The brain’s default state interacts with working memory processes in a complex and load-dependent manner

Recently, many studies about a network active during rest and deactivated during tasks emerged in the literature: the default mode network (DMN). Spatial and temporal DMN features are important markers for psychiatric diseases. Another prominent indicator of cognitive functioning, yielding information about the mental condition in health and disease, is working memory (WM) processing. In EEG studies, frontal-midline theta power has been shown to increase with load during WM retention in healthy subjects. From these findings, the conclusion can be drawn that an increase in resting state DMN activity may go along with an increase in theta power in high-load WM conditions. We followed this hypothesis in a study on 17 healthy subjects performing a visual Sternberg WM task. The DMN was obtained by a BOLD-ICA approach and its dynamics represented by the percent-strength during pre-stimulus periods. DMN dynamics were temporally correlated with EEG theta spectral power from retention intervals. This so-called covariance mapping yielded the spatial distribution of the theta EEG fluctuations associated with the dynamics of the DMN. In line with previous findings, theta power was increased at frontal-midline electrodes in high- versus low-load conditions during early WM retention. However, load-dependent correlations of DMN with theta power resulted in primarily positive correlations in low-load conditions, while during high-load conditions negative correlations of DMN activity and theta power were observed at frontal-midline electrodes. This DMN-dependent load effect reached significance during later retention. Our results show a complex and load-dependent interaction of pre-stimulus DMN activity and theta power during retention, varying over the course of the retention period. Since both, WM performance and DMN activity, are markers of mental health, our results could be important for further investigations of psychiatric populations.

Preference for cute infants does not depend on their ethnicity or species: Evidence from hypothetical adoption and donation paradigms

Results of previous work suggest a preference of adult observers for cute compared to less cute infants. In Study 1 we investigated whether the preference for cute infants depends on the ethnicity and species of the infant. We simultaneously presented two faces (one cute and one less cute) and asked Caucasian participants to choose the infant to whom they would rather give a toy (Task 1) and which infant they would rather adopt (Task 2). The infants were Caucasian or African human babies, or dog puppies. For all face categories and in both tasks we found a strong preference for cute infants. A possible reason for preferring cute infants may be that cute infants look healthier than less cute infants. To investigate whether cuteness is associated with the assessment of health we conducted Study 2. Faces of Caucasian and African infants and dog puppies were rated for cuteness and health. The findings revealed a significant relationship between health and cuteness evaluation across all stimuli. We suggest that one reason why cute infants are preferred might be because they are perceived as being healthier.

Impact of development of job control and task-related stressors on resigned job attitude.

With more experience in the labor market, some job characteristics increase, some decrease. For example, among young employees who just entered the labor market, job control may initially be low but increase with more routine and experience. Job control is a job resource that is valued in itself and is positively associated with job satisfaction; but job control also helps dealing with stressors at work. There is little research on correlated changes, but the existing evidence suggests a joint development over time. However, even less is known about the relevance of such changes for employees. Usually, research tends to use mean levels to predict mean levels in outcomes but development in job control and stressors may be as relevant for job satisfaction as having a certain level in those job characteristics. Job satisfaction typically is regarded as a positive attitude towards one’s work. What has received less attention is that some employees may lower their expectations if their job situation does not reflect their needs, resulting in a resigned attitude towards one’s job. The present study investigates the development of job control and task-related stressors over ten years and tests the predictive value of changes in job control and task-related stressors for resigned attitude towards one’s job. We used data from a Swiss panel study (N=356) ranging over ten years. Job control, task-related stressors (an index consisting of time pressure, concentration demands, performance constraints, interruptions, and uncertainty about tasks), and resigned attitude towards one’s job were assessed in 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2008. Latent growth modeling revealed that growth rates of job control and task-related stressors were not correlated with one another. We predicted resigned attitude towards one’s job in 2008 a) by initial levels, and b) by changes in job control and stressors, controlling for resigned attitude in 1998. There was some prediction by initial levels (job control: β = -.15, p < .05; task-related stressors: β = .12, p = .06). However, as expected, changes in control and stressors predicted resigned attitude much better, with β = -.37, p < .001, for changes in job control, and β = .31, p < .001, for changes in task-related stressors. Our data confirm the importance of having low levels of task-related stressors and higher levels of job control for job attitudes. However, development in these job characteristics seems even more important than initial levels.

Internal and external effects on cognition: Evidence from memory training in very preterm-born children and cognition in patients with carotid artery stenosis before and after treatment

The present synopsis aims to integrate one study about memory training in very preterm-born children and two studies about cognition in patients with carotid artery stenosis before and after treatments. Preterm-born children are at increased risk of cognitive deficits and behavioural problems compared with peers born at term. This thesis determined whether memory training would improve cognitive functions in school-age very preterm-born children. Memory strategy training produced significant improvements in trained and non-trained cognitive functions; a core working memory training revealed significant effects on short-term memory and working memory tasks. Six months after training, children in both training groups showed better working memory performance than children in the waiting control group. This is evidence that memory training – an external influence on cognition – induces plastic changes in very preterm-born children. Patients with carotid artery stenosis are known to be at increased risk of cognitive impairment. We showed that patients with symptomatic or asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis were at higher risk for cognitive deficits than expected in a normative sample. This thesis seeks to link cognitive plasticity to internal factors like carotid stenosis. An external factor, which influences blood flow to the brain is the nature of the carotid artery stenosis treatment. Research on the effects of carotid artery stenosis treatment on cognition has produced inconsistent results. We found significant improvement in frontal lobe functions, visual memory and motor speed one year after treatment independent of the treatment type (best medical treatment, carotid artery stenting, carotid artery endarterectomy); providing evidence for ‘treatment-induced’ cognitive plasticity. Baseline performance was negatively associated with improvement in various cognitive functions after training in very preterm-born children and after treatment in patients with carotid artery stenosis. The present synopsis aims to integrate these findings into the current and relevant literature, and discuss consequences as well as methodological considerations resulting from the studies constituting the thesis at hand.

Blue bananas: development of a task to investigate the representation of synaesthetic experiences

Research has mainly focussed on the perceptual nature of synaesthesia. However, synaesthetic experiences are also semantically represented. It was our aim to develop a task to investigate the semantic representation of the concurrent and its relation to the inducer in grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Non-synaesthetes were either tested with a lexical-decision (i.e., word / non-word) or a semantic-classification (i.e., edibility decision) task. Targets consisted of words which were strongly associated with a specific colour (e.g., banana - yellow) and words which were neutral and not associated with a specific colour (e.g., aunt). Target words were primed with colours: the prime target relationship was either intramodal (i.e., word - word) or crossmodal (colour patch - word). Each of the four task versions consisted of three conditions: congruent (same colour for prime and target), incongruent (different colour), and unrelated (neutral target). For both tasks (i.e., lexical and semantic) and both versions of the task (i.e., intramodal and crossmodal), we expected faster reaction times (RTs) in the congruent condition than in the neutral condition and slower RTs in the incongruent condition than the neutral condition. Stronger effects were expected in the intramodal condition due to the overlap in the prime target modality. The results suggest that the hypotheses were partly confirmed. We conclude that the tasks and hypotheses can be readily adopted to investigate the nature of the representation of the synaesthetic experiences.

Cognitive Comparative Advantage and the Organization of Work: Lessons from Herbert Simon's Vision of the Future

In a marvelous but somewhat neglected paper, 'The Corporation: Will It Be Managed by Machines?' Herbert Simon articulated from the perspective of 1960 his vision of what we now call the New Economy the machine-aided system of production and management of the late twentieth century. Simon's analysis sprang from what I term the principle of cognitive comparative advantage: one has to understand the quite different cognitive structures of humans and machines (including computers) in order to explain and predict the tasks to which each will be most suited. Perhaps unlike Simon's better-known predictions about progress in artificial intelligence research, the predictions of this 1960 article hold up remarkably well and continue to offer important insights. In what follows I attempt to tell a coherent story about the evolution of machines and the division of labor between humans and machines. Although inspired by Simon's 1960 paper, I weave many other strands into the tapestry, from classical discussions of the division of labor to present-day evolutionary psychology. The basic conclusion is that, with growth in the extent of the market, we should see humans 'crowded into' tasks that call for the kinds of cognition for which humans have been equipped by biological evolution. These human cognitive abilities range from the exercise of judgment in situations of ambiguity and surprise to more mundane abilities in spatio-temporal perception and locomotion. Conversely, we should see machines 'crowded into' tasks with a well-defined structure. This conclusion is not based (merely) on a claim that machines, including computers, are specialized idiots-savants today because of the limits (whether temporary or permanent) of artificial intelligence; rather, it rests on a claim that, for what are broadly 'economic' reasons, it will continue to make economic sense to create machines that are idiots-savants.

Cellular Trafficking of Single and Multistage Vectors

Nanomedicine is an innovative field of science which has recently generated many drug delivery platforms with exciting results. The great potential of these strategies rely on the unique characteristics of the devices at the nano-scale in terms of long time circulation in the blood stream, selective accumulation at the lesions sites, increased solubility in aqueous solutions, etc. Herein we report on a new drug delivery system known as a multistage system which is comprised of non-spherical, mesoporous silicon particles loaded with second stage nanoparticles. The rationally designed particle shape, the possibility to modulate the surface properties and the degree of porosity allow these carriers to be optimized for vascular targeting and to overcome the numerous biological barriers found in drug delivery. In this study we investigated the intra and inter cellular trafficking of the multistage system in endothelial cells bringing evidence of its bio-compatibility as well as its ability to perform multiple intra and inter cellular tasks. Once internalized in cells, the multi-particle construct is able to dissociate, localizing in different subcellular compartments which can be targeted for exocytosis. In particular the second stage nanoparticles were found to be secreted in microvesicles which can act as mediators of transfer of particles across the endothelium and between different endothelial and cancer cells.

La sintaxis griega hoy

Este artículo presenta una discusión sobre algunas nociones que emplea la sintaxis actual del griego clásico. En primer lugar, expone el ámbito que ocupa la sintaxis en el marco de la lingüística y la filología. En segundo y tercer lugar, expone el concepto de enunciado y de sintagma aplicados a la sintaxis del griego clásico. En cuarto lugar, expone brevemente algunos criterios distribucionales empleados para identificar las funciones desempeñadas por los complementos en la oración. A continuación, se exponen los conceptos de papel semántico, noción relacional, función semántica, función sintáctica y función pragmática. La sección 7 resume la estructura de la oración y defiende la idea de que hay que distinguir una serie de niveles o capas en los que se alojan los complementos. El parágrafo final contiene una breve conclusión. El artículo se cierra con una lista de libros sobre sintaxis griega publicados desde 1991 hasta 2003.

La sintaxis griega hoy

Este artículo presenta una discusión sobre algunas nociones que emplea la sintaxis actual del griego clásico. En primer lugar, expone el ámbito que ocupa la sintaxis en el marco de la lingüística y la filología. En segundo y tercer lugar, expone el concepto de enunciado y de sintagma aplicados a la sintaxis del griego clásico. En cuarto lugar, expone brevemente algunos criterios distribucionales empleados para identificar las funciones desempeñadas por los complementos en la oración. A continuación, se exponen los conceptos de papel semántico, noción relacional, función semántica, función sintáctica y función pragmática. La sección 7 resume la estructura de la oración y defiende la idea de que hay que distinguir una serie de niveles o capas en los que se alojan los complementos. El parágrafo final contiene una breve conclusión. El artículo se cierra con una lista de libros sobre sintaxis griega publicados desde 1991 hasta 2003.

La sintaxis griega hoy

Este artículo presenta una discusión sobre algunas nociones que emplea la sintaxis actual del griego clásico. En primer lugar, expone el ámbito que ocupa la sintaxis en el marco de la lingüística y la filología. En segundo y tercer lugar, expone el concepto de enunciado y de sintagma aplicados a la sintaxis del griego clásico. En cuarto lugar, expone brevemente algunos criterios distribucionales empleados para identificar las funciones desempeñadas por los complementos en la oración. A continuación, se exponen los conceptos de papel semántico, noción relacional, función semántica, función sintáctica y función pragmática. La sección 7 resume la estructura de la oración y defiende la idea de que hay que distinguir una serie de niveles o capas en los que se alojan los complementos. El parágrafo final contiene una breve conclusión. El artículo se cierra con una lista de libros sobre sintaxis griega publicados desde 1991 hasta 2003.

The state of semantic technology today - overview of the first SEALS evaluation campaigns

This paper describes the first five SEALS Evaluation Campaigns over the semantic technologies covered by the SEALS project (ontology engineering tools, ontology reasoning tools, ontology matching tools, semantic search tools, and semantic web service tools). It presents the evaluations and test data used in these campaigns and the tools that participated in them along with a comparative analysis of their results. It also presents some lessons learnt after the execution of the evaluation campaigns and draws some final conclusions.

Some techniques for automated, resource-aware distributed and mobile computing in a multi-paradigm programming system

Distributed parallel execution systems speed up applications by splitting tasks into processes whose execution is assigned to different receiving nodes in a high-bandwidth network. On the distributing side, a fundamental problem is grouping and scheduling such tasks such that each one involves sufñcient computational cost when compared to the task creation and communication costs and other such practical overheads. On the receiving side, an important issue is to have some assurance of the correctness and characteristics of the code received and also of the kind of load the particular task is going to pose, which can be specified by means of certificates. In this paper we present in a tutorial way a number of general solutions to these problems, and illustrate them through their implementation in the Ciao multi-paradigm language and program development environment. This system includes facilities for parallel and distributed execution, an assertion language for specifying complex programs properties (including safety and resource-related properties), and compile-time and run-time tools for performing automated parallelization and resource control, as well as certification of programs with resource consumption assurances and efñcient checking of such certificates.

Topological measure locating the effective crossover between segregation and integration in a modular network

We introduce an easily computable topological measure which locates the effective crossover between segregation and integration in a modular network. Segregation corresponds to the degree of network modularity, while integration is expressed in terms of the algebraic connectivity of an associated hypergraph. The rigorous treatment of the simplified case of cliques of equal size that are gradually rewired until they become completely merged, allows us to show that this topological crossover can be made to coincide with a dynamical crossover from cluster to global synchronization of a system of coupled phase oscillators. The dynamical crossover is signaled by a peak in the product of the measures of intracluster and global synchronization, which we propose as a dynamical measure of complexity. This quantity is much easier to compute than the entropy (of the average frequencies of the oscillators), and displays a behavior which closely mimics that of the dynamical complexity index based on the latter. The proposed topological measure simultaneously provides information on the dynamical behavior, sheds light on the interplay between modularity and total integration, and shows how this affects the capability of the network to perform both local and distributed dynamical tasks.

Semantic evaluation at large scale (SEALS)

This paper describes the main goals and outcomes of the EU-funded Framework 7 project entitled Semantic Evaluation at Large Scale (SEALS). The growth and success of the Semantic Web is built upon a wide range of Semantic technologies from ontology engineering tools through to semantic web service discovery and semantic search. The evaluation of such technologies ? and, indeed, assessments of their mutual compatibility ? is critical for their sustained improvement and adoption. The SEALS project is creating an open and sustainable platform on which all aspects of an evaluation can be hosted and executed and has been designed to accommodate most technology types. It is envisaged that the platform will become the de facto repository of test datasets and will allow anyone to organise, execute and store the results of technology evaluations free of charge and without corporate bias. The demonstration will show how individual tools can be prepared for evaluation, uploaded to the platform, evaluated according to some criteria and the subsequent results viewed. In addition, the demonstration will show the flexibility and power of the SEALS Platform for evaluation organisers by highlighting some of the key technologies used.

Digital libraries for the preservation of research methods and associated artifacts

New digital artifacts are emerging in data-intensive science. For example, scientific workflows are executable descriptions of scientific procedures that define the sequence of computational steps in an automated data analysis, supporting reproducible research and the sharing and replication of best-practice and know-how through reuse. Workflows are specified at design time and interpreted through their execution in a variety of situations, environments, and domains. Hence it is essential to preserve both their static and dynamic aspects, along with the research context in which they are used. To achieve this, we propose the use of multidimensional digital objects (Research Objects) that aggregate the resources used and/or produced in scientific investigations, including workflow models, provenance of their executions, and links to the relevant associated resources, along with the provision of technological support for their preservation and efficient retrieval and reuse. In this direction, we specified a software architecture for the design and implementation of a Research Object preservation system, and realized this architecture with a set of services and clients, drawing together practices in digital libraries, preservation systems, workflow management, social networking and Semantic Web technologies. In this paper, we describe the backbone system of this realization, a digital library system built on top of dLibra.