Effects of inhaled Linalool in anxiety, social interaction and aggressive behavior in mice

Aromatherapy uses essential oils (EOs) for several medical purposes, including relaxation. The association between the use of aromas and a decrease in anxiety could be a valuable instrument in managing anxiety in an ever increasing anxiogenic daily life style. Linalool is a monoterpene commonly found as the major volatile component of EOs in several aromatic plant species. Adding to previously reported sedative effects of inhaled linalool, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of inhaled linalool on anxiety, aggressiveness and social interaction in mice. Additionally, we investigated the effects of inhaled linalool on the acquisition phase of a step-down memory task in mice. Inhaled linalool showed anxiolytic properties in the light/dark test, increased social interaction and decreased aggressive behavior; impaired memory was only seen the higher dose of linalool. These results strengthen the suggestion that inhaling linalool rich essential oils can be useful as a mean to attain relaxation and counteract anxiety. (C) 2009 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Circadian phase and intertrial interval interfere with social recognition memory

A modified version of the social habituation/dis-habituation paradigm was employed to examine social recognition memory in Wistar rats during two opposing (active and inactive) circadian phases, using different intertrial intervals (30 and 60 min). Wheel-running activity was monitored continuously to identify circadian phase. To avoid possible masking effects of the light-dark cycle, the rats were synchronized to a skeleton photoperiod, which allowed testing during different circadian phases under identical lighting conditions. In each trial, an infantile intruder was introduced into an adult`s home-cage for a 5-minute interaction session, and social behaviors were registered. Rats were exposed to 5 trials per day for 4 consecutive days: oil days I and 2, each resident was exposed to the same intruder; on days 3 and 4, each resident was exposed to a different intruder in each trial. I he resident`s social investigatory behavior was more intense when different intruders were presented compared to repeated presentation of the same intruder, suggesting social recognition memory. This effect was stronger when the rats were tested during the inactive phase and when the intertrial interval was 60 min, These findings Suggest that social recognition memory, as evaluated in this modified habituation/dis-habituation paradigm, is influenced by the circadian rhythm phase during which testing is performed, and by intertrial interval. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Learning of shared attention in sociable robotics

Sociable robots are embodied agents that are part of a heterogeneous society of robots and humans. They Should be able to recognize human beings and each other, and to engage in social, interactions. The use of a robotic architecture may strongly reduce the time and effort required to construct a sociable robot. Such architecture must have structures and mechanisms to allow social interaction. behavior control and learning from environment. Learning processes described oil Science of Behavior Analysis may lead to the development of promising methods and Structures for constructing robots able to behave socially and learn through interactions from the environment by a process of contingency learning. In this paper, we present a robotic architecture inspired from Behavior Analysis. Methods and structures of the proposed architecture, including a hybrid knowledge representation. are presented and discussed. The architecture has been evaluated in the context of a nontrivial real problem: the learning of the shared attention, employing an interactive robotic head. The learning capabilities of this architecture have been analyzed by observing the robot interacting with the human and the environment. The obtained results show that the robotic architecture is able to produce appropriate behavior and to learn from social interaction. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Is the unfolding of the group discussion off-pattern? Improving coordination support in educational forums using mobile devices

A forum is a valuable tool to foster reflection in an in-depth discussion; however, it forces the course mediator to continually pay close attention in order to coordinate learners` activities. Moreover, monitoring a forum is time consuming given that it is impossible to know in advance when new messages are going to be posted. Additionally, a forum may be inactive for a long period and suddenly receive a burst of messages forcing forum mediators to frequently log on in order to know how the discussion is unfolding to intervene whenever it is necessary. Mediators also need to deal with a large amount of messages to identify off-pattern situations. This work presents a piece of action research that investigates how to improve coordination support in a forum using mobile devices for mitigating mediator`s difficulties in following the status of a forum. Based on summarized information extracted from message meta-data, mediators consult visual information summaries on PDAs and receive textual notifications in their mobile phone. This investigation revealed that mediators used the mobile-based coordination support to keep informed on what is taking place within the forum without the need to log on their desktop computer. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Short-time behaviour of demand and price viewed through an exactly solvable model for heterogeneous interacting market agents

We introduce a stochastic heterogeneous interacting-agent model for the short-time non-equilibrium evolution of excess demand and price in a stylized asset market. We consider a combination of social interaction within peer groups and individually heterogeneous fundamentalist trading decisions which take into account the market price and the perceived fundamental value of the asset. The resulting excess demand is coupled to the market price. Rigorous analysis reveals that this feedback may lead to price oscillations, a single bounce, or monotonic price behaviour. The model is a rare example of an analytically tractable interacting-agent model which allows LIS to deduce in detail the origin of these different collective patterns. For a natural choice of initial distribution, the results are independent of the graph structure that models the peer network of agents whose decisions influence each other. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.