El Legado de Fodor

Raquel Merino Álvarez, José Miguel Santamaría, Eterio Pajares (eds.)

Mme Mainviel Fodor, Première Cantatrice du théâtre Italien.

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G00842

Josephine Mainvielle-Fodor, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G03025

Beschrijving der schilderijen en teekeningen in het Museum Fodor te Amsterdam.

Mode of access: Internet.

Monuments historiques relatifs aux règnes d'Alexis Michaélowitch, Féodor III, et Pierre le Grand, czars de Russie, extraits des Archives du Vatican et de Naples.

Mode of access: Internet.

Masculinity-femininity as a national characteristic and its relationship with national agoraphobic fear levels: Fodor's sex role hypothesis revitalized

Hofstede's dimension of national culture termed Masculinity-Femininity [Hofstede (1991). Cultures and organizations: software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill] is proposed to be of relevance for understanding national-level differences in self-assessed agoraphobic fears. This prediction is based on the classical work of Fodor [Fodor (1974). In: V. Franks & V. Burtle (Eds.), Women in therapy: new psychotherapies for a changing society. New York: Brunner/Mazel]. A unique data set comprising 11 countries (total N = 5491 students) provided the opportunity of scrutinizing this issue. It was hypothesized and found that national Masculinity (the degree to which cultures delineate sex roles, with masculine or tough societies making clearer differentiations between the sexes than feminine or modest societies do) would correlate positively with national agoraphobic fear levels (as assessed with the Fear Survey Schedule-III). Following the correction for sex and age differences across national samples, a significant and large effect-sized national-level (ecological) r = +0.67 (P = 0.01) was found. A highly feminine society such as Sweden had the lowest, whereas the champion among the masculine societies, Japan, had the highest national Agoraphobic fear score. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The nonconceptual gateway to early word learning

My research investigates why nouns are learned disproportionately more frequently than other kinds of words during early language acquisition (Gentner, 1982; Gleitman, et al., 2004). This question must be considered in the context of cognitive development in general. Infants have two major streams of environmental information to make meaningful: perceptual and linguistic. Perceptual information flows in from the senses and is processed into symbolic representations by the primitive language of thought (Fodor, 1975). These symbolic representations are then linked to linguistic input to enable language comprehension and ultimately production. Yet, how exactly does perceptual information become conceptualized? Although this question is difficult, there has been progress. One way that children might have an easier job is if they have structures that simplify the data. Thus, if particular sorts of perceptual information could be separated from the mass of input, then it would be easier for children to refer to those specific things when learning words (Spelke, 1990; Pylyshyn, 2003). It would be easier still, if linguistic input was segmented in predictable ways (Gentner, 1982; Gleitman, et al., 2004) Unfortunately the frequency of patterns in lexical or grammatical input cannot explain the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic tendency to favor nouns over verbs and predicates. There are three examples of this failure: 1) a wide variety of nouns are uttered less frequently than a smaller number of verbs and yet are learnt far more easily (Gentner, 1982); 2) word order and morphological transparency offer no insight when you contrast the sentence structures and word inflections of different languages (Slobin, 1973) and 3) particular language teaching behaviors (e.g. pointing at objects and repeating names for them) have little impact on children's tendency to prefer concrete nouns in their first fifty words (Newport, et al., 1977). Although the linguistic solution appears problematic, there has been increasing evidence that the early visual system does indeed segment perceptual information in specific ways before the conscious mind begins to intervene (Pylyshyn, 2003). I argue that nouns are easier to learn because their referents directly connect with innate features of the perceptual faculty. This hypothesis stems from work done on visual indexes by Zenon Pylyshyn (2001, 2003). Pylyshyn argues that the early visual system (the architecture of the "vision module") segments perceptual data into pre-conceptual proto-objects called FINSTs. FINSTs typically correspond to physical things such as Spelke objects (Spelke, 1990). Hence, before conceptualization, visual objects are picked out by the perceptual system demonstratively, like a finger pointing indicating ‘this’ or ‘that’. I suggest that this primitive system of demonstration elaborates on Gareth Evan's (1982) theory of nonconceptual content. Nouns are learnt first because their referents attract demonstrative visual indexes. This theory also explains why infants less often name stationary objects such as plate or table, but do name things that attract the focal attention of the early visual system, i.e., small objects that move, such as ‘dog’ or ‘ball’. This view leaves open the question how blind children learn words for visible objects and why children learn category nouns (e.g. 'dog'), rather than proper nouns (e.g. 'Fido') or higher taxonomic distinctions (e.g. 'animal').

The hardness of revising defeasible preferences

Non-monotonic reasoning typically deals with three kinds of knowledge. Facts are meant to describe immutable statements of the environment. Rules define relationships among elements. Lastly, an ordering among the rules, in the form of a superiority relation, establishes the relative strength of rules. To revise a non-monotonic theory, we can change either one of these three elements. We prove that the problem of revising a non-monotonic theory by only changing the superiority relation is a NP-complete problem.

Carne e bits : reflexões sobre a indiscernibilidade das fronteiras entre mentes e máquinas e os sistemas cognitivos híbridos

Faz reflexões sobre as várias formas de relação entre sujeitos e objetos-técnicos, com ênfase para a utilização dos computadores digitais e, particularmente, os softwares chamados agentes inteligentes. Analisa o espaço e suas mudanças qualitativas na atualidade, a partir do conceito do espaço como produção humana, analisando como as transformações em curso no ambiente afetam nossas subjetividades e, reciprocamente, como afetamos nossos ambientes. Discutidas as possibilidades de sobrevivência do homem nu nesses novos espaços, sem que esteja devidamente atualizado com as últimas novidades tecnológicas - próteses sensoriais e motoras. Perpassa a discussão sobre o pensamento que se utiliza do espaço como elemento constituinte do próprio pensamento e reflete sobre o espaço abstrato por excelência, os mundos virtuais. Discute o padrão de apropriação de artefatos pelo homem e seus efeitos na subjetividade, a manutenção do padrão de apropriação dos objetos-técnicos materiais em relação às formas de apropriação dos objetos-técnicos intangíveis (softwares). Traz reflexões sobre a possibilidade de autonomização completa dos agentes inteligentes e a sua instituição, ipso facto, como agentes - a chamada Inteligência Artificial.

Systematics of central heavy ion collisions in the 1A GeV regime

Using the large acceptance apparatus FOPI, we study central collisions in the reactions (energies in A GeV are given in parentheses): Ca-40 + Ca-40 (0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.5, 1.93), Ni-58 + Ni-58 (0.15, 0.25, 0.4), Ru-96+Ru-96 (0.4, 1.0. 1.5), (96)zr+(96)zr 1.0, 1.5), Xe-129+CsI (0.15, 0.25, 0.4), Au-197 + Au-197 (0.09, 0.12, 0.15, 0.25, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.5). The observables include cluster multiplicities, longitudinal and transverse rapidity distributions and stopping, and radial flow. The data are compared to earlier data where possible and to transport model simulations. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Measurement of K*(892)(0) and K-0 mesons in Al plus Al collisions at 1.9A GeV

A new measurement of subthreshold K*(892)(0) and K-0 production is presented. The experimental data complete the measurement of strange particles produced in Al + Al collisions at 1.9A GeV measured with the FOPI detector at SIS at GSI (Darmstadt). The K*(892)(0)/K-0 yield ratio is found to be 0.0315 +/- 0.006(stat.) +/- 0.012(syst.) and is in good agreement with the transport model prediction. These measurements provide information on the in-medium cross section of K+-pi(-) fusion, which is the dominant process in subthreshold K*(892)(0) production.

Use of culture and molecular analysis to determine the effect of antibiotic treatment on microbial community diversity and abundance during exacerbation in patients with cystic fibrosis

Background: Anaerobic bacteria are increasingly regarded as important in cystic fibrosis (CF) pulmonary infection. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of antibiotic treatment on aerobic and anaerobic microbial community diversity and abundance during exacerbations in patients with CF.

Methods: Sputum was collected at the start and completion of antibiotic treatment of exacerbations and when clinically stable. Bacteria were quantified and identified following culture, and community composition was also examined using culture-independent methods.

Results: Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Burkholderia cepacia complex were detected by culture in 24/26 samples at the start of treatment, 22/26 samples at completion of treatment and 11/13 stable samples. Anaerobic bacteria were detected in all start of treatment and stable samples and in 23/26 completion of treatment samples. Molecular analysis showed greater bacterial diversity within sputum samples than was detected by culture; there was reasonably good agreement between the methods for the presence or absence of aerobic bacteria such as P aeruginosa (kappa=0.74) and B cepacia complex (kappa=0.92), but agreement was poorer for anaerobes. Both methods showed that the composition of the bacterial community varied between patients but remained relatively stable in most individuals despite treatment. Bacterial abundance decreased transiently following treatment, with this effect more evident for aerobes (median decrease in total viable count 2.3 x 10(7) cfu/g, p=0.005) than for anaerobes (median decrease in total viable count 3 x 10(6) cfu/g, p=0.046).

Conclusion: Antibiotic treatment targeted against aerobes had a minimal effect on abundance of anaerobes and community composition, with both culture and molecular detection methods required for comprehensive characterisation of the microbial community in the CF lung. Further studies are required to determine the clinical significance of and optimal treatment for these newly identified bacteria.

The Adult Cystic Fibrosis Airway Microbiota Is Stable over Time and Infection Type, and Highly Resilient to Antibiotic Treatment of Exacerbations

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is characterized by defective mucociliary clearance and chronic airway infection by a complex microbiota. Infection, persistent inflammation and periodic episodes of acute pulmonary exacerbation contribute to an irreversible decline in CF lung function. While the factors leading to acute exacerbations are poorly understood, antibiotic treatment can temporarily resolve pulmonary symptoms and partially restore lung function. Previous studies indicated that exacerbations may be associated with changes in microbial densities and the acquisition of new microbial species. Given the complexity of the CF microbiota, we applied massively parallel pyrosequencing to identify changes in airway microbial community structure in 23 adult CF patients during acute pulmonary exacerbation, after antibiotic treatment and during periods of stable disease. Over 350,000 sequences were generated, representing nearly 170 distinct microbial taxa. Approximately 60% of sequences obtained were from the recognized CF pathogens Pseudomonas and Burkholderia, which were detected in largely non-overlapping patient subsets. In contrast, other taxa including Prevotella, Streptococcus, Rothia and Veillonella were abundant in nearly all patient samples. Although antibiotic treatment was associated with a small decrease in species richness, there was minimal change in overall microbial community structure. Furthermore, microbial community composition was highly similar in patients during an exacerbation and when clinically stable, suggesting that exacerbations may represent intrapulmonary spread of infection rather than a change in microbial community composition. Mouthwash samples, obtained from a subset of patients, showed a nearly identical distribution of taxa as expectorated sputum, indicating that aspiration may contribute to colonization of the lower airways. Finally, we observed a strong correlation between low species richness and poor lung function. Taken together, these results indicate that the adult CF lung microbiome is largely stable through periods of exacerbation and antibiotic treatment and that short-term compositional changes in the airway microbiota do not account for CF pulmonary exacerbations.

Nitrofuran antibiotic residues in pork The FoodBRAND retail survey

Use of nitrofuran drugs in food-producing animals has been prohibited within the EU because they may represent a public health risk. Monitoring compliance with the ban has focused on the detection of protein-bound nitrofuran metabolites which, in contrast to the parent compounds, are stable and persist in animal tissues. As part of the "FoodBRAND" project, an extensive survey of pork was undertaken across 15 European countries. Samples (n = 1500) purchased at retail outlets were analysed for the nitrofuran metabolites AOZ, AMOZ, AHD and SEM using LC-MS/MS determination of nitrobenzaldehyde derivatives. Limits of quantification for the method were 0.1 mug/kg (AOZ, AMOZ), 0.2 mug/kg (SEM) and 0.5 mug/kg (AHD). Of the 1500 samples tested, measurable residues of nitrofuran metabolites were confirmed in 12 samples (0.8% incidence overall) of which 10 samples were purchased in Portugal (AOZ, 0.3 mug/kg; AMOZ, 0.2-0.6 mug/kg) and one sample each in Italy (AMOZ, 1.0 mug/kg) and Greece (AOZ, 3.0 mug/kg). (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.