Distribution of CCR2-64I and SDF1-3 ' A alleles and HIV status in 7 ethnic populations of Cameroon

Limited information is available on the prevalence among rural Africans of host genetic polymorphisms conferring resistance to HIV-1 infection or slowing HIV disease progression.We report the allelic frequencies of the AIDS-related polymorphisms CCR2-64I, SDF1-3#A, and CCR5-D32 in 321 volunteers from 7 ethnic groups in Cameroon. Allelic frequencies differed among the 7 ethnic groups, ranging from 10.8% to 31.3% for CCR2-64I and 0.0% to 7.1% for SDF1-3#A. No CCR5-D32 alleles were found. HIV seroprevalence was 6.9% in the total population and peaked at younger ages in girls and women than in boys and men. Among 15- to 54-year-olds, HIV seroprevalence varied from 2.0% to 11.1% among the village populations. Conditional logistic regression analysis using data from boys and men aged 15 to 54 years showed the number of CCR2-64I alleles to be a significant risk factor for HIV seropositivity (odds ratio per allele adjusted for age and matched on ethnic group = 6.3, 95% confidence interval: 1.3–30.3); this association was not found in women. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that CCR2-64I alleles may delay HIV disease progression without affecting susceptibility to infection among men. We did not observe this relation among women, and other factors, such as multiple pregnancies or maternal stressors (eg, breastfeeding), may have masked any protective effect of CCR2-64I alleles. Further study of this issue among women is warranted. SDF1-3#A did not differ between HIV-seropositive and HIV-seronegative individuals but wasassociated with increasing age among HIV-seronegative women, suggesting a protective effect against HIV-1 infection.

Degradation of tropical forest in Hainan, China, 1991-2008: Conservation implications for Hainan Gibbon (Nomascus hainanus)

The Hainan gibbon (Nomascus hainanus) is one of the most endangered primates in the world, confined to mature natural forest in Hainan Island, China. We assessed changes in habitat condition on the island between 1991 and 2008, using vegetation maps generated by remote-sensing images. We defined forest suitable for gibbons based on composition, tree size and canopy cover. During the 17-year period, the area of suitable gibbon forest decreased by 540 km(2) (35%) across the whole island, and by 6.3 km(2) (7%) in the locality of the sole remaining gibbon population at Bawangling National Nature Reserve. The forest patches large enough (>1 km(2)) to support a gibbon group decreased from 754 km(2) to 316 km(2) in total area, and from 92 to 64 in number. Suitable natural forest was mainly replaced by plantations below 760 m, or degraded by logging, grazing and planting of pines above 760 m. Meanwhile, forests in former confirmed gibbon areas became more fragmented: mean area of patches decreased by 53%. We mapped the patches of natural forest in good condition which could potentially support gibbons. We recommend a freeze on further expansion of plantations between core patches at Bawangling, Jiaxi-Houmiling and Yinggeling Nature Reserves in accordance with forest protection regulations; establishment of nature reserves in currently unprotected natural forest patches elsewhere in line with the local government's nature reserve expansion policy; and active natural-forest restoration between remaining fragments at Bawangling. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

不同培肥措施下种植制度及撂荒对土壤微生物量碳氮的影响

以黄土高原南部半湿润易旱区已进行17年的田间定位试验为研究对象,研究了不同培肥措施(不施肥、施用氮磷钾及氮磷钾与有机肥配合施用)下两种种植制度(一年1熟及一年两熟)和撂荒对土壤微生物量碳、氮(SMBC、SMBN)及可溶性有机碳、氮(SOC、SON)等含量的影响。结果表明,与一年1熟的小麦-休闲种植制度相比,一年两熟小麦-玉米轮作提高了0~10cm土层SMBC、SMBN、有机碳(TOC)、全氮(TN)和土壤SOC、SON的含量,而对10~20cm土层上述测定指标影响不大。与不施肥(CK)或单施化肥处理(NPK)下小麦-休闲和小麦-玉米轮作方式相比,撂荒处理显著提高了0~10cm土层各测定指标的含量。不同培肥措施相比,氮磷钾配施有机肥显著提高了0~10cm、10~20cm土层SMBC、SMBN含量;NPK处理0~10cm土层SMBN含量显著增加,10~20cm土层SMBN和0~10cm、10~20cm土层SMBC含量增加但未达显著水平。不同培肥措施和种植制度对SMBC/TOC和SMBN/TN的比例无明显影响。

Live-weight gain, apparent digestibility, and economic benefits of yaks fed different diets during winter on the Tibetan plateau

Our goal was to determine the effect of diets with different crude protein (CP) contents and metabolizable energy (W) levels on daily live-weight gain, apparent digestibility, and economic benefit of feedlot yaks on the Tibetan plateau during winter. Yaks were either 2- or 3-years old and randomly selected from the same herd. The 3-year-olds were placed into one of two experimental groups (A and B) and a control (CK1), and the two-year-olds were placed into one of three experimental groups (C, D and E) and a control (CK2) (N per group = 5). Yak in the control groups were allow graze freely, while those in the experimental groups yaks were fed diets higher in contains crude protein and metabolizable energy through a winter period inside a warming shed. Results indicated that live-weight gain of treatment groups was higher than their respective controls during experiment, and that daily live-weight gain of every 10 days among different treatments was significant difference (P < 0.05). In addition, apparent digestibility of different diets was linearly and positively related to feedlotting time, and feed conversion efficiency for A, C, D and E groups was quadratically related to feedlotting time (P < 0.01), however, feed conversion efficiency for B group was linearly and positively related to feedlotting time (P < 0.05). The economic benefit was 1.15 for A, 1.89 for B, 1.16 for C, 1.54 for D, and 4,52 for E. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

3-5岁幼儿认知灵活性的发展

To test preschoolers’ development of cognitive flexibility--an ability to solve a problem in one way and to then switch solution strategies, and the mechanism involved in the development, 3-5-year-olds are asked to perform switching tasks in which the experimenter manipulates the way the stimuli are presented: consecutive or simultaneous; the way the switching happens: between dimensions or within a dimension; the conceptual domains involved: shape, color, number and direction; the specific labels used. The main results of this work are presented below: (1) 3-5-year-olds’ cognitive flexibility develops with age, yet its development is not of the same speed in extra-dimensional switch tasks and inter-dimensional reversal tasks. 3-year-olds manifest some cognitive flexibility, but their performance is significantly worse than that of 4- and 5-year-olds. For the 3-year-olds, in reversal tasks, although 80% of the children passed the post-switch phrase in color task; less then 60% children passed the post-switch phrase in shape, number and direction tasks. In extra-dimensional tasks, 3-year-olds performance is worse than that in the reversal tasks. Less than 50% of the children passed the tasks. Children’s cognitive flexibility develops fast from 3-year-olds to 4-year-olds. Both 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds demonstrate high flexibility without significant difference between them. (2) Children’s flexibility in the conceptual domains of shape, color, number and direction follows different developing patterns. In inter-dimensional reversal tasks, 3-year-olds’ performance is not the same in the 4 conceptual domains, but the difference among the domains is insignificant in 4-and-5-year-olds. In extra-dimensional switching tasks, children’s performance on the 4 domain tasks is significantly different from one another in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds. (3) The way the stimuli are presented affects children’s development of cognitive flexibility. In inter-dimensional reversal tasks, 3-year-olds’ performance in consecutive presentation is significantly better than that in simultaneous presentation. 4- and 5-year-olds’ performance in the 2 presentations is not significantly different from each other. In extra-dimensional switch tasks, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds’ performance in the consecutive presentation is not significantly better than that in the simultaneous presentation (4) 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds’ self-issued labeling aids their performance on the switching tasks. Children’ performance in the labeling condition is significantly better than that of no labeling. (5) 3-5-year-olds’ cognitive flexibility is highly correlated with their working memory and inhibition. Children’ development of cognitive flexibility is a process that involves activation of working memory and inhibition, in which the complexity of the task also plays a role.

小学学习不良儿童对言语交际策略的理解与运用

[Abstract] Verbal communication strategy (VCS) refers to a programmed knowledge applied by individuals to understand and express intentions via language symbols in their realization of communicative objectives according to social conventions. As an important index of social development, verbal communication strategy has provided a new perspective for social skill studies. However, more work has to be done in the investigation of LD children’s VCS developmental pattern and affecting mechanism. Through contextual test, structured interview and role-play, the present study, by adopting integrated measurements of instrumental and interpersonal effectiveness, explored the developmental characteristics of Chinese learning-disabled primary school children across 3-6th grades at both comprehension and application levels. Then, their social perspective-taking performance and verbal retelling competence of each participant were examined, on the basis of which, path analysis was conducted, with social perspective-taking, verbal retelling and verbal communication strategy comprehension as independent variables, to reveal the inner mechanism affecting LD children’s application of verbal communication strategy. Finally, an intervention study was carried out through a combination of polite request strategy understanding lessons and social perspective-taking training dramas. The results indicate that:(1) No significant grade differences were found in LD group for polite request strategy, while significant differences were reported across different grades of non-LD children. For indirect reply strategy, significant grade and gender differences were found among LD children, but the developmental trajectory between the two groups was different. For both polite request and indirect reply strategies, the strategy comprehension level of LD children was significantly lower than those without learning disabilities. (2) No significant grade and gender differences were found in LD group in their application of polite request strategy, while for non-LD children, significant differences were reported across different grades. For indirect reply strategy, both LD and non-LD groups exhibited similar developmental characteristics. Significant group differences only exist in the over-all application level of polite request strategies, not in indirect reply strategies. However, the differences of the latter between the two groups were found at significant level only among the 11-12 year olds. (3) LD children’s perspective-taking and verbal retelling competence were significantly lower than those of non-LD group. For polite request strategy, the influence of social perspective-taking to strategy application was indirect and must be via strategy comprehension, while for indirect reply strategy, strategy comprehension was found to play as a partial mediator between social perspective-taking and strategy application. The influence of verbal retelling to strategy application was indirect on both types of strategies. (4) LD children’s strategy comprehension and social perspective-taking level can be improved, and the improvement of these two competences has significant positive impact on the increase of their strategy application level. Key Words: learning disabilities, verbal communication strategy, social perspective- taking

5-13岁儿童对惯性运动的认知发展

Research on naïve physics investigates children’s intuitive understanding of physical objects, phenomena and processes. Children, and also many adults, were found to have a misconception of inertia, called impetus theory. In order to investigate the development of this naïve concept and the mechanism underlying it, four age groups (5-year-olds, 2nd graders, 5th graders, and 8th graders) were included in this research. Modified experimental tasks were used to explore the effects of daily experience, perceptual cues and general information-processing ability on children’s understanding of inertia. The results of this research are: 1) Five- to thirteen-year-olds’ understanding of inertia problems which were constituted by two ogjects moving at the same spped undergoes an L-shaped developmental trend; Children’s performance became worse as they got older, and their performance in the experiment did not necessarily ascend with the improvement of their cognitive abilities. 2) The L-shaped developmental curve suggests that children in different ages used different strategies to solve inertia problems: Five- to eight-year-olds only used heuristic strategy, while eleven- to thirteen-year-olds solved problems by analyzing the details of inertia motion. 3) The different performance between familiar and unfamiliar problems showed that older children were not able to spontaneously transfer their knowledge and experience from daily action and observation of inertia to unfamiliar, abstract inertia problems. 4) Five- to eight-year-olds showed straight and fragmented pattern, while more eleven- to thirteen-year-olds showed standard impetus theory and revised impetus theory pattern, which showed that younger children were influenced by perceptual cues and their understanding of inertia was fragmented, while older children had coherent impetus theory. 5) When the perceptual cues were controlled, even 40 percent 5 years olds showed the information-processing ability to analyze the distance, speed and time of two objects traveling in two different directions at the same time, demonstrating that they have achieved a necessary level to theorize their naïve concept of inertia.

5-9岁儿童对常见食物及其功能的认知发展

Research on naïve biology investigates children spontaneous understanding of biology objects, phenomena and function. Previous researches focus mostly on biology phenomena. Little has done on organism’s function, such as eating food. Many research in this field found that children were unable to categorize food by nutrition criterion, but rely on physical cues. In order to investigate the development of children’s naïve understanding of food and to find if they can classify food by nutrition criterion, three age groups (5-year-olds, 7-year-olds, and 9-year-olds) were included in this study. Varies experimental tasks were also used to explore the children’s understanding of food and its function. The results showed as the followings: 1) A few 5-year- old children can classify food by nutrition criterion when they take the spontaneous classification task. However, more and more children can realize what make a kind of food different from another can be the nutrition it contains. 2) Kindergarteners can find the relation between food and its output. When they become older, more and more children can explain the relation by consistent theory. It can be said that 9-year-old children have already have a profound understanding of nutrition. They gradually developed naive theory of biology on nutrition level. 3) Even kindergarteners can understand the concept of “food balance”. However, with development there was a significant age increase in food balance choice. 4) Children’s knowledge of food balance grows with age, but urban and rural educational background influence cognitive performance.

10-14岁超常儿童的亲社会行为特点及影响因素

Is prosocial behavior of supernormal children distinguished from normal children? Is there any difference between the supernormal children’s prosocial behavior from different educational placement? What are the mechanisms underlying the difference? The aim of this study was to examine these issues. With multiple methods of prosocial behavior, including other-rating, self-rating and hypothetical dilemma, we investigated the 10 to 14 year-old children. Firstly, the development of prosocial behavior and its relationship with prosocial behavior was examined. Secondly, we investigated the features of supernormal children’s prosocial behavior and analysed its difference with normal children. Finally, we tried to find the difference of supernormal children’s prosocial behaviour from different educational placement, and the mechanisms underlying the difference, such as social value orientation and peer relation. The results are as follows: 1)The altruistic and compliant prosocial tendency of 14 year-old children was obviously lower than those younger children. Intelligence was positively related with altruistic and emotional prosocial tendency for 10 year-olds, and with prosocial behaviour of peer nominated for 12 year-olds. 2)There was no significant difference of prosocial behaviour between supernormal and normal children. The peer nominated prosocial behaviour of 12 year-old supernormal children was higher than of 11 and 13 years old supernormal children. In addition, girls’ other-rating prosocial behaviour was significantly higher than boys’, but no gender difference was detected in the prosocial behaviour of self-rating and hypothetical dilemma. 3)With regard to the supernormal children’s prosocial behaviour in different educational placement, we found that the prosocial degree of the supernormal children of homogeneous groups was higher than that of heterogeneous groups in the role-change of ultimatum game. 4)The supernormal children from different educational placement had different social value orientation. More supernormal children of homogeneous groups belonged to the type of group enhancement, while more supernormal children of heterogeneous groups belonged to the type of equality. The types of social value orientation did not have impact on the supernormal children’s prosocial behaviour from different educational placement. 5)Peer relation moderated the impact of different educational placement on supernormal children’s prosocial behaviour.

学前儿童朴素生物学“理论”的发展——对“生长”认知的实验研究

There is a debate in cognitive development theory on whether cognitive development is general or specific. More and more researchers think that cognitive development is domain specific. People start to investigate preschoolers' native theory of human being's basic knowledge systems. Naive biology is one of the core domains. But there is argument whether there is separate native biological concepts among preschoolers. The research examined preschoolers' cognitive development of naive biological theory on two levels which is "growth" and "aliveness", and it also examined individual difference and factors that lead to the difference. Three studies were designed. Study 1 was to study preschoolers' cognition on growth, which is a basic trait of living things, and whether children can distinguish living and non-living things with the trait and understanding the causality. Study 2 was to investigate preschoolers' distinction between living things and non-living things from an integrated level. Study 3 was to investigate how children make inferences to unfamiliar things with their domain specific knowledge. The results showed the following: 1. Preschoolers gradually developed naive theory of biology on growth level, but their naive theory on integrated level has not developed. 2 Preschoolers' naive theory of biology is not "all or none", 4- and 5-year-old children showed some distinction between living and non-living things to some extent, they use non-intentional reason to explain the cause of growth and their explanation showed coherence. But growth has not been a criteria of ontological distinction of living and non-living things for 4- and 5-year-old children, most 6-year-old children can distinguish between living and non-living things, and these show the developing process of biological cognition. 3. Preschoolers' biological inference is influenced by their domain-specific knowledge, whether they can make inference to new trait of living things depends on whether they have specific knowledge. In the deductive task, children use their knowledge to make inference to unfamiliar things. 4-year-olds use concrete knowledge more often while the 6-year-old use generalized knowledge more frequency. 4. Preschoolers' knowledge grow with age, but individuals' cognitive development speed at different period. Urban and rural educational background affect cognitive performance. As time goes by, the urban-rural knowledge difference to distinguish living and nonliving things reduces. And preschoolers' are at the same developmental stage because the three age groups have similar causal explanation both in quantity and quality. 5. There is intra-individual difference on preschoolers' naive biological cognition. They show different performance on different tasks and domains, and their cognitive development is sequential, they understand growth earlier than they understand "alive", which is an integrated concept. The intra-individual differences decrease with age.

小学儿童空间物体位置编码的实验研究

As a key issue in spatial cognitive developmental research, the coding of object location plays an important role in children's cognitive development. The development of location coding is a precondition for children's adaptation to their environments, and the development of corresponding ability could enhance children's adaptation ability and improve their synthetic diathesis. In this paper, under the improved paradigm of object searching, 7-, 9- and 11-year-olds of urban primary school students were involved in two studies including the total of four experiments. The children were examined upon the ability to encode target location in terms of the distance between two landmarks, three points on a line, the intersection of two lines, or the corresponding points on two parallel lines. The experiments were designed to explore the primary school children's cognitive developmental process upon spatial object location and the correlative restricting factors. From the studies, the following conclusions were drawn: 1)The ability of 7-year-olds to represent target location in terms of the relationships of points and lines is in the inceptive stage and appears unstable. Meanwhile, the same ability of 9-year-olds is in a state of fast developing. The 9-year-olds' performance depends on how difficult the task is. It is stable when task is easy while unstable when task becomes difficult. The ability of 11-year-olds reaches much-developed state and the group's performance is independent of the difficulty of tasks. 2) The correlate coefficient is significant between Raven Standard Inference ability levels and the performance of representing target location in terms of the relationships of points. Those children with good performance in Raven Standard Inference Test have good performance in target location coding. The case is true for all different age groups. As of the task in terms of the relationships of lines, the correlate coefficient between Raven Standard Inference ability levels and children's performance of representing target location is found significant only for the 7-year-olds' group. The case is not true for the groups of 9- and 11-year-olds. It is also found that the correlate coefficient is significant between the sum of performance and Raven Standard Inference ability levels, and that is true for all age groups. 3) Effects from task variable exist upon children's above-mentioned cognitive performance. The effects are different according to different difficulty levels of tasks. Also, they are different according to the different ages. 4) The subjects who failed in the 'no cues for encoding given' situation were able to improve their performances when the cues of encoding were given. Therefore it is possible to improve the primary school children's corresponding cognitive performance by providing the cues of encoding. 5) Two kinds of efficient strategies were used to solve the problem. They are trial-comparison strategy and anticipation-directed strategy.

通过对心理学期刊的几项统计分析看我国十年来儿童发展教育心理学研究状况与动向

In this study, bibliometric method was usded in the investigation of 2274 papers concerning child developmental and educational psychology, which were published during the ten years of 1979-1988, in 14 psychological journals and 97 other scientific journals. According to the quantitative and qualitative analyses, the results are as follows: 1979-1988 saw the rapid development and prosperous period in China's child developmental and educational psychology, During which more papers were published and more fields couched than in the psvious thirty years. The number of literature publications increased and went to the peak in 1983 and 1984, and came down since 1985. The trend was found to result from the decrease in popular science introductions of psychology, which reflected that a heat of psychology had appeared in 1983 and started to cool in 1985. At the mean time, the number of research reports had been holding a steady increase by 1987 and decreased obviously in 1988, especially in the fields of cognitive and social development. There could be several possible explanations of this phenonemon: Piagetian studies are becoming fewer and the eakening of Piaget's influence might predict a period of standstill in the field of developmental psychology in China; As researches become more and more difficult, researchers have turned to be more cautious in lay out their reports; the cutdown of fees and staff could also be one of reasons for less publication in 1988. As the factors mentioned above still exist and their influences last, the number of papers are not expected to increase in the near future. The field of thinking and menory is closely connected with that of artificial intelligence. The downhill situations in these two fileds should be taken seriously. 2. The types of research work are divided on the bases of their problem raising. The trends show that the deepening studies, which represent a comaratively higher level of exploration, are waving fewer, while repeated studies and creative studies are becoming more as the years go along. This fact is worth being further analysed. Big progress could be seen from research methods. The methods currently used are mainly experiment, psychological measurement and assessment, and theoretical reasoning. There is a rapid increase of research by using scales. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Binet Scale and Baley Scale have been revised andstandardized. Chinese researchers have also developed several good scales of their own, some of which are valuable and need to be standardized. In the papers investigated, the amount of citation is significantly lower than the world average level as well as the average citation number of whole China's scientific literature. Among the papers cited, most are of Chinese and English languages, and only a small rate were published in resently five years. The renewal of literature cited seems to stay at a low level in the ten years. Tremendous work could be reflected by the number of subjects used the research work in those ten years: 362665. A lot of studies piled on the period of 4-16 year olds. Compared with the previous thirty years, the age range was much enlarged and there were quite a few studies about preschool, school and adolescent periods. The study of newborn of 0-3 has been a weak point so far and it is a field to which chinese developmental psychologists should pay more attention. The progress in using statistics is one of the most obvious part in the development in the research work of child developmental and educational psychology. The one tendency that should be awared and avoid is to put the cart before the horse: seeking for more sophisticated statistic method while neglecting the meanings of research problems. 3. Citation analysis was used in selecting scholars who had great influence in the field of child developmental and educational psychology. Among the often cited and famous scholars, 31 are Chinese researchers and 12 are Western psychologists. The authoritative journal for child developmental psychology and educational psychology is Acta Psychologica Sinica.

影响幼儿层级类概念动态发展因素的研究

Three experiments were conducted in the attempt to understand the development of hierarchical classification. The 3-and 4-year-olds as well as hindergartners were given matching or object sorting tasks with either basic-level or superordinate relations. The results indicated: 1. Even 3-year-olds can consistently sort at the basic level. However, children perform poorly at the superordinate level, and there are developmental differences in the ability to sort at this level. 2. The perceptual similarity of stimulus materials, various competing organizations and the different ways of dealing with superordinate categories, depending on whether the categories are explicitly or implicitly represented for the child, are all factors appear to contribute to children's hierarchical classification.