A tool to act blind? Object-assisted eye-covering as a self-handicapping behavior and social play signal in Balinese long-tailed macaques

Animal Cognition - Self-handicapping behaviors evolved as honest signals that reliably reflect the quality of their performers. In playful activities, self-handicapping is described as...     

A human-centered approach for designing World-Wide Web browsers

Because the World-Wide Web has features that are not found in traditional information systems, it has some unique problems pertaining to human use, such as the difficulty of searching for specific information. This paper describes human cognitive limitations pertinent to the design of Web browsers and provides a conceptual model for human information processing on the Web. It also compares user strategies and use of browser functions for two tasks that differ in the specificity of the information that is to be retrieved. General principles and specific recommendations for the design of Web browsers are derived from these considerations.     

Propositional attitudes and formal ontology

This paper develops — within an axiomatic theory of properties, relations, and propositions which accords them well-defined existence and identity conditions — a sententialist-functionalist account of belief as a symbolically mediated relation to a special kind of propositional entity, theproxy-encoding abstract proposition. It is then shown how, in terms of this account, the truth conditions of English belief reports may be captured in a formally precise and empirically adequate way that accords genuinely semantic status to familiar opacity data.I am deeply indebted to Edward Zalta for many helpful comments and suggestions.     

Psychological cost-benefit as an intervening construct in career choice models

A causal model for career choice was outlined, encompassing psychological cost-benefit-profit as a central intervening construct. The model was applied to the career choice (education vs work) after high school graduation and tested on longitudinal data from 173 students. The main problem concerned the relationship among the components in the causal career choice model, using multiple correlation and path analysis as tools. The results showed clear sex differences. For boys, the model was a rather powerful predictor of career choice (R = 0.70), and Psychological profit with regard to continued education had a clear direct effect as well as an indirect effect on career choice. For girls, the predictive validity was low (R = 0.35) and Psychological profit affected career choice only indirectly via Educational aspiration.     

Perception of pictorial eye gaze by baboons (Papio papio)

Pictorial faces looking left or right were presented to baboons (Papio papio) before the display of a target letter in the left or right hemifield of a monitor screen. Baboons had to provide go or no-go responses taking into account the identity of the target letter. The 1st 6 experiments showed no reliable effect of eye gaze on discrimination speed, using either schematic gazes or pictures of real gazes. Experiment 7 showed that eye gazes facilitated target processing when eye cues were perfect predictors of target location. Findings suggest that baboons do not spontaneously process eye-gaze direction but can learn to do so if the gaze has a predictive value. Implications of these findings on baboons' perspective-taking abilities are discussed.     

Quality of life before and after lung transplantation in patients with emphysema versus other indications

Whether lung transplantation improves Health-related Quality of Life in patients with emphysema and other end-stage lung diseases before and after lung transplantation was examined. Between 1992 and 1999, 23 patients with emphysema and 19 patients with other indications completed self-administered questionnaires before lung transplantation, and at 4, 7, 13, and 25 mo. after transplantation. The questionnaire included the Nottingham Health Profile, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Self-rating Depression Scale, the Index of Well-being, the self-report Karnofsky Index, and four respiratory-specific questions. Neither before nor after transplantation were significant differences found on most dimensions of Health-related Quality of Life between patients with emphysema and other indications. Before transplantation, both groups report major restrictions on the dimensions Energy and Mobility of the Nottingham Health Profile, low experienced well-being, depressive symptoms, and high dyspnea. About 4 mo. after transplantation, most Health-related Quality of Life measures improved significantly in both groups. These improvements were maintained in the following 21 mo.     

A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness

Many current neurophysiological, psychophysical, and psychological approaches to vision rest on the idea that when we see, the brain produces an internal representation of the world. The activation of this internal representation is assumed to give rise to the experience of seeing. The problem with this kind of approach is that it leaves unexplained how the existence of such a detailed internal representation might produce visual consciousness. An alternative proposal is made here. We propose that seeing is a way of acting. It is a particular way of exploring the environment. Activity in internal representations does not generate the experience of seeing. The outside world serves as its own, external, representation. The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the governing laws of sensorimotor contingency. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a natural and principled way of accounting for visual consciousness, and for the differences in the perceived quality of sensory experience in the different sensory modalities. Several lines of empirical evidence are brought forward in support of the theory, in particular: evidence from experiments in sensorimotor adaptation, visual "filling in," visual stability despite eye movements, change blindness, sensory substitution, and color perception.     

Dkk-1蛋白的研究现状、进展及临床意义

Dkk(Dickkopf)是Wnt信号通路中重要的拮抗因子之一,通过与Wnt受体复合体LRP5/6结合来抑制Wnt信号通路.Dkk-1在代谢性骨病(骨质疏松症Paget病)、多种癌症、骨关节炎等疾病中都存在着异常表达并起到重要作用.本文将对现有的Dkk-1基因的研究进展进行总结,并对Dkk-1基因的研究意义进行了展望.     

血栓形成及抗凝药物在临床应用中的思考

血栓栓塞性疾病对人类的健康已构成了极大的危害.在临床工作中应深入了解血栓形成以及凝血机制的新概念,了解传统抗凝药物的特点、以及凝血因子靶点Ⅹa、Ⅱa等特异性抑制为基础的新型抗凝药物的研发进展,合理使用抗凝药物,提高对血栓栓塞性疾病的诊治水平.