Fear Reduction Processes in Imaginal and In Vivo Flooding: A Comment on James' Review

The research comparing imaginal and in vivo exposure in the treatment of clinically significant fear, recently reviewed by James (1986), is reexamined from the perspective of bioinformational theory and the concept of emotional processing. Fear is assumed to be stored in long term memory as a network of propositionally-coded information, which has to be processed if treatment is to be successful. Emotional processing is indicated by activation of fear responses and their habituation within and across treatment sessions. Consistent with the theory, our review indicates that successful treatment via imaginal and in vivo exposure is indeed related to activation and habituation of fear responses; interference with processing has a negative impact upon fear reduction, regardless of the specific treatment techniques employed. Furthermore, some apparently discrepant findings in the available research literature can be understood in terms of the theories cited. These ideas provide a useful perspective from which to plan future research efforts and to advance our understanding of the processes underlying reduction of pathological fear.

Cross-culture perspectives on fear of HIV disease and AIDS in health care workers

Health care workers have been known to carry into the workplace a variety of judgmental and negative attitudes towards their patients. In no other area of patient care has this issue been more pronounced as in the management of patients with AIDS. Health care workers have refused to treat or manage patients with AIDS and have often treated them more harshly than identically described leukemia patients. Some health care institutions have simply refused to admit patients with AIDS and even recent applicants to medical colleges and schools of nursing have indicated a preference for schools in areas with low prevalence of HIV disease. Since the attitudes of health care workers do have significant consequences on patient management, this study was carried out to determine the differences in clinical practice in Nigeria and the United States of America as it relates to knowledge of a patient's HIV status, determine HIV prevalence and culture in each of the study sites and how they impact on infection control practices, determine the relationship between infection control practices and fear of AIDS, and also determine the predictors of safe infection control practices in each of the study sites.^ The study utilized the 38-item fear of AIDS scale and the measure of infection control questionnaire for its data. Questionnaires were administered to health care workers at the university teaching hospital sites of Houston, Texas and Calabar in Nigeria. Data was analyzed using a chi-square test, and where appropriate, a student t-tests to establish the demographic variables for each country. Factor analysis was done using principal components analysis followed by varimax rotation to simple structure. The subscale scores for each study site were compared using t-tests (separate variance estimates) and utilizing Bonferroni adjustments for number of tests. Finally, correlations were carried out between infection control procedures and fear of AIDS in each study site using Pearson-product moment correlation coefficients.^ The study revealed that there were five dimensions of the fear of AIDS in health care workers, namely fear of loss of control, fear of sex, fear of HIV infection through blood and illness, fear of death and medical interventions and fear of contact with out-groups. Fear of loss of control was the primary area of concern in the Nigerian health care workers whereas fear of HIV infection through blood and illness was the most important area of AIDS related feats in United States health care workers. The study also revealed that infection control precautions and practices in Nigeria were based more on normative and social pressures whereas it was based on knowledge of disease transmission, supervision and employee discipline in the United States, and thus stresses the need for focused educational programs in health care settings that emphasize universal precautions at all times and that are sensitive to the cultural nuances of that particular environment. ^

Notas para una arqueología de los temores infantiles : El Río de La Plata en el siglo XIX

Los adultos, muy poco dispuestos a poner en evidencia sus debilidades, se muestran reacios a reconocer sus temores. Los niños y niñas desconociendo en gran medida, convenciones y prácticas sociales restrictivas de lo emocional, se han mostrado y se muestran más libres en aceptar y hablar de sus miedos. Este miedo, ya en sus experiencias individuales o colectivas, puede definirse como la aversión a alguien o alguna cosa, que provoca, invariablemente, incapacidades, restricciones de la acción en distinto grado. Nos hemos propuesto advertir este miedo infantil, no sólo con el objeto de individualizar sus causas y efectos, sino también confirmar su persistencia a lo largo de los años, así como advertir como estos condicionaron la existencia infantil de generaciones posteriores.

Notas para una arqueología de los temores infantiles : El Río de La Plata en el siglo XIX

Los adultos, muy poco dispuestos a poner en evidencia sus debilidades, se muestran reacios a reconocer sus temores. Los niños y niñas desconociendo en gran medida, convenciones y prácticas sociales restrictivas de lo emocional, se han mostrado y se muestran más libres en aceptar y hablar de sus miedos. Este miedo, ya en sus experiencias individuales o colectivas, puede definirse como la aversión a alguien o alguna cosa, que provoca, invariablemente, incapacidades, restricciones de la acción en distinto grado. Nos hemos propuesto advertir este miedo infantil, no sólo con el objeto de individualizar sus causas y efectos, sino también confirmar su persistencia a lo largo de los años, así como advertir como estos condicionaron la existencia infantil de generaciones posteriores.

Notas para una arqueología de los temores infantiles : El Río de La Plata en el siglo XIX

Los adultos, muy poco dispuestos a poner en evidencia sus debilidades, se muestran reacios a reconocer sus temores. Los niños y niñas desconociendo en gran medida, convenciones y prácticas sociales restrictivas de lo emocional, se han mostrado y se muestran más libres en aceptar y hablar de sus miedos. Este miedo, ya en sus experiencias individuales o colectivas, puede definirse como la aversión a alguien o alguna cosa, que provoca, invariablemente, incapacidades, restricciones de la acción en distinto grado. Nos hemos propuesto advertir este miedo infantil, no sólo con el objeto de individualizar sus causas y efectos, sino también confirmar su persistencia a lo largo de los años, así como advertir como estos condicionaron la existencia infantil de generaciones posteriores.

Liability dollarization and fear of floating

This paper explores the idea that fear of floating can be justified as an optimal discretionary monetary policy in a dollarized emerging economy. Specifically, I consider a small open economy in which intermediate goods importers borrow in foreign currency and face a credit constraint. In this economy, exchange rate depreciation not only worsens importers' net-worth but also increases the financing amount in domestic currency, therefore exaggerating their borrowing finance premium. Besides, because of high exchange rate pass-through into import prices, fluctuations in the exchange rate also have strong impacts on domestic prices and production. These effects, together, magnify the macroeconomic consequences of the floating exchange rate policy in response to external shocks. The paper shows that the floating exchange rate regime is dominated by the fixed exchange rate regime in the role of cushioning shocks and in welfare terms.

ISIS and the climate of fear -- a political-psychology perspective

2014年6月のイスラーム国（以下ISIS）のメディアへの華々しい登場以降、米国政治を規定する主要な要因の1つとして「恐怖心」がかつてない程の重要性を帯びてきている。本稿では政治心理学的な分析手法を援用しつつ、ISISが何よりも「テロ攻撃集団」としていかに「恐怖心」を醸成するための洗練された戦略を実践しているか、またそれが統計的には圧倒的に中東現地のムスリム一般住民を標的にしており、本来的にS.ハンティントン的な「西欧文明に敵対するイスラーム」という問題を内包していないにもかかわらず、米国エスタブリッシュメントによる他者への「恐怖心」によって如何に本質が曲解されて「ムスリム排斥」のような情緒的な政治主張に向かわせているかの契機を分析する。筆者は論稿中でマキャベリから以降最近に至るまでの政治学関係の議論を渉猟しつつ、「恐怖心」をめぐる問題が「テロル」との関係においていかに扱われてきたかを再検討し、西欧のメディアにおける「テロ集団」としてのISISの登場が政治学的な観点から提起している問題の新しさと古さを跡付けようとする。同時に現在の米国社会を覆っているイスラモフォビアの情緒的反応についてもその淵源が古くかつ政治的に根深い問題から発していることを指摘している。本論稿の分析は直接的にはISISによって政治的な雰囲気が大きく変容するなかで大統領選挙の年を迎えている米国の国内政治を扱うものであるが、ここでの議論は「アラブの春」以降のシリア危機に発する難民問題に直面している欧州（EU）や、2015年11月のパリのテロ多発事件以降緊迫した雰囲気に覆われているフランスの政治状況にも通底しており、その意味では偶々2014年にISIS によって惹起されたとはいえそれ自体が自律的な展開の契機を内包する現代社会の政治的な抑圧的システムのグローバルな拡大と拡散に警鐘を鳴らそうとするものである。

Region-based moving object detection using spatially conditioned nonparametric models in a GPU

A novel GPU-based nonparametric moving object detection strategy for computer vision tools requiring real-time processing is proposed. An alternative and efficient Bayesian classifier to combine nonparametric background and foreground models allows increasing correct detections while avoiding false detections. Additionally, an efficient region of interest analysis significantly reduces the computational cost of the detections.

Cocaine reward models: Conditioned place preference can be established in dopamine- and in serotonin-transporter knockout mice

Cocaine and methylphenidate block uptake by neuronal plasma membrane transporters for dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. Cocaine also blocks voltage-gated sodium channels, a property not shared by methylphenidate. Several lines of evidence have suggested that cocaine blockade of the dopamine transporter (DAT), perhaps with additional contributions from serotonin transporter (5-HTT) recognition, was key to its rewarding actions. We now report that knockout mice without DAT and mice without 5-HTT establish cocaine-conditioned place preferences. Each strain displays cocaine-conditioned place preference in this major mouse model for assessing drug reward, while methylphenidate-conditioned place preference is also maintained in DAT knockout mice. These results have substantial implications for understanding cocaine actions and for strategies to produce anticocaine medications.

VMAT2 knockout mice: Heterozygotes display reduced amphetamine-conditioned reward, enhanced amphetamine locomotion, and enhanced MPTP toxicity

The brain vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT2) pumps monoamine neurotransmitters and Parkinsonism-inducing dopamine neurotoxins such as 1-methyl-4-phenyl-phenypyridinium (MPP+) from neuronal cytoplasm into synaptic vesicles, from which amphetamines cause their release. Amphetamines and MPP+ each also act at nonvesicular sites, providing current uncertainties about the contributions of vesicular actions to their in vivo effects. To assess vesicular contributions to amphetamine-induced locomotion, amphetamine-induced reward, and sequestration and resistance to dopaminergic neurotoxins, we have constructed transgenic VMAT2 knockout mice. Heterozygous VMAT2 knockouts are viable into adult life and display VMAT2 levels one-half that of wild-type values, accompanied by smaller changes in monoaminergic markers, heart rate, and blood pressure. Weight gain, fertility, habituation, passive avoidance, and locomotor activities are similar to wild-type littermates. In these heterozygotes, amphetamine produces enhanced locomotion but diminished behavioral reward, as measured by conditioned place preference. Administration of the MPP+ precursor N-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine to heterozygotes produces more than twice the dopamine cell losses found in wild-type mice. These mice provide novel information about the contributions of synaptic vesicular actions of monoaminergic drugs and neurotoxins and suggest that intact synaptic vesicle function may contribute more to amphetamine-conditioned reward than to amphetamine-induced locomotion.

Deficits in memory and motor performance in synaptotagmin IV mutant mice

Synaptotagmin (Syt) IV is a synaptic vesicle protein. Syt IV expression is induced in the rat hippocampus after systemic kainic acid treatment. To examine the functional role of this protein in vivo, we derived Syt IV null [Syt IV(−/−)] mutant mice. Studies with the rotorod revealed that the Syt IV mutants have impaired motor coordination, a result consistent with constitutive Syt IV expression in the cerebellum. Because Syt IV is thought to modulate synaptic function, we also have examined Syt IV mutant mice in learning and memory tests. Our studies show that the Syt IV mutation disrupts contextual fear conditioning, a learning task sensitive to hippocampal and amygdala lesions. In contrast, cued fear conditioning is normal in the Syt IV mutants, suggesting that this mutation did not disrupt amygdala function. Conditioned taste aversion, which also depends on the amygdala, is normal in the Syt IV mutants. Consistent with the idea that the Syt IV mutation preferentially affects hippocampal function, Syt IV mutant mice also display impaired social transmission of food preference. These studies demonstrate that Syt IV is critical for brain function and suggest that the Syt IV mutation affects hippocampal-dependent learning and memory, as well as motor coordination.