Microbiological load evaluation of white shrimp (Nematopalaemon hastatus Aurivillius, 1898) in the coastal waters of Ondo state, Nigeria

This study investigated the condition factor with microbial load of Nematopalaemon hastatus (Aurivillius, 1898) collected for two years from four coastal towns in Ilaje communities of Ondo State, Nigeria. Shrimps’ weight, length and condition factor were determined using standard methods while estimation of microbial load (Total heterotrophic bacteria, coliform, Escherichia coli, Salmonella/Shigella, and fungal counts) was done using standard microbiological methods. The correlation between microbial load and condition factor was thereafter determined using regression analysis. N. hastatus exhibited allometric growth, with low but consistent condition factor. Mean heterotrophic bacteria count was 1.107×102 CFU/g and 1.079×102 CFU/g during the dry and wet season, respectively. Mean coliform count, total Salmonella-Shigella and E. coli counts were 0.398×102 CFU/g, 0.218×102 CFU/g and 0.303×102 CFU/g, respectively, during the wet season. A significant increase in counts (mean) was observed in the dry season for the coliform (0.404×102 CFU/g), total Salmonella-Shigella (0.234×102 CFU/g) and E. coli (0.326×102 CFU/g). The mean fungal count was 0.604×102 SFU/g and 0.563×102 SFU/g during the wet and dry seasons, respectively. The microbial loads were below acceptable limits; therefore, shrimps of the study area are safe for consumption. Conclusively, the condition factor of the shrimps was non-significantly influenced by the microbes. However, there is a need to regulate and/or prevent untreated sewage and effluent discharge into natural water bodies to reduce the environmental hazards it may portend and also obtain relatively safe aquatic products for consumption.

Repetition Versus Variability in Verb Learning: Sometimes Less Is More

Purpose This study examined whether 2-year-olds are better able to acquire novel verb meanings when they appear in varying linguistic contexts, including both content nouns and pronouns, as compared to when the contexts are consistent, including only content nouns. Additionally, differences between typically developing toddlers and late talkers were explored. Method Forty-seven English-acquiring 2-year-olds ( n = 14 late talkers, n = 33 typically developing) saw scenes of actors manipulating objects. These actions were labeled with novel verbs. In the varied condition, children heard sentences containing both content nouns and pronouns (e.g., “The girl is ziffing the truck. She is ziffing it!”). In the consistent condition, children heard the verb an equal number of times, but only with content nouns (e.g., “The girl is ziffing the truck. The girl is ziffing the truck!”). At test, children were shown two new scenes and were asked to find the novel verb's referent. Children's eye gaze was analyzed as a measure of learning. Results Mixed-effects regression analyses revealed that children looked more toward the correct scene in the consistent condition than the varied condition. This difference was more pronounced for late talkers than for typically developing children. Conclusion To acquire an initial representation of a new verb's meaning, children, particularly late talkers, benefit more from hearing the verb in consistent linguistic contexts than in varying contexts.

How Do Look-Back Analyses and Evidence Specificity Affect Auditors' Planning Judgments?

ABSTRACT During a look-back analysis, auditors review prior-period evidence to understand estimation inaccuracies and assess the reliability of management's estimation process. We find that evidence specificity moderates the relation between the consistency of an estimation inaccuracy with management's incentives and auditors' reliability assessments. The direction of an estimation inaccuracy has no effect on auditors' reliability assessments when the prior-period evidence is less specific. When prior-period evidence is more specific, auditors report the highest (lowest) reliability assessments of management's estimation process when an estimation inaccuracy is inconsistent (consistent) with management's incentives. Auditors' low reliability assessments in the more specific, consistent condition, however, do not translate to high risk assessments. Instead, specificity has a main effect on auditors' risk assessments. A follow-up experiment reveals, though, an inverse relation between auditors' reliability and risk assessments when auditors are provided procedures to address various levels of assessed misstatement risk.

Felt Emotion Elicited by Music: Are Sensitivities to Various Musical Features Different for Young Children and Young Adults?

In the present study, we extended the issue of how people access emotion through nonverbal information by testing the effects of simple (tempo) and complex (timbre) acoustic features of music on felt emotion. Three- to six-year-old young children (n = 100; 48% female) and university students (n = 64; 37.5% female) took part in three experiments in which acoustic features of music were manipulated to determine whether there are links between perceived emotion and felt emotion in processing musical segments. After exposure to segments of music, participants completed a felt emotion judgment task. The chi-square test showed significant tempo effects, ps < .001 (Exp. 1), and strong combined effects of mode and tempo on felt emotion. In addition, strength of these effects changed across age. However, these combined effects were significantly stronger under the tempo-and-mode consistent condition, ps < .001 (Exp. 2) than inconsistent condition (Exp. 3). In other words, simple versus complex acoustic features had stronger effects on felt emotion, and that sensitivity to these features, especially complex features, changed across age. These findings suggest that felt emotion evoked by acoustic features of a given piece of music might be affected by both innate abilities and by the strength of mappings between acoustic features and emotion.

Consistency of co-occurring actions influences young children’s word learning

Communication with young children is often multimodal in nature, involving, for example, language and actions. The simultaneous presentation of information from both domains may boost language learning by highlighting the connection between an object and a word, owing to temporal overlap in the presentation of multimodal input. However, the overlap is not merely temporal but can also covary in the extent to which particular actions co-occur with particular words and objects, e.g. carers typically produce a hopping action when talking about rabbits and a snapping action for crocodiles. The frequency with which actions and words co-occurs in the presence of the referents of these words may also impact young children’s word learning. We, therefore, examined the extent to which consistency in the co-occurrence of particular actions and words impacted children’s learning of novel word–object associations. Children (18 months, 30 months and 36–48 months) and adults were presented with two novel objects and heard their novel labels while different actions were performed on these objects, such that the particular actions and word–object pairings always co-occurred ( Consistent group) or varied across trials ( Inconsistent group). At test, participants saw both objects and heard one of the labels to examine whether participants recognized the target object upon hearing its label. Growth curve models revealed that 18-month-olds did not learn words for objects in either condition, and 30-month-old and 36- to 48-month-old children learned words for objects only in the Consistent condition, in contrast to adults who learned words for objects independent of the actions presented. Thus, consistency in the multimodal input influenced word learning in early childhood but not in adulthood. In terms of a dynamic systems account of word learning, our study shows how multimodal learning settings interact with the child’s perceptual abilities to shape the learning experience.

Consistency influences altered auditory feedback processing

Previous research on the effect of perturbed auditory feedback in speech production has focused on two types of responses. In the short term, speakers generate compensatory motor commands in response to unexpected perturbations. In the longer term, speakers adapt feedforward motor programmes in response to feedback perturbations, to avoid future errors. The current study investigated the relation between these two types of responses to altered auditory feedback. Specifically, it was hypothesised that consistency in previous feedback perturbations would influence whether speakers adapt their feedforward motor programmes. In an altered auditory feedback paradigm, formant perturbations were applied either across all trials (the consistent condition) or only to some trials, whereas the others remained unperturbed (the inconsistent condition). The results showed that speakers’ responses were affected by feedback consistency, with stronger speech changes in the consistent condition compared with the inconsistent condition. Current models of speech-motor control can explain this consistency effect. However, the data also suggest that compensation and adaptation are distinct processes, which are not in line with all current models.

A risk-based approach to winter road surface condition classification

This paper presents a risk-based approach for classifying the road surface conditions of a highway network under winter weather events. A relative risk index (RRI) is developed to capture the effect of adverse weather conditions on the collision risk of a highway in reference to the normal driving conditions. Based on this index, multiple risk factors related to adverse winter weather conditions can be considered either jointly or separately. The index can also be used to aggregate different types of road conditions observed on any given route into a single class for risk-consistent condition classification and reporting. Two example applications are shown to illustrate the advantages of the proposed approach.

Orphan-Free Consistent Condition for Log-Based Checkpointing and Rollback Recovery Scheme

The fundamental goal of the log-based fault-tolerant scheme is to bring the system into a consistent global state without any orphan inconsistence. However, the existing Alvisi’s No-Orphans Consistency Condition is only sufficient on condition that the set of local checkpoints of failure processes keep consistent always. Independent of the specific log-based checkpointing and rollback-recovery fault tolerant scheme, an extended orphan-free consistency condition is derived based on PWD assumption in this paper. The definitions of the orphan inconsistence among the process state and the nondeterministic event during a rollback recovery were extended. Finally the essential requirement for message logs was specified to eliminate the possible orphan inconsistence among the process state during a rollback recovery. By contrast, the proposal is a practical and efficient constraint for the orphan-free recovery.

Effect of Word-List Consistency on the Correlation between Group Memory and Group Polarization

Two studies investigated the effect of shared knowledge, manipulated using associated or randomly ordered word lists, on the correlation between group remembering and group polarization. Group polarization due to accumulation of information was expected only if it was consistent with shared knowledge among group members (the knowledge shared among group members before discussion). Consistency of information with shared knowledge was manipulated by lists of words that were ordered either randomly or in a manner consistent along with four stereotype categories. In Experiment 1, 159 college students answered a questionnaire about the common stereotype that blood type determines personality; half were given lists of words that were consistent with the stereotype (consistent condition) and the other half, randomly ordered word lists (inconsistent condition). After completion of the questionnaire, they were given, a surprise free-recall test including words from the lists that had appeared in the questionnaire; the test was administered in a group (group condition) or individual (individual condition) setting. The results indicated that stereotype-consistency of the word list reduced the groups' ability to detect incorrect answers compared with the individual condition. In Experiment 2 ( N = 132), the divergence of memory among group members was manipulated by altering the constitution of each group with regard to members' blood type. The results showed that the shift in the score representing belief in the blood-type stereotype correlated with the number of words recalled in the stereotype-consistent word-list condition.

Finite Element Analysis of the Static Performance of a Self-Slot-Compensating Aerostatic Bearing

The static performance of an aerostatic bearing with angled surface self-slot-compensation is analyzed. The consistent condition was applied to unitize the Reynolds equation of different forms and the finite element method (FEM) was used to solve the equation. The load carrying capacity (LCC) and the stiffness of the bearing was obtained and the influence of the geometric parameters was discussed. It is concluded that this self-compensating aerostatic bearing can achieve a good performance; the geometric parameters of the gap are interactive, and should be rationally matched.