One hypothesis concerning the human dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is that it functions, in part, to signal the occurrence of conflicts in information processing, thereby triggering compensatory adjustments in cognitive control. Since this idea was first proposed, a great deal of relevant empirical evidence has accrued. This evidence has largely corroborated the conflict-monitoring hypothesis, and some very recent work has provided striking new support for the theory. At the same time, other findings have posed specific challenges, especially concerning the (...) way the theory addresses the processing of errors. Recent research has also begun to shed light on the larger function of the ACC, suggesting some new possibilities concerning how conflict monitoring might fit into the cingulate's overall role in cognition and action. (shrink)

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated drastic changes to undergraduate medical training at the University of Botswana (UB). To save the academic year when campus was locked down, the Department of Medical Education conducted a needs assessment to determine the readiness for emergency remote teaching (ERT) of the Faculty of Medicine, UB. Objectives. To report on the findings of needs assessment surveys to assess learner and teaching staff preparedness for fair and just ERT, as defined by philosopher John Rawls. Methods. Needs (...) assessment surveys were conducted using Office 365 Forms distributed via WhatsApp, targeting medical students and teaching staff during the 5 undergraduate years. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results. Ninety-two percent (266/289) of students and 73.5% (62/84) of teaching staff responded. Surveys revealed a high penetration of smartphones among students, but poor internet accessibility and affordability in homes. Some teaching staff also reported internet and device insufficiencies. Only WhatsApp was accessible to students and teaching staff. Conclusions. For equitable access to ERT in the future, the surveys revealed infrastructural improvement needs, including wider, stronger, affordable WiFi coverage within Botswana and enhanced digital infrastructures in educational institutions, with increased support for students. (shrink)

Loop regions in proteins have traditionally been described as ‘random coil’, although they are known to adopt well‐defined conformations in most globular proteins. In this contribution we summarize the results of detailed analysis of the structures and sequences of these loop regions in proteins of known three‐dimensional structure. We also describe how these results can be used as an aid to protein design, modification and modelling.

In this article, we present results from a literature review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature conducted for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as part of the Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuations of Nature. We identify the most frequently recurring meanings in the heterogeneous use of different value types and their association with worldviews and other key concepts. From frequent uses, we determine a core meaning for each value type, which is (...) sufficiently inclusive to serve as an umbrella over different understandings in the literature and specific enough to help highlight its difference from the other types of values. Finally, we discuss convergences, overlapping areas, and fuzzy boundaries between different value types to facilitate dialogue, reduce misunderstandings, and improve the methods for valuation of nature's contributions to people, including ecosystem services, to inform policy and direct future research. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. (shrink)

The concept of hysteria is traced from Hippocrates, where it was thought to be caused by a wandering uterus, through Galen and up to Freud. Throughout the history of medicine from the early Greeks up to the end of the nineteenth century, the definition and diagnosis of hysteria had a function similar to that found in the persecution of witchcraft: it sought to eradicate the outbursts of nonconforming and emotionally threatening conduct of women. At the beginning of the twentieth century, (...) however, the category virtually disappears from psychiatric nosologies. (shrink)

"Neuroscience and Philosophy" begins with an excerpt from "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience," in which Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker question the ...

Recent studies suggest that a non‐isotopic in situ hybridisation (NISH) approach can be successfully employed to investigate the carrier status of female relatives in families of selected patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) or Hunter syndrome, whose diseases are due to a specific X chromosome deletion.Whilst the majority of metaphase spreads from normal females show specific hybridisation signals on both X chromosomes when tested with either dystrophin or Hunter gene‐derived probes, only one X chromosome in each metaphase spread will show (...) the relevant hybridisation complex in female carriers of deletions involving the dystrophin or Hunter gene.Thus, the NISH method can be a valuable diagnostic tool for the detection of the carrier status of female relatives of patients with X chromosome deletions. (shrink)

All languages, both spoken and signed, make a formal distinction between two types of terms in a proposition – terms that identify what is to be talked about (nominals) and terms that say something about this topic (predicates). Here we explore conditions that could lead to this property by charting its development in a newly emerging language – Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). We examine how handshape is used in nominals vs. predicates in three Nicaraguan groups: (1) homesigners who are not (...) part of the Deaf com- munity and use their own gestures, called homesigns, to communicate; (2) NSL cohort 1 signers who fashioned the first stage of NSL; (3) NSL cohort 2 signers who learned NSL from cohort 1. We compare these three groups to a fourth: (4) native signers of American Sign Language (ASL), an established sign language. We focus on handshape in predicates that are part of a productive classifier system in ASL; handshape in these predicates varies sys- tematically across agent vs. no-agent contexts, unlike handshape in the nominals we study, which does not vary across these contexts. We found that all four groups, including home- signers, used handshape differently in nominals vs. predicates – they displayed variability in handshape form across agent vs. no-agent contexts in predicates, but not in nominals. Variability thus differed in predicates and nominals: (1) In predicates, the variability across grammatical contexts (agent vs. no-agent) was systematic in all four groups, suggesting that handshape functioned as a productive morphological marker on predicate signs, even in homesign. This grammatical use of handshape can thus appear in the earliest stages of an emerging language. (2) In nominals, there was no variability across grammatical con- texts (agent vs. no-agent), but there was variability within- and across-individuals in the handshape used in the nominal for a particular object. This variability was striking in homesigners (an individual homesigner did not necessarily use the same handshape in every nominal he produced for a particular object), but decreased in the first cohort of NSL and remained relatively constant in the second cohort. Stability in the lexical use of handshape in nominals thus does not seem to emerge unless there is pressure from a peer linguistic community. Taken together, our findings argue that a community of users is essential to arrive at a stable nominal lexicon, but not to establish a productive morpholog- ical marker in predicates. Examining the steps a manual communication system takes as it moves toward becoming a fully-fledged language offers a unique window onto factors that have made human language what it is. (shrink)

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

This paper attempts a partial, critical look at the construction and use of case studies in ethics education. It argues that the authors and users of case studies are often insufficiently aware of the literary nature of these artefacts: this may lead to some confusion between fiction and reality. Issues of the nature of the genre, the fictional, story-constructing aspect of case studies, the nature of authorship, and the purposes and uses of case studies as "texts" are outlined and discussed. (...) The paper concludes with some critical questions that can be applied to the construction and use of case studies in the light of the foregoing analysis. (shrink)

The number of discriminable colours is often assumed to be of the order of several million but the extent of detectable chromatic diversity present in individual natural scenes is an open question. Here, the aim was to estimate the number of discriminable colours seen in natural scenes. Hyperspectral data were obtained from a set of natural scenes over the range 400 - 720 nm at 10 nm intervals (Nascimento et al, 2002 Journal of the Optical Society of America A 19 (...) 1484 - 1490) and the representation of each scene in CIELAB space computed for all pixels of the image. The number of discriminable colours was estimated by counting the number of unit volumes in the three-dimensional volume defined by the scene when represented in CIELAB space. We found that the number of discriminable colours estimated in a scene could vary by an order of magnitude from scene to scene, but rarely exceeded 105, indicating a limited chromatic diversity. (shrink)

The objectives of this study were to develop a high-density chromosome bin map of homoeologous group 7 in hexaploid wheat, to identify gene distribution in these chromosomes, and to perform comparative studies of wheat with rice and barley. We mapped 2148 loci from 919 EST clones onto group 7 chromosomes of wheat. In the majority of cases the numbers of loci were significantly lower in the centromeric regions and tended to increase in the distal regions. The level of duplicated loci (...) in this group was 24% with most of these loci being localized toward the distal regions. One hundred nineteen EST probes that hybridized to three fragments and mapped to the three group 7 chromosomes were designated landmark probes and were used to construct a consensus homoeologous group 7 map. An additional 49 probes that mapped to 7AS, 7DS, and the ancestral translocated segment involving 7BS also were designated landmarks. Landmark probe orders and comparative maps of wheat, rice, and barley were produced on the basis of corresponding rice BAC/PAC and genetic markers that mapped on chromosomes 6 and 8 of rice. Identification of landmark ESTs and development of consensus maps may provide a framework of conserved coding regions predating the evolution of wheat genomes. (shrink)

The Malabo Declaration places the transformation of agriculture and food systems at the centre of regional and national policy priorities across Africa. Transformative change in the way that food is produced, processed and consumed is seen as not only necessary for addressing the complex challenges of food security and poverty alleviation, but also as a driver of new employment opportunities and economic development. As pointed out within the recent UN Food Systems Summit, essential elements of food system transformations include digital (...) transitions and the empowerment of women and youth. However, there are few empirical examples demonstrating how these agendas come together to affect food system change. Here we focus on an enterprising group of young farmers referred to as Malawi’s new achikumbe elite, who are urban based, educated and engaging in agriculture on a commercial basis. The aim is to characterise this emergent group of agriculturalists and to understand the role that they have within the transformation of Malawi-s agricultural sector. We explore how digital platforms are supporting the emergence of this new category of farmer and positioning young people as agents of change in food systems transformation. Based on interviews and ethnographic research with 32 young farmers between 2018 and 2022 combined with interviews with representatives of service providers and agricultural organisations, we argue that this group is characterised by a higher level of education, self-dependency and use of digital platforms, enabling them to adapt their context to sourcing production resources and engaging in commercial agriculture. We present evidence that digital platforms are supporting the new achikumbe elite (NAE) to engage flexibly with new commercial markets, contracts and access a wider range of training and advice. However, while digital platforms can offer more equitable access to information and market opportunities, they also represent potential avenues for food system transformations that are inequitable. As such, we argue that there is need for digital technologies to mitigate against potential inequalities. (shrink)

Despite the tremendous promise offered by artificial intelligence (AI) for healthcare in South Africa, existing policy frameworks are inadequate for encouraging innovation in this field. Practical, concrete and solution-driven policy recommendations are needed to encourage the creation and use of AI systems. This article considers five distinct problematic issues which call for policy development: (i) outdated legislation; (ii) data and algorithmic bias; (iii) the impact on the healthcare workforce; (iv) the imposition of liability dilemma; and (v) a lack of innovation (...) and development of AI systems for healthcare in South Africa. The adoption of a national policy framework that addresses these issues directly is imperative to ensure the uptake of AI development and deployment for healthcare in a safe, responsible and regulated manner. (shrink)

v. 1. Pillars of Sri Gurudeva's sampradaya and Heart-homages to Sri Gurudev.--v. 2. Shri Gurudeva's philosophy of God-realisation.