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Thursday, February 14, 2013
THIS. IS. CNN. CNN Panel: Dorner?s Alleged Murder Spree ?Exciting,? Like ?Denzel Washington Movie.??
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Video: 'Get off my lawn:' Song sparrows escalate territorial threats
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Territorial song sparrows use increasingly threatening signals to ward off trespassing rivals. First an early warning that matches the intruder's song, then wing waving ? a bird's version of "flipping the bird" ? as the dispute heats up, and finally, if all other signals have failed, attack.
This hierarchical warning scheme, discovered by researchers at the University of Washington, adds nuance to a communication system that has been long-used as a model to study how people use and learn language
"This is one of the most complicated communication systems outside of human language," said lead author ?a?lar Ak?ay, who did the study as a UW graduate student. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University.
"Here we find that if a sparrow matches the intruder's song as the intruder invades his territory, this almost always predicts that he will eventually attack the intruder," Ak?ay said.
The study, published online this month in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is the first evidence that song-matching is used as an early warning signal. Previous studies had hinted, but had not clearly established, that song-matching is a threat signal.
"We succeeded here because we recognized that song-matching is an early warning signal," said co-author Michael Beecher, a UW professor of psychology. "We designed our experiment to simulate an escalating intrusion by another song sparrow, so that our subject would begin with low-level threat signals before switching to higher-level threat signals."
A male song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) will defend his territory against any male song sparrow that intrudes. He has a repertoire of eight to 10 songs that he uses to attract mates, post his territory, communicate with neighbors, and, as in the newest study, threaten an intruder.
The researchers recorded songs from 48 sparrows living in Discovery Park in Seattle. To feign an intruder, they perched a stuffed song sparrow in a bush or tree and played the recorded song.
The song was first played just outside of the sparrow's territory. Believing the song to come from a hidden aggressor close to their home turf, the provoked bird sang and approached the speaker.
The song was then played from a different speaker placed 20 meters (60 feet) inside his boundary, which simulated movement by the rival into the territory. At the same time, the researchers uncovered the stuffed sparrow just above the speaker, with its beak posed as if it was singing.
It was enough to fool the live birds. Many of the sparrows responded first by matching the intruder's song. When the simulated intruder moved into the territory and persisted in singing, the defending sparrow progressed to higher-level warnings including soft songs and wing waves.Soft song is not lullaby-like, but is perceived as menacing by enemies. Wing waving, a vigorous vibrating of one wing at a time, likewise looks harmless enough, but it too is an assertive signal.
When the stuffed bird did not react to those higher-level warning signals, the live bird attacked.
"Birds generally do all this signaling," Ak?ay said, "because it's usually beneficial to avoid getting into a fight if it can be avoided. There are less costly ways to persuade an aggressor to back down."
Most of the sparrows in the study, 31out of 48, eventually attacked. Birds who had song-matched were the mostly likely to attack.
Not all birds showed the same pattern of signaling. A few "bluffers" matched the trespasser's song without following through with an attack. Some others ? labeled "under-signalers" by the researchers ? attacked without giving warning signals.The researchers are studying these behavioral subtypes now, and have collected evidence that these birds, like humans, have personalities that shape their behavior in distinctive ways.
"These kinds of field studies provide context for laboratory research that uses bird song learning as an animal model for exploring the brain mechanisms of learning," Beecher said. "Using bird song as a model system without understanding its natural social context would be like studying the neural basis of language without any idea of what humans use their language for."
###
University of Washington: http://www.uwnews.org
Thanks to University of Washington for this article.
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Kansas Lawmakers Urged To Pray For 'Dark Spiritual Areas' Of State
The branch of a national group that advocates prayer in state Capitols has called for prayers for Kansas' "dark spiritual areas" which include large Democratic concentrations.
Dave DePue, the head of Kansas affiliate Capitol Commission, in a letter distributed Feb. 7 requested prayers for several of the heaviest Democratic areas of the state. The document distributed by DePue was made public Tuesday night by several Democratic legislators and first reported by the Wichita Eagle that evening.
"Target prayer for dark spiritual areas of SE Kansas, Lawrence, KCKS, North Johnson County," DePue wrote. The areas mentioned by DePue are among the most Democratic in the state and have Democratic legislators.
The document included notes on prayer for legislators with health issues, along with prayer for Gov. Sam Brownback's (R) initiatives on child poverty and obesity.
The Capitol Commission is a national group seeking to place pastors in each state Capitol. The group is currently in 21 states, primarily in the South and Midwest.
DePue leads regular prayer breakfasts for state legislators in a conference room in the governor's office. Last year, the Topeka Capitol-Journal reported that he said a prayer for journalists at a Brownback staffer's request.
DePue did not return a call from The Huffington Post, but told the Wichita Eagle on Tuesday evening that he was not trying to single out Democrats and their spirituality. He said he was asking for prayer in order to boost the economic prosperity of the regions.
?It?s just unfortunate wording on my part,? DePue told the Wichita Eagle.
Democrats from the areas singled out by DePue are upset and do not believe his explanation.
"Between Wichita and southeast Kansas, we produce more clergy than any other area and we're a dark area?" House Minority Whip Julie Menghini (D-Pittsburg) told HuffPost. "Why would you call it a spiritually dark area? You can say it's economically dark and I'd buy that."
Douglas County Democratic Party Chairwoman Margie Wakefield told HuffPost that she believes that under Brownback "even prayer is partisan." She urged DePue instead to pray for "Kansas leaders with basic common sense."
State Rep. John Wilson (D-Lawrence) told HuffPost that the prayer request upset him due to his involvement in Plymouth Congregational Church, the oldest church in the state. Wilson said he would like to know who requested the prayer and why they consider the regions "spiritually dark."
Wilson said religion has taught him to help others, noting that he wants to use government to end child poverty and expand social services in the state. He said there is more lawmakers can do than pray to end child poverty.
"I believe prayer is a powerful thing," he said. "I also think that prayer in conjunction with good work is powerful. We don't have to wait for prayer to address child poverty. We can do something as legislators now."
Also on HuffPost:
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/13/kansas-pray_n_2679403.html
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Defect in immune memory may cause repeat bladder infections
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Public release date: 14-Feb-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Sarah Avery
sarah.avery@duke.edu
919-660-1306
Duke University Medical Center
DURHAM, N.C. Recurrent bladder infections, which are especially common among women, may result from a defect among the bladder's immune fighters that keeps them from remembering previous bacterial infections. The immune memory lapse can hamper a timely and effective attack, according to researchers at Duke Medicine and Duke-National University of Singapore.
Their study, which involved mice, may provide a new route to develop vaccines and treatments for urinary tract infections, which are the second-most common infection and account for more than 8 million health care visits a year in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health.
"A third of recurring bladder infections are from the same strain of bacteria, so that suggested to us that there is some sort of defect in the bladder that is causing this," said Soman N. Abraham, PhD, professor of pathology at Duke and Duke-NUS and senior author of the paper published Feb. 14, 2013, in the journal Immunity. "We have identified how a muted immune response to bacterial infections in the bladder occurs, making it unable to fully eradicate a persistent population of bacteria."
Like the gut and the liver, the bladder is involved in waste treatment, and is frequently exposed to bacterial invasion. But it has not been among the organs considered "immune privileged," in which the immune system operates under special strategies for tolerating certain pathogens to keep it from over-activating. Not much is understood about how the mucosal tissue in the bladder functions.
Abraham and colleagues examined mouse bladders under conditions that closely mimic human infections; infections remained in the bladder for some, and traveled to the kidneys in others. In both cases, they found that urinary tract infections were typically met with a robust inflammatory response from the innate immune system, which is the body's first line of defense and attacks all pathogens in a generalized fashion.
After 21 days, both sets of mice were re-infected, and here the groups diverged. In the mice that originally had an infection in both the bladder and kidney, a strong antibody response arose, indicating that the immune system recognized the invader and could swiftly eradicate it. But among those that originally had just the bladder infection, the immune system showed no memory recall.
The cause was an unlikely source: Mast cells. Best known for fighting allergies, mast cells are responsible for triggering an early immune response against bacteria in the bladder, and in every instance, they sprung to action when confronted with the E. coli infection. But in some cases, they then began producing a molecule called interleukin-10, which suppresses the immune system. It was if the immune system slammed on brakes, so the adaptive immune system never kicked into action to form antibodies that would recognize a recurring invasion.
Abraham said this function of mast cells to limit the immune response may coincide with the shedding of the bladder's lining cells a sort of cleansing mechanism that keeps bacteria from accumulating in the epithelial lining and may be part of the bladder's form of immune privilege to temper the inflammatory response.
"It appears that the bladder, like the gut, has a highly specialized strategy for balancing tolerance and resisting infection," Abraham said. "In most cases, muting the adaptive immune response in the bladder would not be a problem, because the infection would be cleared by the vigorous response of the early, innate immune response. But in some people, it's causing recurrent infections, because the bacteria hide in the epithelium and are not recognized by the adaptive immune system," Abraham said.
Abraham said the findings could lead the development of vaccines against the bacteria, or better treatments that bolster the antibody response.
###
In addition to Abraham, study authors include Cheryl Y. Chan of Duke University Medical Center and Ashley L. St. John of Duke and Duke-NUS.
The study was support by grants from the NIH (R01 A135678, R01 DK077159, R01 A150021, R37 DK50814 and R21 A1056101).
GRAPHIC: Bladder infections that travel to the kidneys result in an immune response that builds antibodies to recognize and attack the pathogen. When the infection remains in the bladder, however, the immune response is led by mast cells, which initially fight the infection but also produce an immune suppressing molecule called interleukin-10 that disrupts the development of antibodies and thus stifles immune memory.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 14-Feb-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Sarah Avery
sarah.avery@duke.edu
919-660-1306
Duke University Medical Center
DURHAM, N.C. Recurrent bladder infections, which are especially common among women, may result from a defect among the bladder's immune fighters that keeps them from remembering previous bacterial infections. The immune memory lapse can hamper a timely and effective attack, according to researchers at Duke Medicine and Duke-National University of Singapore.
Their study, which involved mice, may provide a new route to develop vaccines and treatments for urinary tract infections, which are the second-most common infection and account for more than 8 million health care visits a year in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health.
"A third of recurring bladder infections are from the same strain of bacteria, so that suggested to us that there is some sort of defect in the bladder that is causing this," said Soman N. Abraham, PhD, professor of pathology at Duke and Duke-NUS and senior author of the paper published Feb. 14, 2013, in the journal Immunity. "We have identified how a muted immune response to bacterial infections in the bladder occurs, making it unable to fully eradicate a persistent population of bacteria."
Like the gut and the liver, the bladder is involved in waste treatment, and is frequently exposed to bacterial invasion. But it has not been among the organs considered "immune privileged," in which the immune system operates under special strategies for tolerating certain pathogens to keep it from over-activating. Not much is understood about how the mucosal tissue in the bladder functions.
Abraham and colleagues examined mouse bladders under conditions that closely mimic human infections; infections remained in the bladder for some, and traveled to the kidneys in others. In both cases, they found that urinary tract infections were typically met with a robust inflammatory response from the innate immune system, which is the body's first line of defense and attacks all pathogens in a generalized fashion.
After 21 days, both sets of mice were re-infected, and here the groups diverged. In the mice that originally had an infection in both the bladder and kidney, a strong antibody response arose, indicating that the immune system recognized the invader and could swiftly eradicate it. But among those that originally had just the bladder infection, the immune system showed no memory recall.
The cause was an unlikely source: Mast cells. Best known for fighting allergies, mast cells are responsible for triggering an early immune response against bacteria in the bladder, and in every instance, they sprung to action when confronted with the E. coli infection. But in some cases, they then began producing a molecule called interleukin-10, which suppresses the immune system. It was if the immune system slammed on brakes, so the adaptive immune system never kicked into action to form antibodies that would recognize a recurring invasion.
Abraham said this function of mast cells to limit the immune response may coincide with the shedding of the bladder's lining cells a sort of cleansing mechanism that keeps bacteria from accumulating in the epithelial lining and may be part of the bladder's form of immune privilege to temper the inflammatory response.
"It appears that the bladder, like the gut, has a highly specialized strategy for balancing tolerance and resisting infection," Abraham said. "In most cases, muting the adaptive immune response in the bladder would not be a problem, because the infection would be cleared by the vigorous response of the early, innate immune response. But in some people, it's causing recurrent infections, because the bacteria hide in the epithelium and are not recognized by the adaptive immune system," Abraham said.
Abraham said the findings could lead the development of vaccines against the bacteria, or better treatments that bolster the antibody response.
###
In addition to Abraham, study authors include Cheryl Y. Chan of Duke University Medical Center and Ashley L. St. John of Duke and Duke-NUS.
The study was support by grants from the NIH (R01 A135678, R01 DK077159, R01 A150021, R37 DK50814 and R21 A1056101).
GRAPHIC: Bladder infections that travel to the kidneys result in an immune response that builds antibodies to recognize and attack the pathogen. When the infection remains in the bladder, however, the immune response is led by mast cells, which initially fight the infection but also produce an immune suppressing molecule called interleukin-10 that disrupts the development of antibodies and thus stifles immune memory.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/dumc-dii021213.php
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Behavioral therapy for children with autism can impact brain function
Feb. 14, 2013 ? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for before-and-after analysis, a team of researchers including a UC Santa Barbara graduate student discovered positive changes in brain activity in children with autism who received a particular type of behavioral therapy.
Work completed at Yale University's Child Study Center used fMRI as the tool for measuring the impact of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) -- therapy pioneered at UCSB by Lynn Koegel, clinical director of the Koegel Autism Center -- on both lower- and higher-functioning children with autism receiving PRT for the first time. fMRI allows researchers to see what areas of the brain are active while processing certain stimuli -- in this case human motion. Comparing pre- and post-therapy data from the fMRI scans of their 5-year-old subjects, the researchers saw marked -- and remarkable -- changes in how the children were processing the stimuli. Findings from their study, "Neural Mechanisms of Improvements in Social Motivation After Pivotal Response Treatment," are published in a recent issue of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
"The cool thing that we found was that these kids showed increased activation in regions of the brain utilized by typically developing kids," explained Avery C. Voos, first-year graduate student at the UCSB-based Koegel Autism Center, and one of the lead authors of the Yale study. "After four months of treatment, they're starting to use brain regions that typically developing kids are using to process social stimuli.
"We can say that we have shifted the way these children are processing low-level social stimuli, and that's what we want," she added. "There's a social deficit in autism, so any improvement toward social interaction really helps with development. That's what makes this very exciting, and it speaks to the promise and success of PRT."
A targeted technique meant to improve social engagement among children with autism spectrum disorders, PRT forgoes the focus on specific skills, like block-building, to concentrate instead on so-called "pivotal areas," such as motivation, in hopes of inducing a cascading effect with similar impact across multiple areas.
"For instance, if you're orienting to people, socially it may appear more acceptable, but you're also getting rich information from those people, which will affect the way you're interacting with people more broadly," Voos explained. "Say a child wants to draw, and asks for a red crayon while she has her back to me. I say, 'I can't understand what you're asking if you're not looking at me.' Once she orients toward me, we provide a contingent response -- in this case, giving her the red crayon -- and ideally she begins to understand, 'Hey, me looking at you and asking for what I want gets me what I want.' Ultimately, the social interaction becomes the reward on its own, which is the ultimate goal."
The Yale study involved two children, who each received the same amount of therapy -- eight to ten hours each week, for four months -- bookended by fMRIs looking at predetermined regions of the brain. Small by design, according to Voos, the project was meant to show that PRT does impact processing, and is not simply inspiring learned behavioral changes. It was also intended as impetus for further, more comprehensive study.
"The logical next step is to assess a larger group of children that are the same age as these two, to see whether these improvements were unique to these kids," Voos said. "We also want to know if the changes we saw remain after treatment. Long-term, it would be amazing to do this with hundreds of kids, in different age groups, to see what differences there may be. I would postulate that the younger we start these kids in treatment, the more improvement we will see in the way that they process social stimuli."
And therein lies the larger message of this study, according to Voos.
"Early intervention is wonderful," she said. "It can make serious improvements not only in overt behavior, but potentially in the way children are processing the world around them and the way they're processing your interaction with them on a daily basis. Even if they're only minor changes, the fact that they have those shifts, and are potentially processing social stimuli in a more 'typical' manner for the rest of their lives, is pretty powerful to think about."
"Traditional neuro-imagers will say you can't do MRI with single subjects," she acknowledged. "This is still giving us a lot of useful information. It might be a different way of using the technology, but we think it's beneficial. And we don't think these are random findings. They make sense to us, and it's exciting."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Avery C. Voos, Kevin A. Pelphrey, Jonathan Tirrell, Danielle Z. Bolling, Brent Vander Wyk, Martha D. Kaiser, James C. McPartland, Fred R. Volkmar, Pamela Ventola. Neural Mechanisms of Improvements in Social Motivation After Pivotal Response Treatment: Two Case Studies. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2012; 43 (1): 1 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-012-1683-9
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/sv9xYt82gZY/130214120618.htm
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Printed Customer Communications ? Marketing Opportunity or ...
Written by Jo Oliphant
Manager, Continuous Feed Europe
Xerox Corporation
How does your business communicate to your customers? Have you moved everything online because of postal costs and environmental concerns?
Sending physical communications to customers can be a costly venture, depending on where your business is situated and combined with the location of your customers. While there is no denying many customers have come to accept receiving statements and information electronically, saving the company in postage costs, there are still a very large number of consumers who still want, and prefer, paper statements in their hands. Personally, I still quite like receiving paper statements ? especially given that some companies (you know who you are!) make it incredibly difficult to access their websites through complex layers of security, which is why I continue to request traditional hard copy. And while a preference for some, physical mailings are a necessity for others. Demographics play a huge role, but many consumers simply do not have reliable online access. Consumer preferences aside, there is a much deeper issue here ? as some companies just aren?t ?getting it? in terms of their customer engagement strategies.
When a company stops sending paper communications, it puts a halt to the regular vehicle it had that got itself through your letterbox, out of the envelope, in front of your eyes and? read an average of three (yes, three) times. The first time was while sifting through your stack of mail after retrieving it. Then, if you?re like me, the mail sits on the kitchen table before being sorted and re-read to check through everything. Finally, it is looked at a third time as you file or archive it. A number of companies just do not understand that these three hits are one of the best marketing tools they have to capture your interest. In the absence of hard copy ? what do they revert to?
- Emails that get caught by the spam filter
- Emails that are distrusted because they?re believed to be false
- Emails that are trashed or unread because, let?s be honest, who can really stand to receive 150 emails a day
Worse still are the hard copy mailings containing really poor marketing messages that get through your front door and do not capitalise on the analytics and back-end data that they?ve captured on you.
Side Note: there?s a third underlying and less well understood point about all of this, too. In this race to eliminate paper for environmental concerns (because apparently anything online must be green) we fail to understand the environmental credentials of paper vs. online statements, but the issues are huge and very complex. For now let?s say the jury is still out and I will revisit in a separate blog, but just so you know where I?m going on this one? ? paper is a carbon sink ? when we bury it, the CO2 inside it is released into the atmosphere slowly. Similarly, email also needs energy to spin every disk, network line and so on to get information to you?.
To send physical documents means using some form of postal service. Postal companies around the world have become quite inventive in their charging structures and most employ some kind of formula based on weight or size (or indeed both). Some countries already have a relatively low threshold on postage weight set at 20 grams. As it happens, 3 A4 sheets of 80gsm paper and a window DL envelope is 19.97 grams. I suspect if the country you live in doesn?t have restrictions like these, then it?s more a case of ?when? and not ?if? this will be introduced.
Putting a 4th sheet of paper in that envelope can be something of a challenge as it takes the envelope into the next postal bracket. At Xerox, we?ve been exploring printing on lower weight commodity offset papers to take advantage of our technology with vibrant waterless inks with no show-through on the page?and on 60gsm paper, that fourth sheet is a reality without the additional postage cost! Taking this even further as we explore the limitations of waterless inkjet, we can add as many as five additional sheets of paper on top of an 80gsm headed introductory letter into an envelope without breaching the 20gsm limit ? just imagine what you can squeeze into that envelope with 12 A4 impressions! Of course, using lighter papers isn?t only about saving you postage costs, but also about reducing your expenditure on paper.
What?s your business strategy for communicating with customers now and into the future? E-presentment, hardcopy or both? and how do you measure success?
With Hunkeler Innovationdays now here, Xerox will be helping customers answer these questions and many more. Be sure to subscribe to this blog to stay up-to-date on the latest news, as well as follow the conversation using #XeroxHunkeler on Twitter.
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