Associations between Prenatal and Early Childhood Fish and Processed Food Intake,Conduct Problems,and Co-Occurring Difficulties

Little is known about early life diet as a risk factor for early-onset persistent conduct problems (EOP CP). To investigate this, we used data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a UK-based prospective epidemiological birth cohort. 5727 mother-child pairs (49.9 % boys) monitored since pregnancy (delivery date between 1 April, 1991 and 31 December, 1992) reported intake of fish and processed foods at 32 weeks gestation and, for the child, at 3 years; EOP (n = 666) and Low conduct problem (Low CP, n = 5061) trajectories were measured from 4 to 13 years; hyperactivity and emotional difficulties were assessed in childhood (4–10 years) and early adolescence (12–13 years), in addition to potential confounding factors (family adversity, birth complications, income). Compared to Low CP, mothers of EOP children consumed less fish (p < 0.01) and more processed food (p < 0.05) prenatally, while EOP children consumed more processed food at 3 years (p < 0.05). For EOP, but not Low CP children, consuming less than two servings/week of fish (vs. two or more servings/week, p < 0.05), and one or more servings/day of processed food (vs. less than one serving/day, p < 0.01), was associated with higher emotional difficulties in early adolescence. Conclusions: Findings suggest that prenatal and postnatal diets high in processed food, and low in fish, associate with an EOP CP trajectory and co-occurring difficulties in early adolescence. As small effect size differences were found, further studies are needed to investigate the long-term impact of early unhealthy diet.     

African American Muslim Women: An Invisible Group

Little is written about Islam and African American women or men from a psychosocial perspective. Most of the literature is on the historical and political development of the Nation of Islam, and the differences among the male leaders. This focus obscures the fact that the majority of African Americans Muslims belong to traditional Islamic groups. Drawing upon a variety of literatures, this paper seeks to explore some background information about Islam and the African American community, and to understand the appeal of Islam to African American women.     

The extent of working memory deficits associated with Williams syndrome: exploration of verbal and spatial domains and executively controlled processes

The present study investigated verbal and spatial working memory (WM) functioning in individuals with the neuro-developmental disorder Williams syndrome (WS) using WM component tasks. While there is strong evidence of WM impairments in WS, previous research has focused on short-term memory and has neglected assessment of executive components of WM. There is a particular lack of consensus concerning the profile of verbal WM functioning in WS. Here, WS participants were compared to typically developing participants matched for (1) verbal ability and (2) spatial ability (N = 14 in each of the 3 groups). Individuals with WS were impaired on verbal WM tasks, both those involving short-term maintenance of information and executive manipulation, in comparison to verbal-matched controls. Surprisingly, individuals with WS were not impaired on a spatial task assessing short-term maintenance of information in memory (remembering spatial locations) compared to spatial-matched controls. They were, however, impaired on a spatial executive WM task requiring the manipulation of spatial information in memory. The present study suggests that individuals with WS show WM impairments that extend to both verbal and spatial domains, although spatial deficits are selective to executive aspects of WM function.     

Interpreting the effects of image manipulation on picture perception in pigeons (Columba livia) and humans (Homo sapiens)

The effects of picture manipulations on humans' and pigeons' performance were examined in a go/no-go discrimination of two perceptually similar categories, cat and dog faces. Four types of manipulation were used to modify the images. Mosaicization and scrambling were used to produce degraded versions of the training stimuli, while morphing and cell exchange were used to manipulate the relative contribution of positive and negative training stimuli to test stimuli. Mosaicization mainly removes information at high spatial frequencies, whereas scrambling removes information at low spatial frequencies to a greater degree. Morphing leads to complex transformations of the stimuli that are not concentrated at any particular spatial frequency band. Cell exchange preserves high spatial frequency details, but sometimes moves them into the "wrong" stimulus. The four manipulations also introduce high-frequency noise to differing degrees. Responses to test stimuli indicated that high and low spatial frequency information were both sufficient but not necessary to maintain discrimination performance in both species, but there were also species differences in relative sensitivity to higher and lower spatial frequency information.     

Psychological Emptiness in the Zhuāngzǐ

Three views of psychological emptiness, or xū, can be found in the Zhuāngz?. The instrumental view values xū primarily as a means of efficacious action. The moderate view assigns it intrinsic value as an element of one Zhuangist vision of the good life. The radical view also takes it to be an element of the ideal life, but in this case the form of life advocated is that of the Daoist sage, who transcends mundane human concerns to merge with nature or the Dào. The instrumental and moderate views articulate a relatively commonsensical position, on which the agent continues to pursue at least some characteristically human projects. On the radical view, by contrast, the agent ceases to exercise agency and lives a life hardly recognizable as human. The three views thus signal a tension in Zhuangist ethics, and the unattractiveness of the radical view poses a potential obstacle to the application of Daoist ideas in contemporary ethical discourse. The paper argues that there are principled grounds within Zhuangist thought for detaching the instrumental and moderate views from the radical view and rejecting the latter.     

Elevated content of cortisol in hair of patients with severe chronic pain: a novel biomarker for stress

Hair analysis has been used to reflect long-term systemic exposure to exogenous drugs and toxins. Several studies have demonstrated the feasibility of measuring endogenous steroid hormones, e.g. cortisol, in hair. Recently, a study in macaques showed a significant increase in hair cortisol levels induced by stress. We explored whether hair cortisol levels may be used as a biomarker for long-term stress in humans. Patients with severe chronic pain, aged 18 years or older, receiving opioid treatment for at least one year were recruited. Controls were non-obese (body mass index, BMI < 30 mg/kg(2)) adults. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaire was used to assess perceived stress over the last 4 weeks. A hair sample was obtained from the vertex posterior. Cortisol was measured using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. We included fifteen patients (nine females and six males) and 39 non-obese control subjects (20 females, 19 males). PSS scores (median and range) were significantly higher in chronic pain patients (24: 12-28) than in controls (12: 3-31)(P < 0.001). Hair cortisol contents (median and range) were significantly greater in chronic pain patients (83.1: 33.0-205 g/mg) than in controls (46.1: 27.2-200 pg/mg) (P < 0.01). We conclude that hair cortisol contents are increased in patients with major chronic stress. Measurement of cortisol levels in hair constitutes a novel biomarker of prolonged stress.     

Haag’s Theorem and its Implications for the Foundations of Quantum Field Theory

Although the philosophical literature on the foundations of quantum field theory recognizes the importance of Haag’s theorem, it does not provide a clear discussion of the meaning of this theorem. The goal of this paper is to make up for this deficit. In particular, it aims to set out the implications of Haag’s theorem for scattering theory, the interaction picture, the use of non-Fock representations in describing interacting fields, and the choice among the plethora of the unitarily inequivalent representations of the canonical commutation relations for free and interacting fields.     

Smile Through Your Fear and Sadness

ABSTRACT— It is well established that animal communication signals have adapted to the evolutionary pressures of their environment. For example, the low-frequency vocalizations of the elephant are tailored to long-range communications, whereas the high-frequency trills of birds are adapted to their more localized acoustic niche. Like the voice, the human face transmits social signals about the internal emotional state of the transmitter. Here, we address two main issues: First, we characterized the spectral composition of the facial features signaling each of the six universal expressions of emotion (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise). From these analyses, we then predicted and tested the effectiveness of the transmission of emotion signals over different viewing distances. We reveal a gradient of recognition over viewing distances constraining the relative adaptive usefulness of facial expressions of emotion (distal expressions are good signals over a wide range of viewing distances; proximal expressions are suited to closer-range communication).     

What exactly is a yait anyway: The role of semantics in orthographic learning

This study investigated whether semantic information presented along with novel printed nonwords facilitates orthographic learning and examined predictors of individual differences in this important literacy skill. A sample of 35 fourth graders was tested on a variety of language and literacy tests, and participants were then exposed to 10 target nonwords, 5 of which were presented with semantic information. Children were tested 1 and 4 days later on their ability to correctly recognize and spell the target nonwords. Results revealed a significant main effect on the recognition task, where items presented with semantic information were identified correctly more often than were words presented in isolation. No significant effect of training condition was found for the spelling posttests. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses revealed that both phonological and semantic factors were significant predictors of orthographic learning. The findings support the view that orthographic learning, as measured through visual recognition, involves the integration of phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations.