-being have conventionally relied upon self-report, which directs subjects’ attention to their emotional experiences. This method presumes that attention itself does not influence emotional processes, which could bias sampling. We tested whether attention influences experienced utility (the moment-by-moment experience of pleasure) by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the activity of brain systems thought to represent hedonic value while manipulating attentional load. Subjects received appetitive or aversive solutions orally while alternatively executing a low or high attentional load task. Brain regions associated with hedonic processing, including the ventral striatum, showed a response to both juice and quinine. This response decreased during the high-load task relative to the low-load task. Thus, attentional allocation may influence experienced utility by modulating (either directly or indirectly) the activity of brain mechanisms thought to represent hedonic value. PMID:26158468

Attentional Modulation of Brain Responses to Primary Appetitive and Aversive Stimuli.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brent A Field

Full Text Available Studies of subjective well-being have conventionally relied upon self-report, which directs subjects' attention to their emotional experiences. This method presumes that attention itself does not influence emotional processes, which could bias sampling. We tested whether attention influences experienced utility (the moment-by-moment experience of pleasure by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI to measure the activity of brain systems thought to represent hedonic value while manipulating attentional load. Subjects received appetitive or aversive solutions orally while alternatively executing a low or high attentional load task. Brain regions associated with hedonic processing, including the ventral striatum, showed a response to both juice and quinine. This response decreased during the high-load task relative to the low-load task. Thus, attentional allocation may influence experienced utility by modulating (either directly or indirectly the activity of brain mechanisms thought to represent hedonic value.

Investigations on the size of inhibitory region in selective tuning model of attention

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Lukavský, Jiří

2008-01-01

Roč. 37, Supplement (2008), 53 s. [European Conferenceon Visual Perception ,. 24.08.2008-28.08.2008, Utrecht] R&D Projects: GA ČR GA406/07/1676 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z70250504 Keywords : attention * visual perception * inhibition model Subject RIV: AN - Psychology

Selective Attention and Attention Switching: Towards a Unified Developmental Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Hanania, Rima; Smith, Linda B.

2010-01-01

We review and relate two literatures on the development of attention in children: one concerning flexible attention switching and the other concerning selective attention. The first is a growing literature on preschool children's performances in an attention-switching task indicating that children become more flexible in their attentional control…

The attentional blink in amblyopia.

Science.gov (United States)

Popple, Ariella V; Levi, Dennis M

2008-10-31

Amblyopia is a disorder of visual acuity in one eye, thought to arise from suppression by the other eye during development of the visual cortex. In the attentional blink, the second of two targets (T2) in a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) stream is difficult to detect and identify when it appears shortly but not immediately after the first target (T1). We investigated the attentional blink seen through amblyopic eyes and found that it was less finely tuned in time than when the 12 amblyopic observers viewed the stimuli with their preferred eyes. T2 performance was slightly better through amblyopic eyes two frames after T1 but worse one frame after T1. Previously (A. V. Popple & D. M. Levi, 2007), we showed that when the targets were red letters in a stream of gray letters (or vice versa), normal observers frequently confused T2 with the letters before and after it (neighbor errors). Observers viewing through their amblyopic eyes made significantly fewer neighbor errors and more T2 responses consisting of letters that were never presented. In normal observers, T1 (on the rare occasions when it was reported incorrectly) was often confused with the letter immediately after it. Viewing through their amblyopic eyes, observers with amblyopia made more responses to the letter immediately before T1. These results suggest that childhood suppression of the input from amblyopic eyes disrupts attentive processing. We hypothesize reduced connectivity between monocularly tuned lower visual areas, subcortical structures that drive foveal attention, and more frontal regions of the brain responsible for letter recognition and working memory. Perhaps when viewing through their amblyopic eyes, the observers were still processing the letter identity of a prior distractor when the color flash associated with the target was detected. After T1, unfocused temporal attention may have bound together erroneously the features of succeeding letters, resulting in the appearance of

Medium-sized water reactors for undeveloped regions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Osmachkin, V. S.

2004-01-01

In the new century the growth of population and an increasing of energy demands together with the difficulties of fossil fuel supply are expected. It is important to find optimal ways in solving such problems without the climate warming. The nuclear power having many advantages in comparison with fossil fuel technologies could play the great role in near future. The Medium-Sized Nuclear Reactors for production of electricity, heat and fresh water are considered as a main direction of nuclear power applications in the developing world It is important to discuss the requirements to such nuclear plants for using in the Countries with Small and Medium Electricity Grids. Particularly, cost-benefit analysis of construction NPP has to include assessment of all type risks and effectiveness of plant. In the paper an attention is paid on Water Reactors designed on the basis of navy technology. Such compact PWR built on special mills and placed on special floating vessel could be used in undeveloped regions. Total plant can be transported to any point of World Ocean and return back to mill for repair or decommissioning after exhaustion of lifetime. It is expected that such reactors with innovative design approach, provision of high safety and proper economic efficiency, based on leasing procedures, could be very attractive for medium-sized and developing countries.(author)

Functional connectivity of parietal cortex during temporal selective attention.

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Tyler, Sarah C; Dasgupta, Samhita; Agosta, Sara; Battelli, Lorella; Grossman, Emily D

2015-04-01

Perception of natural experiences requires allocation of attention towards features, objects, and events that are moving and changing over time. This allocation of attention is controlled by large-scale brain networks that, when damaged, cause widespread cognitive deficits. In particular, damage to ventral parietal cortex (right lateralized TPJ, STS, supramarginal and angular gyri) is associated with failures to selectively attend to and isolate features embedded within rapidly changing visual sequences (Battelli, Pascual-Leone, & Cavanagh, 2007; Husain, Shapiro, Martin, & Kennard, 1997). In this study, we used fMRI to investigate the neural activity and functional connectivity of intact parietal cortex while typical subjects judged the relative onsets and offsets of rapidly flickering tokens (a phase discrimination task in which right parietal patients are impaired). We found two regions in parietal cortex correlated with task performance: a bilateral posterior TPJ (pTPJ) and an anterior right-lateralized TPJ (R aTPJ). Both regions were deactivated when subjects engaged in the task but showed different patterns of functional connectivity. The bilateral pTPJ was strongly connected to nodes within the default mode network (DMN) and the R aTPJ was connected to the attention network. Accurate phase discriminations were associated with increased functional correlations between sensory cortex (hMT+) and the bilateral pTPJ, whereas accuracy on a control task was associated with yoked activity in the hMT+ and the R aTPJ. We conclude that temporal selective attention is particularly sensitive for revealing information pathways between sensory and core cognitive control networks that, when damaged, can lead to nonspatial attention impairments in right parietal stroke patients. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

How specialized are writing-specific brain regions? An fMRI study of writing, drawing and oral spelling.

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Planton, Samuel; Longcamp, Marieke; Péran, Patrice; Démonet, Jean-François; Jucla, Mélanie

2017-03-01

Several brain imaging studies identified brain regions that are consistently involved in writing tasks; the left premotor and superior parietal cortices have been associated with the peripheral components of writing performance as opposed to other regions that support the central, orthographic components. Based on a meta-analysis by Planton, Jucla, Roux, and Demonet (2013), we focused on five such writing areas and questioned the task-specificity and hemispheric lateralization profile of the brain response in an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment where 16 right-handed participants wrote down, spelled out orally object names, and drew shapes from object pictures. All writing-related areas were activated by drawing, and some of them by oral spelling, thus questioning their specialization for written production. The graphemic/motor frontal area (GMFA), a subpart of the superior premotor cortex close to Exner's area (Roux et al., 2009), was the only area with a writing-specific lateralization profile, that is, clear left lateralization during handwriting, and bilateral activity during drawing. Furthermore, the relative lateralization and levels of activation in the superior parietal cortex, ventral premotor cortex, ventral occipitotemporal cortex and right cerebellum across the three tasks brought out new evidence regarding their respective contributions to the writing processes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Timing divided attention.

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Hogendoorn, Hinze; Carlson, Thomas A; VanRullen, Rufin; Verstraten, Frans A J

2010-11-01

Visual attention can be divided over multiple objects or locations. However, there is no single theoretical framework within which the effects of dividing attention can be interpreted. In order to develop such a model, here we manipulated the stage of visual processing at which attention was divided, while simultaneously probing the costs of dividing attention on two dimensions. We show that dividing attention incurs dissociable time and precision costs, which depend on whether attention is divided during monitoring or during access. Dividing attention during monitoring resulted in progressively delayed access to attended locations as additional locations were monitored, as well as a one-off precision cost. When dividing attention during access, time costs were systematically lower at one of the accessed locations than at the other, indicating that divided attention during access, in fact, involves rapid sequential allocation of undivided attention. We propose a model in which divided attention is understood as the simultaneous parallel preparation and subsequent sequential execution of multiple shifts of undivided attention. This interpretation has the potential to bring together diverse findings from both the divided-attention and saccade preparation literature and provides a framework within which to integrate the broad spectrum of divided-attention methodologies.

Radioecological substantiation of specialization of the farms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Averin, V.S.; Baranov, A.A.; Zhuchenko, Yu.M.; Kalinichenko, S.A.; Osipenko, A.N.; Timofeev, S.F.; Tsurankov, Eh.N.; Tsygvintsev, P.N.

2004-01-01

Actual point that determines socio-economic development of region is production that should correspond to the radiation protection laws. One of the possible ways to solve the problem is specialization of farms. (Authors)

Connectivity supporting attention in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anita D. Barber

2015-01-01

While CON–DMN anti-correlation is associated with improved attention in ADHD, other circuitry supports improved attention in TD children. Greater CON–DMN anti-correlation supported better attentional control in children with ADHD, but worse attentional control in TD children. On the other hand, greater DMN–occipital anti-correlation supported better attentional control in TD children.

Motor performance of pupils with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

OpenAIRE

Otipková, Zuzana

2012-01-01

Title: Motor performance of pupils with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Objectives: The aim of the work was to determine the level of fine and gross motor skills of upper extremities of the pupils with diagnosis ADHD at schools specialized on these pupils and compare it with the fine and gross motor skills of upper extremities of children without this diagnosis at common elementary school. Further work objective was to determine the level of gross motor skills of lower limbs ...

Inferior parietal and right frontal contributions to trial-by-trial adaptations of attention to memory.

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Kizilirmak, Jasmin M; Rösler, Frank; Bien, Siegfried; Khader, Patrick H

2015-07-21

The attention to memory theory (AtoM) proposes that the same brain regions might be involved in selective processing of perceived stimuli (selective attention) and memory representations (selective retrieval). Although this idea is compelling, given consistently found neural overlap between perceiving and remembering stimuli, recent comparisons brought evidence for overlap as well as considerable differences. Here, we present a paradigm that enables the investigation of the AtoM hypothesis from a novel perspective to gain further insight into the neural resources involved in AtoM. Selective attention in perception is often investigated as a control process that shows lingering effects on immediately following trials. Here, we employed a paradigm capable of modulating selective retrieval in a similarly dynamic manner as in such selective-attention paradigms by inducing trial-to-trial shifts between relevant and irrelevant memory representations as well as changes of the width of the internal focus on memory. We found evidence for an involvement of bilateral inferior parietal lobe and right inferior frontal gyrus in reorienting the attentional focus on previously accessed memory representations. Moreover, we could dissociate the right inferior from the parietal activation in separate contrasts, suggesting that the right inferior frontal gyrus plays a role in facilitating attentional reorienting to memory representations when competing representations have been activated in the preceding trial, potentially by resolving this competition. Our results support the AtoM theory, i.e. that ventral frontal and parietal regions are involved in automatic attentional reorienting in memory, and highlight the importance of further investigations of the overlap and differences between regions involved in internal (memory) and external (perceptual) attentional selection. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Life Insurance In Russia: Features Of Regional Development

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Evgenia Leonidovna Prokopjeva

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Life insurance is the economic tool allowing to accumulate large monetary funds at the level of the country, regions and certain insurers, and also providing growth of a standard of living of citizens and social stability in society. Subject matter of the research is the economic aspects of development of life insurance in regions of Russia. The purpose of the work — to carry out the comparative analysis of functioning of the markets for life insurance in territorial subjects of the Russian Federation, to reveal regularities and distinctive features of development of the markets and to define further prospects of branch. Methods of research: analysis, comparison, induction, analogy, mathematical modeling were used. The main results of research: life insurance — a demanded financial product in Moscow, but in regions of Russia demand for it is extremely limited; economic indicators of the market have low values and vary on territorial subjects of the Russian Federation; statistics of a variation confirm heterogeneity of functioning of the life insurance marketin comparison with the insurance market in general; life insurance volumes in regions of Russia significantly depend on activity of real sector of economy, thus have practically no close interrelation with the income of the population. Collaboration of authorities of all levels and insurance community is necessary for effective development of the life insurance marketin regions. The special attention has to be paid to price policy of insurers, increase of transparency of the movement of their financial streams and guarantees of recoverability of means of insurers.

Exploratory eye movements to pictures in childhood-onset schizophrenia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

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Karatekin, C; Asarnow, R F

1999-02-01

We investigated exploratory eye movements to thematic pictures in schizophrenic, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and normal children. For each picture, children were asked three questions varying in amount of structure. We tested if schizophrenic children would stare or scan extensively and if their scan patterns were differentially affected by the question. Time spent viewing relevant and irrelevant regions, fixation duration (an estimate of processing rate), and distance between fixations (an estimate of breadth of attention) were measured. ADHD children showed a trend toward shorter fixations than normals on the question requiring the most detailed analysis. Schizophrenic children looked at fewer relevant, but not more irrelevant, regions than normals. They showed a tendency to stare more when asked to decide what was happening but not when asked to attend to specific regions. Thus, lower levels of visual attention (e.g., basic control of eye movements) were intact in schizophrenic children. In contrast, they had difficulty with top-down control of selective attention in the service of self-guided behavior.

Spatiotemporal oscillatory dynamics of visual selective attention during a flanker task.

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McDermott, Timothy J; Wiesman, Alex I; Proskovec, Amy L; Heinrichs-Graham, Elizabeth; Wilson, Tony W

2017-08-01

The flanker task is a test of visual selective attention that has been widely used to probe error monitoring, response conflict, and related constructs. However, to date, few studies have focused on the selective attention component of this task and imaged the underlying oscillatory dynamics serving task performance. In this study, 21 healthy adults successfully completed an arrow-based version of the Eriksen flanker task during magnetoencephalography (MEG). All MEG data were pre-processed and transformed into the time-frequency domain. Significant oscillatory brain responses were imaged using a beamforming approach, and voxel time series were extracted from the peak responses to identify the temporal dynamics. Across both congruent and incongruent flanker conditions, our results indicated robust decreases in alpha (9-12Hz) activity in medial and lateral occipital regions, bilateral parietal cortices, and cerebellar areas during task performance. In parallel, increases in theta (3-7Hz) oscillatory activity were detected in dorsal and ventral frontal regions, and the anterior cingulate. As per conditional effects, stronger alpha responses (i.e., greater desynchronization) were observed in parietal, occipital, and cerebellar cortices during incongruent relative to congruent trials, whereas the opposite pattern emerged for theta responses (i.e., synchronization) in the anterior cingulate, left dorsolateral prefrontal, and ventral prefrontal cortices. Interestingly, the peak latency of theta responses in these latter brain regions was significantly correlated with reaction time, and may partially explain the amplitude difference observed between congruent and incongruent trials. Lastly, whole-brain exploratory analyses implicated the frontal eye fields, right temporoparietal junction, and premotor cortices. These findings suggest that regions of both the dorsal and ventral attention networks contribute to visual selective attention processes during incongruent trials

Cognitive programs: Software for attention's executive

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John K Tsotsos

2014-11-01

Full Text Available What are the computational tasks that an executive controller for visual attention must solve? This question is posed in the context of the Selective Tuning model of attention. The range of required computations go beyond top-down bias signals or region-of-interest determinations, and must deal with overt and covert fixations, process timing and synchronization, information routing, memory, matching control to task, spatial localization, priming, and coordination of bottom-up with top-down information. During task execution, results must be monitored to ensure the expected results. This description includes the kinds of elements that are common in the control of any kind of complex machine or system. We seek a mechanistic integration of the above, in other words, algorithms that accomplish control. Such algorithms operate on representations, transforming a representation of one kind into another, which then forms the input to yet another algorithm. Cognitive Programs (CPs are hypothesized to capture exactly such representational transformations via stepwise sequences of operations. CPs, an updated and modernized offspring of Ullman's Visual Routines, impose an algorithmic structure to the set of attentional functions and play a role in the overall shaping of attentional modulation of the visual system so that it provides its best performance. This requires that we consider the visual system as a dynamic, yet general-purpose processor tuned to the task and input of the moment. This differs dramatically from the almost universal cognitive and computational views, which regard vision as a passively observing module to which simple questions about percepts can be posed, regardless of task. Differing from Visual Routines, CPs explicitly involve the critical elements of Visual Task Executive, Visual Attention Executive, and Visual Working Memory. Cognitive Programs provide the software that directs the actions of the Selective Tuning model of visual

Attention-spreading based on hierarchical spatial representations for connected objects.

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Kasai, Tetsuko

2010-01-01

Attention selects objects or groups as the most fundamental unit, and this may be achieved through a process in which attention automatically spreads throughout their entire region. Previously, we found that a lateralized potential relative to an attended hemifield at occipito-temporal electrode sites reflects attention-spreading in response to connected bilateral stimuli [Kasai, T., & Kondo, M. Electrophysiological correlates of attention-spreading in visual grouping. NeuroReport, 18, 93-98, 2007]. The present study examined the nature of object representations by manipulating the extent of grouping through connectedness, while controlling the symmetrical structure of bilateral stimuli. The electrophysiological results of two experiments consistently indicated that attention was guided twice in association with perceptual grouping in the early phase (N1, 150-200 msec poststimulus) and with the unity of an object in the later phase (N2pc, 310/330-390 msec). This suggests that there are two processes in object-based spatial selection, and these are discussed with regard to their cognitive mechanisms and object representations.

ANTI-TERROR POLICY OF UZBEKISTAN IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE REGIONAL ANTI-TERRORIST POLICY OF THE SCO

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С П Базылева

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The beginning of the XXI century was marked by a number of serious problems, including cancer, world hunger, environmental problems and increasing every year the problem of global terrorism, which poses a great threat to the security of the modern multipolar world. Uzbekistan today occupies a firm position in fight against terrorist threat. The principled position of Uzbekistan in the fight against terrorism is that “no country should exclude their participation in the fight against global terrorism, there must be no transit zones and "green corridors" for terrorist organizations”. The Central Asian region is one of the most vulnerable, because it is necessary to pay special attention to the strategy of the anti-terrorist security of the countries included in the structure of the Central Asian region. In this article, we consider the anti-terrorist policy of Uzbekistan in the framework of the regional anti-terrorist policy of the SCO.

The attention habit: how reward learning shapes attentional selection.

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Anderson, Brian A

2016-04-01

There is growing consensus that reward plays an important role in the control of attention. Until recently, reward was thought to influence attention indirectly by modulating task-specific motivation and its effects on voluntary control over selection. Such an account was consistent with the goal-directed (endogenous) versus stimulus-driven (exogenous) framework that had long dominated the field of attention research. Now, a different perspective is emerging. Demonstrations that previously reward-associated stimuli can automatically capture attention even when physically inconspicuous and task-irrelevant challenge previously held assumptions about attentional control. The idea that attentional selection can be value driven, reflecting a distinct and previously unrecognized control mechanism, has gained traction. Since these early demonstrations, the influence of reward learning on attention has rapidly become an area of intense investigation, sparking many new insights. The result is an emerging picture of how the reward system of the brain automatically biases information processing. Here, I review the progress that has been made in this area, synthesizing a wealth of recent evidence to provide an integrated, up-to-date account of value-driven attention and some of its broader implications. © 2015 New York Academy of Sciences.

Auditory attention enhances processing of positive and negative words in inferior and superior prefrontal cortex.

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Wegrzyn, Martin; Herbert, Cornelia; Ethofer, Thomas; Flaisch, Tobias; Kissler, Johanna

2017-11-01

Visually presented emotional words are processed preferentially and effects of emotional content are similar to those of explicit attention deployment in that both amplify visual processing. However, auditory processing of emotional words is less well characterized and interactions between emotional content and task-induced attention have not been fully understood. Here, we investigate auditory processing of emotional words, focussing on how auditory attention to positive and negative words impacts their cerebral processing. A Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study manipulating word valence and attention allocation was performed. Participants heard negative, positive and neutral words to which they either listened passively or attended by counting negative or positive words, respectively. Regardless of valence, active processing compared to passive listening increased activity in primary auditory cortex, left intraparietal sulcus, and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG). The attended valence elicited stronger activity in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left SFG, in line with these regions' role in semantic retrieval and evaluative processing. No evidence for valence-specific attentional modulation in auditory regions or distinct valence-specific regional activations (i.e., negative > positive or positive > negative) was obtained. Thus, allocation of auditory attention to positive and negative words can substantially increase their processing in higher-order language and evaluative brain areas without modulating early stages of auditory processing. Inferior and superior frontal brain structures mediate interactions between emotional content, attention, and working memory when prosodically neutral speech is processed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Exogenous orienting of attention depends upon the ability to execute eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Daniel T; Rorden, Chris; Jackson, Stephen R

2004-05-04

Shifts of attention can be made overtly by moving the eyes or covertly with attention being allocated to a region of space that does not correspond to the current direction of gaze. However, the precise relationship between eye movements and the covert orienting of attention remains controversial. The influential premotor theory proposes that the covert orienting of attention is produced by the programming of (unexecuted) eye movements and thus predicts a strong relationship between the ability to execute eye movements and the operation of spatial attention. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that impaired spatial attention is observed in an individual (AI) who is neurologically healthy but who cannot execute eye movements as a result of a congenital impairment in the elasticity of her eye muscles. This finding provides direct support for the role of the eye-movement system in the covert orienting of attention and suggests that whereas intact cortical structures may be necessary for normal attentional reflexes, they are not sufficient. The ability to move our eyes is essential for the development of normal patterns of spatial attention.

Connectivity supporting attention in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Barber, Anita D; Jacobson, Lisa A; Wexler, Joanna L; Nebel, Mary Beth; Caffo, Brian S; Pekar, James J; Mostofsky, Stewart H

2015-01-01

Intra-subject variability (ISV) is the most consistent behavioral deficit in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ISV may be associated with networks involved in sustaining task control (cingulo-opercular network: CON) and self-reflective lapses of attention (default mode network: DMN). The current study examined whether connectivity supporting attentional control is atypical in children with ADHD. Group differences in full-brain connection strength and brain-behavior associations with attentional control measures were examined for the late-developing CON and DMN in 50 children with ADHD and 50 typically-developing (TD) controls (ages 8-12 years). Children with ADHD had hyper-connectivity both within the CON and within the DMN. Full-brain behavioral associations were found for a number of between-network connections. Across both groups, more anti-correlation between DMN and occipital cortex supported better attentional control. However, in the TD group, this brain-behavior association was stronger and occurred for a more extensive set of DMN-occipital connections. Differential support for attentional control between the two groups occurred with a number of CON-DMN connections. For all CON-DMN connections identified, increased between-network anti-correlation was associated with better attentional control for the ADHD group, but worse attentional control in the TD group. A number of between-network connections with the medial frontal cortex, in particular, showed this relationship. Follow-up analyses revealed that these associations were specific to attentional control and were not due to individual differences in working memory, IQ, motor control, age, or scan motion. While CON-DMN anti-correlation is associated with improved attention in ADHD, other circuitry supports improved attention in TD children. Greater CON-DMN anti-correlation supported better attentional control in children with ADHD, but worse attentional control in TD children. On the other

Nicotine during pregnancy: changes induced in neurotransmission, which could heighten proclivity to addict and induce maladaptive control of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Kohlmeier, K A

2015-06-01

Prenatal exposure to nicotine, occurring either via maternal smoking or via use of transdermal nicotine patches to facilitate cigarette abstinence by pregnant women, is associated with ∼ 13% of pregnancies worldwide. Nicotine exposure during gestation has been correlated with several negative physiological and psychosocial outcomes, including heightened risk for aberrant behaviors involving alterations in processing of attention as well as an enhanced liability for development of drug dependency. Nicotine is a terotogen, altering neuronal development of various neurotransmitter systems, and it is likely these alterations participate in postnatal deficits in attention control and facilitate development of drug addiction. This review discusses the alterations in neuronal development within the brain's major neurotransmitter systems, with special emphasis placed on alterations within the laterodorsal tegmental nucleus, in light of the role this cholinergic nucleus plays in attention and addiction. Changes induced within this nucleus by gestational exposure to nicotine, in combination with changes induced in other brain regions, are likely to contribute to the transgenerational burden imposed by nicotine. Although neuroplastic changes induced by nicotine are not likely to act in isolation, and are expected to interact with epigenetic changes induced by preconception exposure to drugs of abuse, unraveling these changes within the developing brain will facilitate eventual development of targeted treatments for the unique vulnerability for arousal disorders and development of addiction within the population of individuals who have been prenatally exposed to nicotine.

Visual Attention to Suffering After Compassion Training Is Associated With Decreased Amygdala Responses

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Helen Y. Weng

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Compassion meditation training is hypothesized to increase the motivational salience of cues of suffering, while also enhancing equanimous attention and decreasing emotional reactivity to suffering. However, it is currently unknown how compassion meditation impacts visual attention to suffering, and how this impacts neural activation in regions associated with motivational salience as well as aversive responses, such as the amygdala. Healthy adults were randomized to 2 weeks of compassion or reappraisal training. We measured BOLD fMRI responses before and after training while participants actively engaged in their assigned training to images depicting human suffering or non-suffering. Eye-tracking data were recorded concurrently, and we computed looking time for socially and emotionally evocative areas of the images, and calculated visual preference for suffering vs. non-suffering. Increases in visual preference for suffering due to compassion training were associated with decreases in the amygdala, a brain region involved in negative valence, arousal, and physiological responses typical of fear and anxiety states. This pattern was specifically in the compassion group, and was not found in the reappraisal group. In addition, compassion training-related increases in visual preference for suffering were also associated with decreases in regions sensitive to valence and empathic distress, spanning the anterior insula and orbitofrontal cortex (while the reappraisal group showed the opposite effect. Examining visual attention alone demonstrated that engaging in compassion in general (across both time points resulted in visual attention preference for suffering compared to engaging in reappraisal. Collectively, these findings suggest that compassion meditation may cultivate visual preference for suffering while attenuating neural responses in regions typically associated with aversive processing of negative stimuli, which may cultivate a more

Criteria for the decision adoption on participating of Zashchita Special Centre of Emergency Medical (SCEMA) in special medical care at radiation accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bad'in, V.I.; Grachev, M.I.; Kamyshenko, I.D.

1992-01-01

Problem concerning the establishment of criteria for the decision adoption on participating of Zashchita SCEMA in special medical care during radiation accidents is considered as well as intervention level. General reasons used for the establishment of intervention levels of Zashchita SCEMA, dose criteria, decision adoption, assessment of the accident character and scale, need in additional specialists and equipment. Attention is paid to the national and foreign documents on the above problems. 11 refs.; 7 tabs

Implications of the regional haze rule on renewable and wind energy development on native American lands in the west

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Acker, T.L.; Auberle, W.M.; Duque, E.P.N.; Jeffery, W.D.; LaRoche, D.R.; Masayesva, V.; Smith, D.H.

2003-01-01

A study conducted at Northern Arizona University investigated the barriers and opportunities facing Native American tribes in the West when considering development of their renewable energy resources in order to reduce regional haze. This article summarizes some of the findings of that work with special attention to wind energy. Background information is presented concerning the Regional Haze Rule and the Western Regional Air Partnership, and some of the circumstances surrounding development of tribal energy resources. An assessment of tribal energy issues revealed that many Native American tribes are interested in developing their renewable resources. However, this development should occur within the context of maintaining and strengthening their cultural, social, economic and political integrity. Furthermore, it is shown that Native American lands possess an abundant wind resource. A list of potential actions in which tribes may participate prior to or during development of their wind or renewable resources is provided. (author)

Distribution of specialized care centers in the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Henry E; Yealy, Donald M

2012-11-01

As a recommended strategy for optimally managing critical illness, regionalization of care involves matching the needs of the target population with available hospital resources. The national supply and characteristics of hospitals providing specialized critical care services is currently unknown. We seek to characterize the current distribution of specialized care centers in the United States. Using public data linked with the American Hospital Association directory and US Census, we identified US general acute hospitals providing specialized care for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) (≥40 annual primary percutaneous coronary interventions reported in Medicare Hospital Compare), stroke (The Joint Commission certified stroke centers), trauma (American College of Surgeons or state-designated, adult or pediatric, level I or II), and pediatric critical care (presence of a pediatric ICU) services. We determined the characteristics and state-level distribution and density of specialized care centers (centers per state and centers per state population). Among 4,931 acute care hospitals in the United States, 1,325 (26.9%) provided one of the 4 defined specialized care services, including 574 STEMI, 763 stroke, 508 trauma, and 457 pediatric critical care centers. Approximately half of the 1,325 hospitals provided 2 or more specialized services, and one fifth provided 3 or 4 specialized services. There was variation in the number of each type of specialized care center in each state: STEMI median 7 interquartile range (IQR 2 to 14), stroke 8 (IQR 3 to 17), trauma 6 (IQR 3 to 11), pediatric specialized care 6 (IQR 3 to 11). Similarly, there was variation in the number of each type of specialized care center per population: STEMI median 1 center per 585,135 persons (IQR 418,729 to 696,143), stroke 1 center per 412,188 persons (IQR 321,604 to 572,387), trauma 1 center per 610,589 persons (IQR 406,192 to 917,588), and pediatric critical care 1 center per 665

Training of attention functions in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Tucha, Oliver; Tucha, Lara; Kaumann, Gesa; König, Sebastian; Lange, Katharina M; Stasik, Dorota; Streather, Zoe; Engelschalk, Tobias; Lange, Klaus W

2011-09-01

Pharmacological treatment of children with ADHD has been shown to be successful; however, medication may not normalize attention functions. The present study was based on a neuropsychological model of attention and assessed the effect of an attention training program on attentional functioning of children with ADHD. Thirty-two children with ADHD and 16 healthy children participated in the study. Children with ADHD were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions, i.e., an attention training program which trained aspects of vigilance, selective attention and divided attention, or a visual perception training which trained perceptual skills, such as perception of figure and ground, form constancy and position in space. The training programs were applied in individual sessions, twice a week, for a period of four consecutive weeks. Healthy children did not receive any training. Alertness, vigilance, selective attention, divided attention, and flexibility were examined prior to and following the interventions. Children with ADHD were assessed and trained while on ADHD medications. Data analysis revealed that the attention training used in the present study led to significant improvements of various aspects of attention, including vigilance, divided attention, and flexibility, while the visual perception training had no specific effects. The findings indicate that attention training programs have the potential to facilitate attentional functioning in children with ADHD treated with ADHD drugs.

Altering attentional control settings causes persistent biases of visual attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Knight, Helen C; Smith, Daniel T; Knight, David C; Ellison, Amanda

2016-01-01

Attentional control settings have an important role in guiding visual behaviour. Previous work within cognitive psychology has found that the deployment of general attentional control settings can be modulated by training. However, research has not yet established whether long-term modifications of one particular type of attentional control setting can be induced. To address this, we investigated persistent alterations to feature search mode, also known as an attentional bias, towards an arbitrary stimulus in healthy participants. Subjects were biased towards the colour green by an information sheet. Attentional bias was assessed using a change detection task. After an interval of either 1 or 2 weeks, participants were then retested on the same change detection task, tested on a different change detection task where colour was irrelevant, or were biased towards an alternative colour. One experiment included trials in which the distractor stimuli (but never the target stimuli) were green. The key finding was that green stimuli in the second task attracted attention, despite this impairing task performance. Furthermore, inducing a second attentional bias did not override the initial bias toward green objects. The attentional bias also persisted for at least two weeks. It is argued that this persistent attentional bias is mediated by a chronic change to participants' attentional control settings, which is aided by long-term representations involving contextual cueing. We speculate that similar changes to attentional control settings and continuous cueing may relate to attentional biases observed in psychopathologies. Targeting these biases may be a productive approach to treatment.

Sustained Spatial Attention in Touch: Modality-Specific and Multimodal Mechanisms

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Chiara F. Sambo

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Sustained attention to a body location results in enhanced processing of tactile stimuli presented at that location compared to another unattended location. In this paper, we review studies investigating the neural correlates of sustained spatial attention in touch. These studies consistently show that activity within modality-specific somatosensory areas (SI and SII is modulated by sustained tactile-spatial attention. Recent evidence suggests that these somatosensory areas may be recruited as part of a larger cortical network,also including higher-level multimodal regions involved in spatial selection across modalities. We discuss, in turn, the following multimodal effects in sustained tactile-spatial attention tasks. First, cross-modal attentional links between touch and vision, reflected in enhanced processing of task-irrelevant visual stimuli at tactuallyattended locations, are mediated by common (multimodal representations of external space. Second, vision of the body modulates activity underlying sustained tactile-spatial attention, facilitating attentional modulation of tactile processing in between-hand (when hands are sufficiently far apart and impairing attentional modulation in within-hand selection tasks. Finally, body posture influences mechanisms of sustained tactile-spatial attention, relying, at least partly, on remapping of tactile stimuli in external, visuallydefined, spatial coordinates. Taken together, the findings reviewed in this paper indicate that sustained spatial attention in touch is subserved by both modality-specific and multimodal mechanisms. The interplay between these mechanisms allows flexible and efficient spatial selection within and across sensory modalities.

Guest editorial for the special issue ‘‘Tectonics of Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea with special emphasis on coastal and marine geohazards’’

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Murthy, K.S.R.; Chaubey, A.K.; Radhakrishna, M.

selected for this special issue. These include five papers dealing with various aspects of seismogenesis, structural heterogeneity and tsunami-related studies in the Andaman-Sumatra region, one paper on 3D seismic structure in Kachchh region affected...

The putative visual word form area is functionally connected to the dorsal attention network.

Science.gov (United States)

Vogel, Alecia C; Miezin, Fran M; Petersen, Steven E; Schlaggar, Bradley L

2012-03-01

The putative visual word form area (pVWFA) is the most consistently activated region in single word reading studies (i.e., Vigneau et al. 2006), yet its function remains a matter of debate. The pVWFA may be predominantly used in reading or it could be a more general visual processor used in reading but also in other visual tasks. Here, resting-state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fcMRI) is used to characterize the functional relationships of the pVWFA to help adjudicate between these possibilities. rs-fcMRI defines relationships based on correlations in slow fluctuations of blood oxygen level-dependent activity occurring at rest. In this study, rs-fcMRI correlations show little relationship between the pVWFA and reading-related regions but a strong relationship between the pVWFA and dorsal attention regions thought to be related to spatial and feature attention. The rs-fcMRI correlations between the pVWFA and regions of the dorsal attention network increase with age and reading skill, while the correlations between the pVWFA and reading-related regions do not. These results argue the pVWFA is not used predominantly in reading but is a more general visual processor used in other visual tasks, as well as reading.

Formation of competitive potential of the machine-building complex of the region

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Oleg Ivanovich Botkin

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The article describes the features of competitive potential of regional machine-building complex in a globalized world economy. The purpose of the research is the development of theoretically reasonable economic basis of the machine-building complex considering  the  features of business in the conditions of the WTO. In the work, the hypothesis of a special role of the external economic factors locates in development of the enterprises of regional industrial complexes. The study of the theoretical provisions defining the development of the region revealed the factors determining influence of the international trade agreements on spatial localization of the industry. The main attention is paid to an analytical assessment of the current state and the trends, which have developed in the period of post-crisis economic recovery. Analysis of the main indicators of attractiveness has revealed the weak position of local industrial enterprises in the WTO. The directions of strengthening of the competitive capacity of the local industrial enterprises are defined. The obtained results allow us to increase the sustainability of the industry by means of effective management mechanism improvements and to create favorable operating conditions of a machine-building complex of the region

Selective Attention and Attention Switching: Toward a Unified Developmental Approach

OpenAIRE

Hanania, Rima; Smith, Linda B.

2010-01-01

We review and relate two literatures on the development of attention in children: one concerning flexible attention switching and the other concerning selective attention. The first is a growing literature on preschool children’s performances in an attention switching task indicating that children become more flexible in their attentional control during the preschool years. The second literature encompasses a large and robust set of phenomena for the same developmental period that indicate a ...

Editorial JAES AVCOR-Special Issue

Science.gov (United States)

Kervyn, François; d'Oreye, Nicolas

2017-10-01

In the last decades, the Kivu Rift Basin has attracted special attention from the international community. This region, one of the most densely populated areas in Africa, is experiencing enormous difficulties in managing tensions, often leading to armed conflicts, and is also the site of major natural hazards which may have catastrophic extent and affect the population heavily. The eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano in January 2002, which devastated part of the city of Goma, raised a significant mobilization of international aid and helped remind us of the threat posed by the Nyiragongo volcano known for its intriguing Lava lake. But this area of the western branch of the East African Rift is also affected by major earthquakes, such as the one that struck the city of Bukavu in February 2008 (M 6.2) and caused significant damage in the Cyangugu area to the south- Western Rwanda. This zone of continental rupture is characterized by a contrasting landscape of a graben with alluvial plains confined between the strong reliefs of the rift shoulders. The active volcanism of the Virunga has developed partly within the rift whereas the high topography and weathered lithology combined to land use and humid climate are often associated to important landslides. The societal challenges facing this region are therefore enormous and the concordance between the rift and the political boundaries makes the study and monitoring of hazards as well as the management and reduction of risks more complex. But the Rift Kivu Basin is also an area of opportunity that has given rise to new initiatives. Lake Kivu is known for the dissolved gases it contains and the extraction of methane now gives hope of a complementary energy resource to the whole region. The difficulty of carrying out long-term scientific research and answering the most pressing questions is probably responsible for the limited number of research teams involved. Between risks and opportunities, it is therefore essential to

Striatal dysfunction in attention deficit and hyperkinetic disorder

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lou, H.C.; Henriksen, L.; Bruhn, P.; Borner, H.; Nielsen, J.B.

1989-01-01

We have previously reported that periventricular structures are hypoperfused in attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study has expanded the number of patients, who were divided into two groups: six patients with pure ADHD, and 13 patients with ADHD in combination with other neurologic symptoms. By using xenon 133 inhalation and emission tomography, the regional cerebral blood flow distribution was determined and compared with a control group. Striatal regions were found to be hypoperfused and, by inference, hypofunctional in both groups. This hypoperfusion was statistically significant in the right striatum in ADHD, and in both striatal regions in ADHD with other neuropsychologic and neurologic symptoms. The primary sensory and sensorimotor cortical regions were highly perfused. Methylphenidate increased flow to striatal and posterior periventricular regions, and tended to decrease flow to primary sensory regions. Low striatal activity, partially reversible with methylphenidate, appears to be a cardinal feature in ADHD

Striatal dysfunction in attention deficit and hyperkinetic disorder

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lou, H.C.; Henriksen, L.; Bruhn, P.; Borner, H.; Nielsen, J.B.

1989-01-01

We have previously reported that periventricular structures are hypoperfused in attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study has expanded the number of patients, who were divided into two groups: six patients with pure ADHD, and 13 patients with ADHD in combination with other neurologic symptoms. By using xenon 133 inhalation and emission tomography, the regional cerebral blood flow distribution was determined and compared with a control group. Striatal regions were found to be hypoperfused and, by inference, hypofunctional in both groups. This hypoperfusion was statistically significant in the right striatum in ADHD, and in both striatal regions in ADHD with other neuropsychologic and neurologic symptoms. The primary sensory and sensorimotor cortical regions were highly perfused. Methylphenidate increased flow to striatal and posterior periventricular regions, and tended to decrease flow to primary sensory regions. Low striatal activity, partially reversible with methylphenidate, appears to be a cardinal feature in ADHD.

Two Polarities of Attention in Social Contexts: From Attending-to-Others to Attending-to-Self.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuang, Shenbing

2016-01-01

Social attention is one special form of attention that involves the allocation of limited processing resources in a social context. Previous studies on social attention often regard how attention is directed toward socially relevant stimuli such as faces and gaze directions of other individuals. In contrast to attending-to-others, a different line of researches has shown that self-related information such as own face and name automatically captures attention and is preferentially processed comparing to other-related information. These contrasting behavioral effects between attending-to-others and attending-to-self prompt me to consider a synthetic viewpoint for understanding social attention. I propose that social attention operates at two polarizing states: In one extreme, individual tends to attend to the self and prioritize self-related information over others', and, in the other extreme, attention is allocated to other individuals to infer their intentions and desires. Attending-to-self and attending-to-others mark the two ends of an otherwise continuum spectrum of social attention. For a given behavioral context, the mechanisms underlying these two polarities will interact and compete with each other in order to determine a saliency map of social attention that guides our behaviors. An imbalanced competition between these two behavioral and cognitive processes will cause cognitive disorders and neurological symptoms such as autism spectrum disorders and Williams syndrome. I have reviewed both behavioral and neural evidence that support the notion of polarized social attention, and have suggested several testable predictions to corroborate this integrative theory for understanding social attention.

Influences of Long-Term Memory-Guided Attention and Stimulus-Guided Attention on Visuospatial Representations within Human Intraparietal Sulcus.

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Rosen, Maya L; Stern, Chantal E; Michalka, Samantha W; Devaney, Kathryn J; Somers, David C

2015-08-12

Human parietal cortex plays a central role in encoding visuospatial information and multiple visual maps exist within the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), with each hemisphere symmetrically representing contralateral visual space. Two forms of hemispheric asymmetries have been identified in parietal cortex ventrolateral to visuotopic IPS. Key attentional processes are localized to right lateral parietal cortex in the temporoparietal junction and long-term memory (LTM) retrieval processes are localized to the left lateral parietal cortex in the angular gyrus. Here, using fMRI, we investigate how spatial representations of visuotopic IPS are influenced by stimulus-guided visuospatial attention and by LTM-guided visuospatial attention. We replicate prior findings that a hemispheric asymmetry emerges under stimulus-guided attention: in the right hemisphere (RH), visual maps IPS0, IPS1, and IPS2 code attentional targets across the visual field; in the left hemisphere (LH), IPS0-2 codes primarily contralateral targets. We report the novel finding that, under LTM-guided attention, both RH and LH IPS0-2 exhibit bilateral responses and hemispheric symmetry re-emerges. Therefore, we demonstrate that both hemispheres of IPS0-2 are independently capable of dynamically changing spatial coding properties as attentional task demands change. These findings have important implications for understanding visuospatial and memory-retrieval deficits in patients with parietal lobe damage. The human parietal lobe contains multiple maps of the external world that spatially guide perception, action, and cognition. Maps in each cerebral hemisphere code information from the opposite side of space, not from the same side, and the two hemispheres are symmetric. Paradoxically, damage to specific parietal regions that lack spatial maps can cause patients to ignore half of space (hemispatial neglect syndrome), but only for right (not left) hemisphere damage. Conversely, the left parietal cortex has

Ventromedial Frontal Cortex Is Critical for Guiding Attention to Reward-Predictive Visual Features in Humans.

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Vaidya, Avinash R; Fellows, Lesley K

2015-09-16

Adaptively interacting with our environment requires extracting information that will allow us to successfully predict reward. This can be a challenge, particularly when there are many candidate cues, and when rewards are probabilistic. Recent work has demonstrated that visual attention is allocated to stimulus features that have been associated with reward on previous trials. The ventromedial frontal lobe (VMF) has been implicated in learning in dynamic environments of this kind, but the mechanism by which this region influences this process is not clear. Here, we hypothesized that the VMF plays a critical role in guiding attention to reward-predictive stimulus features based on feedback. We tested the effects of VMF damage in human subjects on a visual search task in which subjects were primed to attend to task-irrelevant colors associated with different levels of reward, incidental to the search task. Consistent with previous work, we found that distractors had a greater influence on reaction time when they appeared in colors associated with high reward in the previous trial compared with colors associated with low reward in healthy control subjects and patients with prefrontal damage sparing the VMF. However, this reward modulation of attentional priming was absent in patients with VMF damage. Thus, an intact VMF is necessary for directing attention based on experience with cue-reward associations. We suggest that this region plays a role in selecting reward-predictive cues to facilitate future learning. There has been a swell of interest recently in the ventromedial frontal cortex (VMF), a brain region critical to associative learning. However, the underlying mechanism by which this region guides learning is not well understood. Here, we tested the effects of damage to this region in humans on a task in which rewards were linked incidentally to visual features, resulting in trial-by-trial attentional priming. Controls and subjects with prefrontal damage

A modified Lorentz theory as a test theory of special relativity

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, T.; Torr, D. G.; Gagnon, D. R.

1988-01-01

Attention has been given recently to a modified Lorentz theory (MLT) that is based on the generalized Galilean transformation. Some explicit formulas within the framework of MLT, dealing with the one-way velocity of light, slow-clock transport, and the Doppler effect are derived. A number of typical experiments are analyzed on this basis. Results indicate that the empirical equivalence between MLT and special relativity is still maintained to second order terms. The results of previous works that predict that the MLT might be distinguished from special relativity at the third order by Doppler centrifuge tests capable of a fractional frequency detection threshold of 10 to the -15th are confirmed.

The Relationship Between Perceptual Motor Skills and Attention

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Vanessa de Sousa

Full Text Available Abstract: Although the relationship between perceptual motor skills and attention is reported in the literature, few studies have empirically explored this association. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between these constructs, using the Bender-Gestalt Test: Gradual Scoring System (B-SPG and the Psychological Battery for Attention Assessment (BPA. The participants were 320 children from four public schools in a city located in the South of the state of Minas Gerais, with ages ranging from seven to 10 years (M = 8.39, SD = 1.10 and 196 (55.9 % female. The results showed negative, moderate and significant correlations between the total scores of the instruments, indicating the relationship between the constructs. Although the data has confirmed the existence of a relationship between perceptual motor skills and attention, further studies with samples from other regions are necessary.

A some aspects of medical demographical situation in the regions, confidant to Semipalatinsk former test site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Slazhneva, T.I.; Korchevskij, A.A.; Tret'yakova, S.N.; Pozdnyakova, A.P.

1993-01-01

It had been analysed the data of mortality index and average future life span (AFLS).The data was devided in sex and age groups of Pavlodar region (Kazakstan) for the period of 1970, 1979, 1989 and given in comparison with Semipalatinsk region (Kazakstan) and Former Soviet Union. It was discovered peculiarities of demographic index dynamics for last decades: downfall of average life span of population from 1970 to 1979 with further increasing in 1989. In Semipalatinsk region the AFLS of men was decreasing to 2,19 year, women - to 1,24 year; in Pavlodar region the AFLS of men was decreasing to 3,87 year, women - to 4,3 year. Relative compensation of this effect was being marked to 1989 year: from 1979 to 1989 the AFLS index of Pavlodar region men increased to 2,93 year, women - to 1,83 year. Similar oscillations were being followed up for all age groups. Special attention is drawing to the infants mortality dynamic in the regions, confidant to Semipalatinsk test site. Radical ascent of the infants mortality in 1970-1983 period leaded to shaping of excluding unfavourable indexes (71,9 % for 1000 burned in 1975). Analysis confirmed the information of demographic indexes, as integral characteristics of population health levels and ecological equilibrium rate in the regions

IDEA papers special number 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mercadie, J.L.

2003-06-01

The Information network on the Economic Development in Aquitaine (IDEA) aims to collect and spread the environmental information concerning the Aquitaine, in order to implement an observatory of the regional environment and of the sustainable development. The IDEA papers provides information such as, meeting, Internet addresses and programs. This paper is specially devoted to the environment. (A.L.B.)

Attentional System for Face Detection and Tracking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonardo Pinto da Silva Panta Leão

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The human visual system quickly performs complex decisions due, in part, to attentional system, which positions the most relevant targets in the center of the visual field, region with greatest concentration of photoreceptor cells. The attentional system involves sensory, cognitive and also mechanical elements, because the eye and head muscles must be activated to produce movement. In this paper we present the proposal of a face detector system that, as well as the biological system, produces a coordinated movement with the purpose of positioning the target image in the center of camera's visual field. The developed system has distinct parts, one responsible for video pattern recognition and other for controlling the mechanical part, implemented as processes that communicate with each other by sockets.

The analysis of thermoplastic characteristics of special polymer sulfur composite

Science.gov (United States)

Książek, Mariusz

2017-01-01

Specific chemical environments step out in the industry objects. Portland cement composites (concrete and mortar) were impregnated by using the special polymerized sulfur and technical soot as a filler (polymer sulfur composite). Sulfur and technical soot was applied as the industrial waste. Portland cement composites were made of the same aggregate, cement and water. The process of special polymer sulfur composite applied as the industrial waste is a thermal treatment process in the temperature of about 150-155°C. The result of such treatment is special polymer sulfur composite in a liquid state. This paper presents the plastic constants and coefficients of thermal expansion of special polymer sulfur composites, with isotropic porous matrix, reinforced by disoriented ellipsoidal inclusions with orthotropic symmetry of the thermoplastic properties. The investigations are based on the stochastic differential equations of solid mechanics. A model and algorithm for calculating the effective characteristics of special polymer sulfur composites are suggested. The effective thermoplastic characteristics of special polymer sulfur composites, with disoriented ellipsoidal inclusions, are calculated in two stages: First, the properties of materials with oriented inclusions are determined, and then effective constants of a composite with disoriented inclusions are determined on the basis of the Voigt or Rice scheme. A brief summary of new products related to special polymer sulfur composites is given as follows: Impregnation, repair, overlays and precast polymer concrete will be presented. Special polymer sulfur as polymer coating impregnation, which has received little attention in recent years, currently has some very interesting applications.

A bio-inspired method and system for visual object-based attention and segmentation

Science.gov (United States)

Huber, David J.; Khosla, Deepak

2010-04-01

This paper describes a method and system of human-like attention and object segmentation in visual scenes that (1) attends to regions in a scene in their rank of saliency in the image, (2) extracts the boundary of an attended proto-object based on feature contours, and (3) can be biased to boost the attention paid to specific features in a scene, such as those of a desired target object in static and video imagery. The purpose of the system is to identify regions of a scene of potential importance and extract the region data for processing by an object recognition and classification algorithm. The attention process can be performed in a default, bottom-up manner or a directed, top-down manner which will assign a preference to certain features over others. One can apply this system to any static scene, whether that is a still photograph or imagery captured from video. We employ algorithms that are motivated by findings in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to construct a system that is novel in its modular and stepwise approach to the problems of attention and region extraction, its application of a flooding algorithm to break apart an image into smaller proto-objects based on feature density, and its ability to join smaller regions of similar features into larger proto-objects. This approach allows many complicated operations to be carried out by the system in a very short time, approaching real-time. A researcher can use this system as a robust front-end to a larger system that includes object recognition and scene understanding modules; it is engineered to function over a broad range of situations and can be applied to any scene with minimal tuning from the user.

Investigation on crack growth parameters in the elastic plastic region (interim report)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prij, J.

1982-03-01

Some theoretical as well as numerical results are presented with respect to the 2D and 3D application of linear elastic fracture mechanics. The application of the finite element method to calculate the stress and strain field in cracked bodies has been discussed with special attention to: singularity representation, parameter extraction and mesh refinement. Detailed 3D stress analyses of fracture mechanics test specimen are presented showing that: the stress intensity concept cannot be extended simply into a 3D concept, the energy release concept is more promising within this aspect and the plastic region along the crackfront will not have a dogbone shape. The 3D elastic fracture mechanics concept is applied to evaluate the consequences of the thermal stresses due to γ-heating in an in-pile crack growth experiment

On Special Functions in the Context of Clifford Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Malonek, H. R.; Falcão, M. I.

2010-09-01

Considering the foundation of Quaternionic Analysis by R. Fueter and his collaborators in the beginning of the 1930s as starting point of Clifford Analysis, we can look back to 80 years of work in this field. However the interest in multivariate analysis using Clifford algebras only started to grow significantly in the 70s. Since then a great amount of papers on Clifford Analysis referring different classes of Special Functions have appeared. This situation may have been triggered by a more systematic treatment of monogenic functions by their multiple series development derived from Gegenbauer or associated Legendre polynomials (and not only by their integral representation). Also approaches to Special Functions by means of algebraic methods, either Lie algebras or through Lie groups and symmetric spaces gained by that time importance and influenced their treatment in Clifford Analysis. In our talk we will rely on the generalization of the classical approach to Special Functions through differential equations with respect to the hypercomplex derivative, which is a more recently developed tool in Clifford Analysis. In this context special attention will be payed to the role of Special Functions as intermediator between continuous and discrete mathematics. This corresponds to a more recent trend in combinatorics, since it has been revealed that many algebraic structures have hidden combinatorial underpinnings.

CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES TO STUDY THE INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

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Svitlana Fedulova

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the paper is to find out and identify conceptual approaches to the study of the innovative development of regional socio-economic systems to take into account global requirements for global water security. Methodology. We used in our study traditional and special methods, including: historical and logical method, abstraction and analogy, and system analysis methods. Results. The article deals with the problems of innovative development of regional socio-economic systems. Conceptual approaches to the study of the innovative development of these systems are determined. Theoretical approaches to regionalization are generalized and the regional typology in world regionalism is presented. The study devotes a sufficient attention to the issues of infrastructure support for regional systems, which is a prerequisite for the functioning and development of such systems. The article focuses on the priority of research of such a component of regional infrastructure as engineering and technical infrastructure. The model of regulation of development of regional socio-economic systems on the basis of infrastructure support with the consideration of world requirements of global water security is offered. Practical implications. In recent times, the discussion on the definition of the essence of the concept of “region” is rather lively. The new paradigm of the regional economy represents the region as a variety of spatial systems of various scales. Yes, there are ongoing discussions that under the region can be understood as a group of states and small-sized administrative-territorial units. Despite the important role played by such regional systems in the economy of many countries, this topic in domestic studies is not given with enough attention. Also, in the domestic scientific schools of the regional economy, studies devoted to the problems of patterns and tendencies of the formation and development of regional systems of Ukraine, the

Attention training improves aberrant neural dynamics during working memory processing in veterans with PTSD.

Science.gov (United States)

McDermott, Timothy J; Badura-Brack, Amy S; Becker, Katherine M; Ryan, Tara J; Bar-Haim, Yair; Pine, Daniel S; Khanna, Maya M; Heinrichs-Graham, Elizabeth; Wilson, Tony W

2016-12-01

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with executive functioning deficits, including disruptions in working memory (WM). Recent studies suggest that attention training reduces PTSD symptomatology, but the underlying neural mechanisms are unknown. We used high-density magnetoencephalography (MEG) to evaluate whether attention training modulates brain regions serving WM processing in PTSD. Fourteen veterans with PTSD completed a WM task during a 306-sensor MEG recording before and after 8 sessions of attention training treatment. A matched comparison sample of 12 combat-exposed veterans without PTSD completed the same WM task during a single MEG session. To identify the spatiotemporal dynamics, each group's data were transformed into the time-frequency domain, and significant oscillatory brain responses were imaged using a beamforming approach. All participants exhibited activity in left hemispheric language areas consistent with a verbal WM task. Additionally, veterans with PTSD and combat-exposed healthy controls each exhibited oscillatory responses in right hemispheric homologue regions (e.g., right Broca's area); however, these responses were in opposite directions. Group differences in oscillatory activity emerged in the theta band (4-8 Hz) during encoding and in the alpha band (9-12 Hz) during maintenance and were significant in right prefrontal and right supramarginal and inferior parietal regions. Importantly, following attention training, these significant group differences were reduced or eliminated. This study provides initial evidence that attention training improves aberrant neural activity in brain networks serving WM processing.

IDEA papers special number 1; Les cahiers d'I.D.E.A. no. special 1

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mercadie, J L

2003-06-01

The Information network on the Economic Development in Aquitaine (IDEA) aims to collect and spread the environmental information concerning the Aquitaine, in order to implement an observatory of the regional environment and of the sustainable development. The IDEA papers provides information such as, meeting, Internet addresses and programs. This paper is specially devoted to the environment. (A.L.B.)

Selective attention to sound location or pitch studied with fMRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Degerman, Alexander; Rinne, Teemu; Salmi, Juha; Salonen, Oili; Alho, Kimmo

2006-03-10

We used 3-T functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brain mechanisms underlying selective attention to sound location and pitch. In different tasks, the subjects (N = 10) attended to a designated sound location or pitch or to pictures presented on the screen. In the Attend Location conditions, the sound location varied randomly (left or right), while the pitch was kept constant (high or low). In the Attend Pitch conditions, sounds of randomly varying pitch (high or low) were presented at a constant location (left or right). Both attention to location and attention to pitch produced enhanced activity (in comparison with activation caused by the same sounds when attention was focused on the pictures) in widespread areas of the superior temporal cortex. Attention to either sound feature also activated prefrontal and inferior parietal cortical regions. These activations were stronger during attention to location than during attention to pitch. Attention to location but not to pitch produced a significant increase of activation in the premotor/supplementary motor cortices of both hemispheres and in the right prefrontal cortex, while no area showed activity specifically related to attention to pitch. The present results suggest some differences in the attentional selection of sounds on the basis of their location and pitch consistent with the suggested auditory "what" and "where" processing streams.

Extensive Tonotopic Mapping across Auditory Cortex Is Recapitulated by Spectrally Directed Attention and Systematically Related to Cortical Myeloarchitecture.

Science.gov (United States)

Dick, Frederic K; Lehet, Matt I; Callaghan, Martina F; Keller, Tim A; Sereno, Martin I; Holt, Lori L

2017-12-13

Auditory selective attention is vital in natural soundscapes. But it is unclear how attentional focus on the primary dimension of auditory representation-acoustic frequency-might modulate basic auditory functional topography during active listening. In contrast to visual selective attention, which is supported by motor-mediated optimization of input across saccades and pupil dilation, the primate auditory system has fewer means of differentially sampling the world. This makes spectrally-directed endogenous attention a particularly crucial aspect of auditory attention. Using a novel functional paradigm combined with quantitative MRI, we establish in male and female listeners that human frequency-band-selective attention drives activation in both myeloarchitectonically estimated auditory core, and across the majority of tonotopically mapped nonprimary auditory cortex. The attentionally driven best-frequency maps show strong concordance with sensory-driven maps in the same subjects across much of the temporal plane, with poor concordance in areas outside traditional auditory cortex. There is significantly greater activation across most of auditory cortex when best frequency is attended, versus ignored; the same regions do not show this enhancement when attending to the least-preferred frequency band. Finally, the results demonstrate that there is spatial correspondence between the degree of myelination and the strength of the tonotopic signal across a number of regions in auditory cortex. Strong frequency preferences across tonotopically mapped auditory cortex spatially correlate with R 1 -estimated myeloarchitecture, indicating shared functional and anatomical organization that may underlie intrinsic auditory regionalization. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Perception is an active process, especially sensitive to attentional state. Listeners direct auditory attention to track a violin's melody within an ensemble performance, or to follow a voice in a crowded cafe. Although

Investigating Performance Installation of Hospital Room Surgery of Six Hospitals in Special Region of Yogyakarta by Using Data Envelopment Analysis Model Constant Return to Scale

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bhimo Rizky Samudro

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This study aims to investigate the efficiency level of hospital surgery hospital installation in Special Region of Yogyakarta Province. Research conceptual constructs are based on input and output performance in institutional performance processes. This research approach uses positivist pattern and is derived by quantitative method. This is to explain the efficiency pattern of the installation of hospital and private hospital surgery rooms. The quantitative method chosen is the concept of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA. The results showed that 1 the installation of a private hospital surgery room tends to be more efficient than government property; 2 the installation of a special hospital surgical hospital is not absolutely more efficient than a public hospital. As a recommendation, this research provides scenario for setting input usage for efficient performance.

Space-based visual attention: a marker of immature selective attention in toddlers?

Science.gov (United States)

Rivière, James; Brisson, Julie

2014-11-01

Various studies suggested that attentional difficulties cause toddlers' failure in some spatial search tasks. However, attention is not a unitary construct and this study investigated two attentional mechanisms: location selection (space-based attention) and object selection (object-based attention). We investigated how toddlers' attention is distributed in the visual field during a manual search task for objects moving out of sight, namely the moving boxes task. Results show that 2.5-year-olds who failed this task allocated more attention to the location of the relevant object than to the object itself. These findings suggest that in some manual search tasks the primacy of space-based attention over object-based attention could be a marker of immature selective attention in toddlers. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Cortical and Subcortical Coordination of Visual Spatial Attention Revealed by Simultaneous EEG-fMRI Recording.

Science.gov (United States)

Green, Jessica J; Boehler, Carsten N; Roberts, Kenneth C; Chen, Ling-Chia; Krebs, Ruth M; Song, Allen W; Woldorff, Marty G

2017-08-16

Visual spatial attention has been studied in humans with both electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) individually. However, due to the intrinsic limitations of each of these methods used alone, our understanding of the systems-level mechanisms underlying attentional control remains limited. Here, we examined trial-to-trial covariations of concurrently recorded EEG and fMRI in a cued visual spatial attention task in humans, which allowed delineation of both the generators and modulators of the cue-triggered event-related oscillatory brain activity underlying attentional control function. The fMRI activity in visual cortical regions contralateral to the cued direction of attention covaried positively with occipital gamma-band EEG, consistent with activation of cortical regions representing attended locations in space. In contrast, fMRI activity in ipsilateral visual cortical regions covaried inversely with occipital alpha-band oscillations, consistent with attention-related suppression of the irrelevant hemispace. Moreover, the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus covaried with both of these spatially specific, attention-related, oscillatory EEG modulations. Because the pulvinar's neuroanatomical geometry makes it unlikely to be a direct generator of the scalp-recorded EEG, these covariational patterns appear to reflect the pulvinar's role as a regulatory control structure, sending spatially specific signals to modulate visual cortex excitability proactively. Together, these combined EEG/fMRI results illuminate the dynamically interacting cortical and subcortical processes underlying spatial attention, providing important insight not realizable using either method alone. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Noninvasive recordings of changes in the brain's blood flow using functional magnetic resonance imaging and electrical activity using electroencephalography in humans have individually shown that shifting attention to a location in space

Investigating Performance Installation of Hospital Room Surgery of Six Hospitals in Special Region of Yogyakarta by Using Data Envelopment Analysis Model Constant Return to Scale

OpenAIRE

Bhimo Rizky Samudro; Yogi Pasca Pratama

2018-01-01

This study aims to investigate the efficiency level of hospital surgery hospital installation in Special Region of Yogyakarta Province. Research conceptual constructs are based on input and output performance in institutional performance processes. This research approach uses positivist pattern and is derived by quantitative method. This is to explain the efficiency pattern of the installation of hospital and private hospital surgery rooms. The quantitative method chosen is the concept of Dat...

Party Organizational Change: Formal Distribution of Power between National and Regional Levels in Italian Political Parties (1991-2012

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Enrico Calossi

2015-03-01

Full Text Available In the last 20 years an increasing number of scholars have centred their attention on the relationships between party national structures and party sub-national branches. A relevant part of the specialized literature has interpreted party change as the by-product of the denationalization of party politics. The aim of this contribution is to investigate to what extent eight relevant Italian parties have followed patterns of organizational change, after the reforms of the municipal, provincial and regional election sys-tems; and the process of devolution of administrative powers begun during the Nineties. By focusing on two analytical dimensions (the level of involvement and the level of autonomy of party regional units, we analyse diachronically continuity and change in party formal organization, through an in-depth analysis of the statutes adopted from 1992 to 2012

Functional localization and effective connectivity of cortical theta and alpha oscillatory activity during an attention task

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Yuichi Kitaura

Full Text Available Objectives: The aim of this paper is to investigate cortical electric neuronal activity as an indicator of brain function, in a mental arithmetic task that requires sustained attention, as compared to the resting state condition. The two questions of interest are the cortical localization of different oscillatory activities, and the directional effective flow of oscillatory activity between regions of interest, in the task condition compared to resting state. In particular, theta and alpha activity are of interest here, due to their important role in attention processing. Methods: We adapted mental arithmetic as an attention ask in this study. Eyes closed 61-channel EEG was recorded in 14 participants during resting and in a mental arithmetic task (“serial sevens subtraction”. Functional localization and connectivity analyses were based on cortical signals of electric neuronal activity estimated with sLORETA (standardized low resolution electromagnetic tomography. Functional localization was based on the comparison of the cortical distributions of the generators of oscillatory activity between task and resting conditions. Assessment of effective connectivity was based on the iCoh (isolated effective coherence method, which provides an appropriate frequency decomposition of the directional flow of oscillatory activity between brain regions. Nine regions of interest comprising nodes from the dorsal and ventral attention networks were selected for the connectivity analysis. Results: Cortical spectral density distribution comparing task minus rest showed significant activity increase in medial prefrontal areas and decreased activity in left parietal lobe for the theta band, and decreased activity in parietal-occipital regions for the alpha1 band. At a global level, connections among right hemispheric nodes were predominantly decreased during the task condition, while connections among left hemispheric nodes were predominantly increased. At more

Regional and ethnic aspects of viral hepatitis B among pregnant women.

Science.gov (United States)

Kristian, Pavol; Veselská, Zuzana Dankulincová; Paralicová, Zuzana; Jarcuska, Peter; Virág, Ladislav; Valková, Ivana; Schréter, Ivan

2013-03-01

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HBV infection among pregnant women in districts of Eastern Slovakia with a diverse prevalence of Roma population. Overall 59,279 serum samples from 9 regional departments of clinical microbiology from Eastern Slovakia were collected in the period from January 2008 till December 2009 and analysed. The number of HBsAg positive samples overall and during pregnancy was 1.74% and 2.12%, respectively. Comparing districts with higher (> 5%) and lower (women the prevalence of HBsAg positive samples (2.72% vs. 0.95%) differs significantly (p women in Eastern Slovakia did not rapidly exceed the estimated nationwide prevalence. However, in districts with higher Roma population the expected higher prevalence of HBV infection was confirmed. This indicates the need to pay special attention to the prevention of hepatitis B in these districts.

Evolving subsidiary roles and regional economic integration in Europe (special editorial)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Filippov, S.; Duijsters, G.M.

2012-01-01

The focus of this paper is on the impact of regional economic integration on changing roles and strategies of overseas subsidiaries. the literature has acknowledged the positive impact of regional economic integration on the investment attractiveness of member states participating in a regional bloc

Neural mechanisms by which attention modulates the comparison of remembered and perceptual representations.

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Bo-Cheng Kuo

Full Text Available Attention is important for effectively comparing incoming perceptual information with the contents of visual short-term memory (VSTM, such that any differences can be detected. However, how attentional mechanisms operate upon these comparison processes remains largely unknown. Here we investigate the underlying neural mechanisms by which attention modulates the comparisons between VSTM and perceptual representations using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI. Participants performed a cued change detection task. Spatial cues were presented to orient their attention either to the location of an item in VSTM prior to its comparison (retro-cues, or simultaneously (simultaneous-cues with the probe array. A no-cue condition was also included. When attention cannot be effectively deployed in advance (i.e. following the simultaneous-cues, we observed a distributed and extensive activation pattern in the prefrontal and parietal cortices in support of successful change detection. This was not the case when participants can deploy their attention in advance (i.e. following the retro-cues. The region-of-interest analyses confirmed that neural responses for successful change detection versus correct rejection in the visual and parietal regions were significantly different for simultaneous-cues compared to retro-cues. Importantly, we found enhanced functional connectivity between prefrontal and parietal cortices when detecting changes on the simultaneous-cue trials. Moreover, we demonstrated a close relationship between this functional connectivity and d' scores. Together, our findings elucidate the attentional and neural mechanisms by which items held in VSTM are compared with incoming perceptual information.

Obama cares about visuo-spatial attention: perception of political figures moves attention and determines gaze direction.

Science.gov (United States)

Mills, Mark; Smith, Kevin B; Hibbing, John R; Dodd, Michael D

2015-02-01

Processing an abstract concept such as political ideology by itself is difficult but becomes easier when a background situation contextualizes it. Political ideology within American politics, for example, is commonly processed using space metaphorically, i.e., the political "left" and "right" (referring to Democrat and Republican views, respectively), presumably to provide a common metric to which abstract features of ideology can be grounded and understood. Commonplace use of space as metaphor raises the question of whether an inherently non-spatial stimulus (e.g., picture of the political "left" leader, Barack Obama) can trigger a spatially-specific response (e.g., attentional bias toward "left" regions of the visual field). Accordingly, pictures of well-known Democrats and Republicans were presented as central cues in peripheral target detection (Experiment 1) and saccadic free-choice (Experiment 2) tasks to determine whether perception of stimuli lacking a direct association with physical space nonetheless induce attentional and oculomotor biases in the direction compatible with the ideological category of the cue (i.e., Democrat/left and Republican/right). In Experiment 1, target detection following presentation of a Democrat (Republican) was facilitated for targets appearing to the left (right). In Experiment 2, participants were more likely to look left (right) following presentation of a Democrat (Republican). Thus, activating an internal representation of political ideology induced a shift of attention and biased choice of gaze direction in a spatially-specific manner. These findings demonstrate that the link between conceptual processing and spatial attention can be totally arbitrary, with no reference to physical or symbolic spatial information. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Regional innovation systems in the Lisbon strategy

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Bruijn, P.J.M. de; Lagendijk, A.

2005-01-01

This contribution explores the framing of the concept of Regional Innovation Systems (RISs) within European ecoruomic policies. Regional innovation systems are analytically and empirically assessed within the policy corltext of the Lisbon strategy, with special reference to regional dimensions in

Exogenous attention enhances 2nd-order contrast sensitivity

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Barbot, Antoine; Landy, Michael S.; Carrasco, Marisa

2011-01-01

Natural scenes contain a rich variety of contours that the visual system extracts to segregrate the retinal image into perceptually coherent regions. Covert spatial attention helps extract contours by enhancing contrast sensitivity for 1st-order, luminance-defined patterns at attended locations, while reducing sensitivity at unattended locations, relative to neutral attention allocation. However, humans are also sensitive to 2nd-order patterns such as spatial variations of texture, which are predominant in natural scenes and cannot be detected by linear mechanisms. We assess whether and how exogenous attention—the involuntary and transient capture of spatial attention—affects the contrast sensitivity of channels sensitive to 2nd-order, texture-defined patterns. Using 2nd-order, texture-defined stimuli, we demonstrate that exogenous attention increases 2nd-order contrast sensitivity at the attended location, while decreasing it at unattended locations, relative to a neutral condition. By manipulating both 1st- and 2nd-order spatial frequency, we find that the effects of attention depend both on 2nd-order spatial frequency of the stimulus and the observer’s 2nd-order spatial resolution at the target location. At parafoveal locations, attention enhances 2nd-order contrast sensitivity to high, but not to low 2nd-order spatial frequencies; at peripheral locations attention also enhances sensitivity to low 2nd-order spatial frequencies. Control experiments rule out the possibility that these effects might be due to an increase in contrast sensitivity at the 1st-order stage of visual processing. Thus, exogenous attention affects 2nd-order contrast sensitivity at both attended and unattended locations. PMID:21356228

78 FR 70092 - 2013 Special 301 Out-of-Cycle Review of El Salvador: Identification of Countries Under Section...

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2013-11-22

... deserve special attention. Submissions may report positive or negative developments with respect to these.... USTR prefers submissions in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. If the submission is...

Attention without awareness: Attentional modulation of perceptual grouping without awareness.

Science.gov (United States)

Lo, Shih-Yu

2018-04-01

Perceptual grouping is the process through which the perceptual system combines local stimuli into a more global perceptual unit. Previous studies have shown attention to be a modulatory factor for perceptual grouping. However, these studies mainly used explicit measurements, and, thus, whether attention can modulate perceptual grouping without awareness is still relatively unexplored. To clarify the relationship between attention and perceptual grouping, the present study aims to explore how attention interacts with perceptual grouping without awareness. The task was to judge the relative lengths of two centrally presented horizontal bars while a railway-shaped pattern defined by color similarity was presented in the background. Although the observers were unaware of the railway-shaped pattern, their line-length judgment was biased by that pattern, which induced a Ponzo illusion, indicating grouping without awareness. More importantly, an attentional modulatory effect without awareness was manifested as evident by the observer's performance being more often biased when the railway-shaped pattern was formed by an attended color than when it was formed by an unattended one. Also, the attentional modulation effect was shown to be dynamic, being more pronounced with a short presentation time than a longer one. The results of the present study not only clarify the relationship between attention and perceptual grouping but also further contribute to our understanding of attention and awareness by corroborating the dissociation between attention and awareness.