Use of Behavioral Experiments to Test Ecological Theory in Streams

The modalities of communication are the sum of the expression dimension (linguistics) and the expressivity dimension (prosody), both being equally important in language communication. The expressivity dimension which comes first in the act of speech, is the basis on which phonemes, syllables, words, grammar and morphosyntax, i.e., the expression dimension of speech is superimposed. We will review evidence (1) revealing the importance of prosody in language acquisition and (2) showing that prosody triggers the involvement of specific brain areas dedicated to sentences and word-list processing. To support the first point, we will not only rely on experimental psychology studies conducted in newborns and young children but also on neuroimaging studies that have helped to validate these behavioral experiments. Then, neuroimaging data on adults will allow for concluding that the expressivity dimension of speech modulates both the right hemisphere prosodic areas and the left hemisphere network in charge of the expression dimension

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Neutral ecological theory reveals isolation and rapid speciation in a biodiversity hot spot.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.1028425.338137 ◽

2005 ◽

Author(s):

Bernard Riegl

Keyword(s):

Hot Spot ◽

Ecological Theory ◽

Rapid Speciation

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Peri-urban water, sanitation and hygiene in Lusaka, Zambia: photovoice empowering local assessment via ecological theory

Global Health Promotion ◽

10.1177/1757975921995713 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 175797592199571

Author(s):

Sikopo Nyambe ◽

Taro Yamauchi

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Public Policy ◽

Health Hazard ◽

Disease Outbreaks ◽

Ecological Theory ◽

Urban Slum ◽

Health Concern ◽

Minimal Impact ◽

Sanitation And Hygiene ◽

Definition Of

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) factors are responsible for 11.4% of deaths in Zambia, making WASH a key public health concern. Despite annual waterborne disease outbreaks in the nation’s peri-urban (slum) settlements being linked to poor WASH, few studies have proactively analysed and conceptualised peri-urban WASH and its maintaining factors. Our study aimed to (a) establish residents’ definition of peri-urban WASH and their WASH priorities; and (b) use ecological theory to analyse the peri-urban WASH ecosystem, highlighting maintaining factors. Our study incorporated 16 young people (aged 17–24) residing in peri-urban Lusaka, Zambia in a photovoice exercise. Participants took photographs answering the framing question, ‘What is WASH in your community?’ Then, through contextualisation and basic codifying, participants told the stories of their photographs and made posters to summarise problems and WASH priorities. Participant contextualisation and codifying further underwent theoretical thematic analysis to pinpoint causal factors alongside key players, dissecting the peri-urban WASH ecosystem via the five-tier ecological theory ranging from intrapersonal to public policy levels. Via ecological theory, peri-urban WASH was defined as: (a) poor practice (intrapersonal, interpersonal); (b) a health hazard (community norm); (c) substandard and unregulated (public policy, organisational); and (d) offering hope for change (intrapersonal, interpersonal). Linked to these themes, participant findings revealed a community level gap, with public policy level standards, regulations and implementation having minimal impact on overall peri-urban WASH and public health due to shallow community engagement and poor acknowledgement of the WASH realities of high-density locations. Rather than a top-down approach, participants recommended increased government–resident collaboration, offering residents more ownership and empowerment for intervention, implementation and defending of preferred peri-urban WASH standards.

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The Upworthy Research Archive, a time series of 32,487 experiments in U.S. media

Scientific Data ◽

10.1038/s41597-021-00934-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

Author(s):

J. Nathan Matias ◽

Kevin Munger ◽

Marianne Aubin Le Quere ◽

Charles Ebersole

Keyword(s):

Data Mining ◽

Time Series ◽

Open Access ◽

Randomized Trial ◽

Digital Technology ◽

Behavioral Experiments ◽

Media Politics ◽

B Test ◽

Scientific Questions ◽

Advance Knowledge

AbstractThe pursuit of audience attention online has led organizations to conduct thousands of behavioral experiments each year in media, politics, activism, and digital technology. One pioneer of A/B tests was Upworthy.com, a U.S. media publisher that conducted a randomized trial for every article they published. Each experiment tested variations in a headline and image “package,” recording how many randomly-assigned viewers selected each variation. While none of these tests were designed to answer scientific questions, scientists can advance knowledge by meta-analyzing and data-mining the tens of thousands of experiments Upworthy conducted. This archive records the stimuli and outcome for every A/B test fielded by Upworthy between January 24, 2013 and April 30, 2015. In total, the archive includes 32,487 experiments, 150,817 experiment arms, and 538,272,878 participant assignments. The open access dataset is organized to support exploratory and confirmatory research, as well as meta-scientific research on ways that scientists make use of the archive.

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Quantifying the Predictability of Visual Scanpaths Using Active Information Storage

Entropy ◽

10.3390/e23020167 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 167

Author(s):

Patricia Wollstadt ◽

Martina Hasenjäger ◽

Christiane B. Wiebel-Herboth

Keyword(s):

Information Storage ◽

Gaze Behavior ◽

Behavioral Experiments ◽

Human Machine Interaction ◽

Cognitive States ◽

Visual Scanpath ◽

Active Information Storage ◽

Temporal Horizon ◽

Machine Interaction ◽

Transition Entropy

Entropy-based measures are an important tool for studying human gaze behavior under various conditions. In particular, gaze transition entropy (GTE) is a popular method to quantify the predictability of a visual scanpath as the entropy of transitions between fixations and has been shown to correlate with changes in task demand or changes in observer state. Measuring scanpath predictability is thus a promising approach to identifying viewers’ cognitive states in behavioral experiments or gaze-based applications. However, GTE does not account for temporal dependencies beyond two consecutive fixations and may thus underestimate the actual predictability of the current fixation given past gaze behavior. Instead, we propose to quantify scanpath predictability by estimating the active information storage (AIS), which can account for dependencies spanning multiple fixations. AIS is calculated as the mutual information between a processes’ multivariate past state and its next value. It is thus able to measure how much information a sequence of past fixations provides about the next fixation, hence covering a longer temporal horizon. Applying the proposed approach, we were able to distinguish between induced observer states based on estimated AIS, providing first evidence that AIS may be used in the inference of user states to improve human–machine interaction.

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Zhuyu Annao decoction promotes angiogenesis in mice with cerebral hemorrhage by inhibiting the activity of PHD3

Human & Experimental Toxicology ◽

10.1177/09603271211008523 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 096032712110085

Author(s):

L Wu ◽

Y Hu ◽

L Jiang ◽

N Liang ◽

P Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Oxidative Stress ◽

Signaling Pathway ◽

Morris Water Maze ◽

Cerebral Hemorrhage ◽

Water Maze ◽

Luciferase Reporter ◽

Morris Water Maze Test ◽

Therapeutic Effects ◽

Vascular Endothelial ◽

Behavioral Experiments

Some traditional Chinese decoctions, such as Zhuyu Annao, exert favorable therapeutic effects on acute cerebral hemorrhage, hemorrhagic stroke, and other neurological diseases, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. This study aimed to determine whether Zhuyu Annao decoction (ZYAND) protects the injured brain by promoting angiogenesis following intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and elucidate its specific mechanism. The effect of ZYAND on the nervous system of mice after ICH was explored through behavioral experiments, such as the Morris water maze and Rotarod tests, and its effects on oxidative stress were explored by detecting several oxidative stress markers, including malondialdehyde, nitric oxide, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase. Real-time quantitative RT-PCR and WB were used to detect the effects of ZYAND on the levels of prolyl hydroxylase domain 3 (PHD3), hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the brain tissues of mice. The effect of ZYAND on the NF-κB signaling pathway was detected using a luciferase reporter gene. A human umbilical cord vascular endothelial cell angiogenesis experiment was performed to determine whether ZYAND promotes angiogenesis. The Morris water maze test and other behavioral experiments verified that ZYAND improved the neurobehavior of mice after ICH. ZYAND activated the PHD3/HIF-1α signaling pathway, inhibiting the oxidative damage caused by ICH. In angiogenesis experiments, it was found that ZYAND promoted VEGF-induced angiogenesis by upregulating the expression of HIF-1α, and NF-κB signaling regulated the expression of HIF-1α by inhibiting PHD3. ZYAND exerts a reparative effect on brain tissue damaged after ICH through the NF-κB/ PHD3/HIF-1α/VEGF signaling axis.

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Predictive olfactory learning in Drosophila

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-85841-y ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Chang Zhao ◽

Yves F. Widmer ◽

Sören Diegelmann ◽

Mihai A. Petrovici ◽

Simon G. Sprecher ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Synaptic Plasticity ◽

Dopaminergic Neurons ◽

Mushroom Body ◽

Trace Conditioning ◽

Fruit Fly ◽

Olfactory Learning ◽

Shock Strength ◽

Behavioral Experiments ◽

Kenyon Cells ◽

Output Neurons

AbstractOlfactory learning and conditioning in the fruit fly is typically modelled by correlation-based associative synaptic plasticity. It was shown that the conditioning of an odor-evoked response by a shock depends on the connections from Kenyon cells (KC) to mushroom body output neurons (MBONs). Although on the behavioral level conditioning is recognized to be predictive, it remains unclear how MBONs form predictions of aversive or appetitive values (valences) of odors on the circuit level. We present behavioral experiments that are not well explained by associative plasticity between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli, and we suggest two alternative models for how predictions can be formed. In error-driven predictive plasticity, dopaminergic neurons (DANs) represent the error between the predictive odor value and the shock strength. In target-driven predictive plasticity, the DANs represent the target for the predictive MBON activity. Predictive plasticity in KC-to-MBON synapses can also explain trace-conditioning, the valence-dependent sign switch in plasticity, and the observed novelty-familiarity representation. The model offers a framework to dissect MBON circuits and interpret DAN activity during olfactory learning.

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