Medically Documented Suicide Ideation Among U.S. Army Soldiers

We used administrative data to examine predictors of medically documented suicide ideation (SI) among Regular Army soldiers from 2006 through 2009 (N = 10,466 ideators, 124,959 control person‐months). Enlisted ideators (97.8% of all cases) were more likely than controls to be female, younger, older when entering service, less educated, never or previously deployed, and have a recent mental health diagnosis. Officer ideators were more likely than controls to be female, younger, younger when entering service, never married, and have a recent mental health diagnosis. Risk among enlisted soldiers peaked in the second month of service and declined steadily, whereas risk among officers remained relatively stable over time. Risk of SI is highest among enlisted soldiers early in Army service, females, and those with a recent mental health diagnosis.     

书法负荷对儿童大脑的激活效应的实验研究

该研究以儿童为被试探讨了书法负荷和非书法负荷(书写、计算、英文书写)前后反应时的变化情况,结果发现,(1)书法负荷后反应时明显缩短;(2)书写负荷后反应时的变化与书法负荷后相同;(3)计算负荷和英文书写负荷后未见反应时有明显缩短。     

Using conditional discrimination training to produce emergent relations between coins and their values in children with autism

The current study evaluated the effects of conditional discrimination (listener) training with coins on the emergence of novel stimulus relations, textual behavior, tacts, and intraverbals. Two preschoolers with autism were taught 3 relations among coins, their names, and values. After initial training, 4 relations emerged for the first participant and 7 for the second participant, suggesting that this technology can be incorporated into educational curricula for teaching prerequisite money skills to children with autism.     

Avoidance temperament and social-evaluative threat in college students' math performance: a mediation model of math and test anxiety

Background and Objectives: Standardized testing has become a common form of student evaluation with high stakes, and limited research exists on understanding the roles of students' personality traits and social-evaluative threat on their academic performance. This study examined the roles of avoidance temperament (i.e., fear and behavioral inhibition) and evaluative threat (i.e., fear of failure and being viewed as unintelligent) in standardized math test and course grades in college students. Design and Methods: Undergraduate students (N = 184) from a large public university were assessed on temperamental fear and behavioral inhibition. They were then given 15 minutes to complete a standardized math test. After the test, students provided data on evaluative threat and their math performance (scores on standardized college entrance exam and average grades in college math courses). Results: Results indicate that avoidance temperament was linked to social-evaluative threat and low standardized math test scores. Furthermore, evaluative threat mediated the influence of avoidance temperament on both types of math performance. Conclusions: Results have educational and clinical implications, particularly for students at risk for test anxiety and underperformance. Interventions targeting emotion regulation and stress management skills may help individuals reduce their math and test anxieties.     

A Computational Model of Linguistic Humor in Puns

Humor plays an essential role in human interactions. Precisely what makes something funny, however, remains elusive. While research on natural language understanding has made significant advancements in recent years, there has been little direct integration of humor research with computational models of language understanding. In this paper, we propose two information‐theoretic measures—ambiguity and distinctiveness—derived from a simple model of sentence processing. We test these measures on a set of puns and regular sentences and show that they correlate significantly with human judgments of funniness. Moreover, within a set of puns, the distinctiveness measure distinguishes exceptionally funny puns from mediocre ones. Our work is the first, to our knowledge, to integrate a computational model of general language understanding and humor theory to quantitatively predict humor at a fine‐grained level. We present it as an example of a framework for applying models of language processing to understand higher level linguistic and cognitive phenomena.     

Torso movement constraint in stability of bimanual coordination

This study investigated the relation between postural movement and upper-limb coordination stability. Adults produced bimanual circles using in-phase and anti-phase coordination patterns in time to an increasing rate metronome (i.e., movement-time instruction) in the horizontal (e.g., tabletop) and vertical (e.g., "wall" perpendicular to body) planes. All participants produced the instructed in- and anti-phase patterns. Coordination stability (i.e., SD of relative phase) was larger for anti-phase than in-phase patterns in both planes; however, anti-phase coordination stability was lower in the vertical plane than in the horizontal plane. Torso movement was larger during anti-phase coordination patterns in the horizontal plane, whereas it was larger during in-phase coordination patterns in the vertical plane. These results indicate that different orientations of the same task can produce different results for stability of coordination. This information may be important for performing and learning complex motor-coordination movements (e.g., playing musical instruments).     

Activation of amygdaloid PKC pathway is necessary for conditioned cues-provoked cocaine memory performance

Drug-associated cues are critical in reinstating the drug taking behavior even during prolonged abstinence and thus are thought to be a key factor to induce drug craving and to cause relapse. Amygdaloid complex has been known for its physiological function in mediating emotional experience storage and emotional cues-regulated memory retrieval. This study was undertaken to examine the role of basolateral nuclei of amygdala and the intracellular signaling molecule in drug cues-elicited cocaine memory retrieval. Systemic anisomycin treatment prior to the retrieval test abolished the cues-provoked cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP) memory. Likewise, a similar blockade of cues-provoked cocaine CPP performance was achieved by infusion of anisomycin and cycloheximide into the basolateral nuclei of amygdala before the test. Intra-amygdaloid infusion of H89, a protein kinase A inhibitor, or U0126, a MEK inhibitor, did not affect retrieval of the cues-elicited cocaine CPP memory. In contrast, intra-amygdaloid infusion of NPC 15437, a PKC inhibitor, abolished the cues-elicited cocaine CPP expression, while left the memory per se intact. Intra-amygdaloid infusion of NPC 15437 did not seem to affect locomotor activity or exert observable aversive effect. Taken together, our results suggest that activation of PKC signaling pathway and probably downstream de novo protein synthesis in the basolateral nuclei of amygdala is required for the cues-elicited cocaine memory performance. However, temporary inhibition of this signaling pathway does not seem to affect cocaine CPP memory per se.     

THE UNIVERSAL VERSUS THE PARTICULAR IN ECOFEMINIST ETHICS

While not a monolithic movement, ecofeminists are united in their conviction that there are important connections between the exploitation of both women and nature. They are internally divided, however, on the propriety of applying their theoretical claims and activist strategies across social contexts. This paper explores three debates within ecofeminism that largely turn on this universalist versus particularist tension: whether ecofeminist theorizing can adequately account for cultural variation; whether its common usage of essentialist rhetoric is productive or troubling; and whether resources for social activism could legitimately be culled from an assembly of heterogeneous and foreign sources. I conclude that the universalism of the women–nature connection can indeed be justified if perceived in multivalent ways, that “earthcare” or “ecomaternalist” discourse can be helpful in some contexts but harmful in others, and that selective retrieval of other cultures for the purposes of advocacy should not be ruled out as necessarily imperialistic or otherwise inappropriate.