Virulence evolution

Virulence (i.e. reduction of host fitness) results from the parasite–host interaction. It can be an unselected side effect or the result of short-sighted evolution. The evolutionary theory of virulence predicts virulence by the fitness advantages for the parasite. Thereby, trade-offs among virulence level and host recovery or transmission rates are critical. This process can lead to lower, higher, or intermediate virulence, depending on conditions. Vertical transmission generally selects for lower virulence, whereas co-infection tends to increase virulence levels, also depending on genetic relatedness among the parasites. The sensitivity framework more generally addresses virulence levels in different systems; in this context, manipulation by parasites can result in significant virulence effects, especially when avoiding clearance and when effects are delayed. Different vaccination mechanisms can modify the evolution of virulence. Besides, virulence can evolve within hosts; for example, adaptation to a particular host type with serial passage attenuates virulence on other hosts.

Manipulating Meaning: Language and Ideology in the Commodification of Online Sociality

Marxist Internet scholars have recently shed light on the commodification and exploitation of social media users. While some of these studies have also acknowledged the ideological nature of how online sociality is understood and discussed, they have not yet addressed in great detail the ways in which ideology figures in the process of commodification of social media users. We address this question by combining Marxist ideology theory with insights from cognitive pragmatics. Focusing on the idea of illusion, we draw on Relevance Theory and employ the notions of “relevance” and “cognitive illusion” to discuss the ideological process we call context manipulation, a concept that helps bring to focus the discursive obscuring of the capitalist operational logic of social media corporations. We illustrate our cognitivepragmatic model of ideology with examples of Facebook’s discursive practices. The paper contributes to the discussion on ideology in cultural studies and the discussion on commodification of online sociality in critical Internet and media studies by offering a revised interpretation of Marx’s ideology theory that highlights the discursive and cognitive nature of ideological processes, and by elaborating on the workings of ideology in the specific context of corporate social media.

Simulating Context in Mobile Learning Games for Testing and Debugging

Especially software running on mobile devices does increasingly rely on contextual information such as time and location. And whenever a software product is affected by context, this context has to be replicated for testing and debugging. This paper introduces an external context manipulation interface for a previously developed learning item scheduler. The scheduler determines when to present a learning item in a learning game based on previous interaction in order to maximize learning efficiency and is based on psychological models. As inter-presentation-intervals can be in the range of days to months, system testing cannot be conducted in a conventional manner. Hence, virtual time hops can be used to fast forward to any specific point in virtual time which would make the software act like it was system time. The approach has shown to be a valuable debugging and testing aid and can be extended for other contextual information sources.

De la neuroplasticidad a las propuestas aplicadas: estimulación temprana y su implementación en Costa Rica / From Neuroplasticity to Applied Proposals: Early Stimulation and Its Implementation in Costa Rica

<p><em><strong>Español</strong></em></p><p>La discusión en torno a la influencia del ambiente sobre la ontogenia ha alimentado la interrogante sobre cuál es el grado en el que, a través de la manipulación del contexto, se modifican las características de los individuos. Actualmente, la evidencia científica desde distintos campos (e.g., Psicología del desarrollo, Neurociencias) describe cómo el ambiente es capaz de modular los procesos del desarrollo y las distintas capacidades del cerebro, así como los mecanismos plásticos que subyacen a dicha modulación. Con base en esta evidencia, distintas aproximaciones metodológicas orientadas a la estimulación temprana (ET) se han propuesto potenciar el desarrollo o remediar problemas que se presentan durante las etapas tempranas del ciclo vital. En este contexto, se brinda una revisión del tema y se ofrece un marco teórico general sobre los antecedentes y sobre los principios que sustentan la estimulación del sistema nervioso (i.e., plasticidad cerebral). Además, a través de una aproximación empírica y un proceso de revisión bibliográfica, se presenta la evidencia disponible de algunos de los métodos de mayor conocimiento/uso en Costa Rica (i.e., Doman Delacato, Snoezelen®, Point y Bebé Políglota). Al recapitular los alcances y las limitaciones de la ET, se concluye que es necesario sistematizar las experiencias profesionales de forma tal que permitan abrir un debate académico sobre el tema. </p><p><em><strong>English</strong></em></p><p><span>The discussion about environmental influence on ontogeny has fueled the question about how much context manipulation can regulate individuals’ characteristics. Today, scientific evidence from different fields (e.g., developmental psychology, neuroscience) describes not only how environment can modulate brain development and function, but also the plastic mechanisms involved. In consequence, different methodological approximations of early stimulation (ES) have arisen, although they are not necessarily based on solid empirical evidence. In this context, a brief approximation to the ES background is provided, as well as a general framework about brain plasticity. In addition, the theoretical and practical perspective of the ES practitioners is also described by detailing the empirical evidence around its most known/used variants in Costa Rica (i.e., Doman-Delacato, Snoezelen®, Point and Bebé políglota). Finally, bringing up the scope and limitations of ES, we conclude that the professional experiences need to be systematized, in order to open an academic debate on the subject.</span></p>

INTERVENSI GURU TERHADAP EKSPRESI TUTUR SISWA TUNARUNGU

This study aims to describe teacher interventions in deaf students’ oral expressions,comprising those in speech acts, speech functions, and speech strategies. It employed thequalitative descriptive approach. The data comprised descriptive and reflective data. Theywere analyzed by means of pragmatics theory, especially clinical pragmatics. The findingsare as follows. First, interventions in speech acts include illocutionary acts, conversationcapabilities, understanding, and narration. Second, interventions in speech functionsinclude directive and facilitative interventions. Third, interventions in speech strategiesinclude context manipulation and pre-symbolic and minimum symbolic interventions.