bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Choosing Rhetorical Structures To Plan Instructional Texts
Authors: Kosseim Leila , Lapalme Guy
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses a fundamental problem in natural language generation: how to organize the content of a text in a coherent and natural way. In this research, we set out to determine the semantic content and the rhetorical structure of texts and to develop heuristics to perform this process automatically within a text generation framework. The study was performed on a specific language and textual genre: French instructional texts. From a corpus analysis of these texts, we determined nine senses typically communicated in instructional texts and seven rhetorical relations used to present these senses. From this analysis, we then developed a set of presentation heuristics that determine how the senses to be communicated should be organized rhetorically in order to create a coherent and natural text. The heuristics are based on five types of constraints: conceptual, semantic, rhetorical, pragmatic, and intentional constraints. To verify the heuristics, we developed the spin natural language generation system, which performs all steps of text generation but focuses on the determination of the content and the rhetorical structure of the text.
Wishful: A Discourse Planning System That Considers a User's Inferences
Authors: Zukerman Ingrid , McConachy Richard
Published: March 2003

The explicit consideration of an addressee's inferences during discourse planning affects the content and coherence of the generated discourse. The content of the discourse is affected because the consideration of an addressee's inferences may require the addition of information that addresses erroneous inferences or suggest the omission of easily inferred information. The coherence of the discourse is affected because the generated discourse should incorporate inferential relations that emerge from the consideration of an addressee's inferences. In this article, we describe a discourse planner that takes into consideration a user's inferences. In particular, we discuss its content planning and discourse structuring mechanisms. The content planning mechanism generates a set of rhetorical devices that achieves a given communicative goal. The discourse structuring mechanism takes into consideration schematic, inferential, and prescriptive relations between these rhetorical devices in order to organize them into a coherent sequence. Our discourse planner has been implemented in a system called WISHFUL that generates explanations about concepts in technical domains. We evaluated WISHFUL's performance to test the effect of considering a user's inferences during content planning and discourse organization and also to determine the suitability of the discourse produced by WISHFUL for different types of users. The results of our evaluation endorse the ideas embodied in the WISHFUL system.
A Case‐Addition Policy for Case‐Base Maintenance
Authors: Yang Qiang , Zhu Jun
Published: March 2003

A major problem in many practical applications of case‐based reasoning (CBR) and knowledge reuse is how to keep the case bases concise and complete. To solve this problem requires repeated maintenance operations to be applied to case bases. Different maintenance policies may result in case bases with very different quality. In this article, we present a case‐addition maintenance policy that is guaranteed to return a concise case base with good coverage quality. We demonstrate that the coverage of the case base computed by the case‐addition algorithm is no worse than the optimal case‐base coverage by a fixed lower bound. We also show that the algorithm implementing the case‐addition policy is efficient. Our result also highlights benefit reduction as a key factor in influencing the convergence of case‐base coverage when cases are added to a case base. Through our theoretical analysis, we analytically derive the well known coverage convergence curves commonly displayed in CBR experiments and show that benefit reduction can be used as a predictor for convergence speed.
Intelligent Case‐Authoring Support in Casemaker‐2
Authors: McSherry David
Published: March 2003

CaseMaker is an interactive environment for intelligent case‐authoring support in CREST, a case‐based reasoner for estimation tasks, in which the selection of cases for addition to a case library is guided by empirical evaluation of the coverage contributions of candidate cases. I present a new version of the environment called CaseMaker‐2 that is designed to support case authoring more effectively by eliminating a previous requirement for the evaluation of candidate cases to be repeated following the addition of a new case to the library. A key role in the approach is played by an algorithm for dynamic partitioning of the space of uncovered cases in such a way that the partition containing a given case represents the minimum additional coverage provided by its addition to the case library.
Granularity in Relational Formalisms—With Application to Time and Space Representation
Authors: Euzenat Jérôme
Published: March 2003

Temporal and spatial phenomena can be seen at a more or less precise granularity, depending on the kind of perceivable details. As a consequence, the relationship between two objects may differ depending on the granularity considered. When merging representations of different granularity, this may raise problems. This paper presents general rules of granularity conversion in relation algebras. Granularity is considered independently of the specific relation algebra, by investigating operators for converting a representation from one granularity to another and presenting six constraints that they must satisfy. The constraints are shown to be independent and consistent and general results about the existence of such operators are provided. The constraints are used to generate the unique pairs of operators for converting qualitative temporal relationships (upward and downward) from one granularity to another. Then two fundamental constructors (product and weakening) are presented: they permit the generation of new qualitative systems (e.g. space algebra) from existing ones. They are shown to preserve most of the properties of granularity conversion operators.
A Pattern‐Weight Formulation of Search Knowledge
Authors: Levinson Robert , Fuchs Gil
Published: March 2003

Pattern‐weight pairs (PWs) are a new form of search and planning knowledge. PWs are predicates over states coupled with a least upper bound on the distance from any state satisfying that predicate to any goal state. The relationship of PWs to more traditional forms of search knowledge is explored with emphasis on macros and subgoals. It is shown how PWs may be used to overcome some of the difficulties associated with macro‐tables and lead to shorter solution paths without replanning. An algorithm is given for converting a macro‐table to a more powerful PW set. Superiority over the Squeeze algorithm is demonstrated. It is also shown how PWs provide a mechanism for achieving dynamic subgoaling through the combination of knowledge from multiple alternative subgoal sequences. The flexibility and execution time reasoning provided by PWs may have significant use in reactive domains. The main cost associated with PWs is the cost of applying them at execution time. An associative retrieval algorithm is given that expedites this matching‐evaluation process. Empirical results are provided which demonstrate asymptotically improving performance with problem size of the PW technique over macro‐tables.
Sharing Isn't Easy: When Separate Institutions Clash
Authors: Aberbach Joel D.
Published: March 2003

There is a lively debate in the United States about how the president and Congress do and ought to relate, and about the significance of recent clashes between the two over control of the bureaucracy. This article focuses on the causes and consequences of increased congressional (and presidential) review and specification of administrative behavior. It examines congressional oversight behavior, micromanagement by Congress, struggles over control of regulations and interpretations of statutes, and efforts by the White House to increase its control over appointments to executive positions. The article concludes with an overview of the sources of tension between the two institutions and an analysis of the conditions under which they could more successfully share power.
The Provider/Purchaser Split: A Report from New Zealand
Authors: Ormsby Maurice J.
Published: March 2003

This article focuses on a narrow topic: the provider/purchaser split. It discusses the theoretical arguments justifying the separation of state agencies providing goods and services from the agencies which purchase those services on behalf of government. It also discusses some of the main criticisms of the theory and briefly reviews application of the theory to reform of New Zealand's state sector provision of policy advice, health care and scientific services.
International Capital Mobility and Domestic Institutions:Corporate Finance and Governance in Four European Cases
Authors: Deeg Richard , Perez Sofia
Published: March 2003

This article considers the impact of international capital mobility on thecharacter of corporate finance and corporate governance in four European countries (Germany, France, Spain, and Italy). We take issue with the widespread view that the growth of international financial markets and the lifting of capital controls will in themselves produce convergence in national systems of corporate finance and governance. Although we find evidence of convergence in specific aspects of financial regulation (e.g., the abandonment of selective credit regulation and the dismantling of barriers to universal banking), these regulatory changes have not produced any clear convergence toward either the Anglo‐Saxon model of corporate finance and governance predicted in much of the literature or the alternative German bank‐based model. The reasons for this, we suggest, have much to do with the way in which the politics of financialreform are likely to differ from those postulated in market‐driven models of regulatory change and the fact that countries are susceptible to international pressures in different ways.
British Employment Policy in the 1980s: Learning from the American Experience
Authors: Dolowitz David P.
Published: March 2003

During the 1980s the Thatcher Government implemented numerous changes to the British employment system. Most of these changes had the effect of linking the receipt of welfare benefits to an individual's willingness to participate actively within a government sponsored employment or training scheme. These changes culminated in the Social Security Act (1989) which linked the receipt of welfare payments to an individual's active job search and willingness to accept any officially offered job after a maximum grace period of 13 weeks. While these changes are important in their own right, more interestingly, most trace their origins back to the American welfare‐to‐work system initiated by the Reagan administration during the early 1980s. This article will demonstrate why the Thatcher government turned to the United States in the development of their employment policy. Once an explanation for this has been provided the article will highlight the key policies transferred by the Thatcher Government in the development of the British welfare‐to‐work system. This entire analysis will be placed within a policy transfer framework in order to illustrate its usefulness in the analysis of policy development.
The Contribution of Task Performance and Contextual Performance to Effectiveness: Investigating the Role of Situational Constraints
Authors: Griffin Mark , Neal Andrew , Neale Matthew
Published: March 2003

Task performance and contextual performance are two distinct dimensions of behaviour at work that can contribute independently to effectiveness outcomes for organisations. Contextual performance is important because it represents a type of behaviour that is largely under the motivational control of individuals. Little research has addressed how the opportunity to engage in contextual behaviours might be constrained by situational demands. This study examined the contribution of task performance and contextual performance to effectiveness in the work of air traffic controllers. As predicted, task difficulty moderated the relationship between contextual performance and effectiveness. The results demonstrate that contextual performance does contribute to effectiveness in technical domains, such as air traffic control, and highlight the importance of assessing situational factors when assessing performance and effectiveness.
Bearing Bad News: Reactions to Negative Performance Feedback
Authors: Ilgen Daniel , Davis Cori
Published: March 2003

Knowledge of results plays a major role in almost all learning and motivational theories of task performance. Central to all these is the belief that it is necessary to feed back to employees information about the degree to which they have or have not met performance standards. In particular, information about performance that falls short of the standard (typically termed negative feedback) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for corrective action. However, reactions to negative feedback frequently do not produce the desired effect of improving performance even in cases where the person is capable of better performance. This article presents a model of negative feedback incorporating situational and individual characteristics that appear to impact motivation to respond to negative feedback.
Entitlement Failure?
Authors: Fine Ben
Published: March 2003

In this article, the literature around the entitlement approach to famine is assessed against the background of recent developments in economics which are perceived to have increasingly encroached upon the previously neglected subject matter of the other social sciences. In this light, emphasis is given to the tension that exists in the entitlement approach between its micro‐foundations and macro‐consequences and causes. This, in turn, is related to the broader problem in social theory of the relations between structures and agency. Whilst it is found that the entitlement approach does embody an implicit causal content in the filtering of socioeconomic mechanisms through the distribution of individual entitlements, it is ultimately argued that the approach is primarily suited to investigative rather than causal analysis.
New Democratic Spaces at the Grassroots? Popular Participation in Latin American Local Governments
Authors: Schönwälder Gerd
Published: March 2003

This article sounds a note of caution with regard to the idea that political decentralization and increased popular participation, notably at the local level, could help consolidate fragile democratic regimes, and render their institutions both more efficient and more responsive to their constituents. Taking a review of two major strands of the decentralization literature as its starting point, the article shows that political decentralization often runs into bureaucratic obstacles and politically motivated resistance from local and other élites, and that locally based popular movements are frequently co‐opted by other actors for their own ends. The author develops an ‘inventory’ of possible courses of action for locally based popular movements, arguing that their democratic potential may be best realized not by withdrawing from the institutional space altogether, but by taking advantage of existing possibilities to participate, while maximizing their influence and minimizing the risk of co‐optation by striking alliances with a variety of other actors.
Industrialization and Local/Regional Development Revisited
Authors: Hilhorst Jos G. M.
Published: March 2003

In focusing on regional development and industrialization, this article highlights three main themes: the relevance to developing countries of the new industrial district concept; the apparent continued need to theorize agglomerated industrial growth; and the relevance of agricultural development to local and regional industrial development. It concludes that the new industrial district concept is not relevant to understanding industrialization in the peripheral regions of developing countries and that despite the introduction of decentralization policies, local industrial development will, as before, very largely depend on central government resource allocation, the stability of government and the role played by large and medium scale enterprises, including Multi‐National Corporations (MNCs). It is also argued that without special efforts to develop agriculture, local and regional industrial development are less likely to occur.
Process, Perception and Power: Notes from ‘Participatory’ Research in a Zimbabwean Resettlement Area
Authors: Goebel Allison
Published: March 2003

The increased popularity of ‘participatory’ methods in research, development projects, and rural extension in developing countries, has not consistently been accompanied by a critical evaluation of the quality and reliability of knowledge created and extracted in the process. In this article, the author employs her own research using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in a Zimbabwean Resettlement Area, to examine how knowledge is created through this type of research act, and how later research may be used to turn back and ‘make sense’ of PRA data. The article explores how power relations among participants are both revealed and concealed in PRA, focusing specifically on the implications for gendered perspectives. The paper also highlights the dynamic, contested and often contradictory nature of ‘local knowledge’ itself. Apparently transparent chunks of ‘local reality’ gleaned through PRA can turn out to be part of complex webs of multiple ideologies and practices. The author argues that while participatory methodologies may offer effective ways of beginning a research project, adoption of short PRA workshops in academic or project related research could lead to dangerously faulty representations of complex social worlds.
Import Liberalization and Industrial Performance: The Conceptual Underpinnings
Authors: Lall Sanjaya , Latsch Wolfram
Published: March 2003

Import liberalization is a centrepiece of conventional approaches to policy reform and structural adjustment. Despite substantial criticism of the effects of liberalization, the underlying economic reasoning is widely accepted. This article examines the ways in which different schools of thought analyse the effect of ‘opening up’ the economy on industrial development, and contrasts neoclassical and evolutionary approaches. Different conceptualizations of ‘market failure’ emerge as the focal point for differences in discussing the role and scope of government intervention, with a convergence between the information‐economics and firm‐level evolutionary approaches (particularly the ‘technological capabilities’ approach). The empirical literature and its interpretation by different schools are reviewed, demonstrating how policy recommendations are strongly affected by the particular theory that informs the analysis of market failure and efficiency. It is concluded that empirically oriented micro‐level approaches are the most promising in guiding policy decisions.
Resistance and the Rule of Law in Mexico
Authors: Jones Gareth A.
Published: March 2003

Judicial reform and promotion of the rule of law are at the very top of the political agendas of many developing countries. Moreover, in the context of democratization and a growing concern for human rights and citizenship, many social groups are prepared to use the law as a means to challenge the State. This article looks at how a group in Mexico used the law to resist the State's attempt to expropriate land for urban development. The law was used as a method of opposition as well as a symbol, by allowing the resistance to be represented in the form of ‘rights’. In so doing, the legal discourse exposed deeper concerns for justice, ethnicity and nationhood. The solution to the conflict, however, is shown to bear little relation to either the legal framework which structured the resistance or the legal principles which the confrontation sought to establish.
Expanding Women's Co‐operatives in China through Institutional Linkages
Authors: Chen Lanyan
Published: March 2003

This article examines the institutional linkages between three women workers' co‐operatives, the first women's credit co‐operative in China, and the co‐operative support organization, the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Co‐operatives (ICCIC). The study shows that Chinese women in rural areas have increasingly adopted co‐operatives as a form of organization in their efforts to address the problem of their lack of access to resources, including land, credit, jobs, training and information, and to participate in the mainstream economy as an organized force. This article demonstrates that stronger institutional linkages between local offices of the All‐China Women's Federation and the ICCIC encourage the growth of women's co‐operative activities. It raises two sets of policy issues that are central to the development of co‐operatives and women's banking: the continued growth of these activities will depend upon the government adopting legislation to define the legal framework governing co‐operative relations and management systems, and establishing gender‐inclusive policies to increase credit to women's income‐generating activities.
Unequal Knowledges in Jharkhand, India: De‐Romanticizing Women’s Agroecological Expertise
Authors: Jewitt Sarah
Published: March 2003

Taking the Jharkhand region of India as a case study, this article uses empirical data to intervene in ‘women, environment and development’ and ecofeminist debates regarding women’s environmental knowledge. The article first outlines the adoption of gender/environmental issues into development planning and considers the dangers of overestimating women’s agroecological knowledges and assuming that they can easily participate in development projects. It then highlights the local complexities of environmental knowledge possession and control with reference to gender and other variations in agricultural participation, decision‐making and knowledge transfers between villagers’ natal and marital places. Particular emphasis is placed on the economic, socio‐cultural and ‘actor’ related factors that supplement gender as an influence on task allocation, decision‐making, knowledge distribution and knowledge articulation. The article concludes that given the socio‐cultural constraints women face in accumulating and vocalizing environmental knowledge, simplistic participatory approaches are unlikely to empower them. Instead, more flexible, site‐specific development initiatives (coupled with wider structural change) are required if opportunities are to be created for women to develop and use their agroecological knowledges.
Precarious Democratization and Local Dynamics in Niger: Micro–Politics in Zinder
Authors: Lund Christian
Published: March 2003

Literature on the African state often finds it hard to specify what is state and what is not. The closer one gets to a particular political landscape, the more apparent it becomes that many institutions have something of a twilight character. This article argues that studies of local politics in Africa should focus on how the public authority of institutions waxes and wanes and how political competition among individuals and organizations expresses the notion of state and public authority. This is explored in the context of contemporary political struggles in Niger, played out in three different arenas in the region of Zinder around 1999, as home–town associations, chieftaincies and vigilante groups all take on the mantle of public authority in their dealings with what they consider to be their antithesis, the ‘State’.
Issues Regarding the Composition of Capital Flows
Authors: Williamson John
Published: March 2003

This article considers the composition of capital flows to developing countries. After developing a taxonomy of the alternative possible forms, it presents a brief summary of the main facts and stylised facts of relevance to the topic. It argues that accessing FDI, portfolio equity, or long‐term loans, as opposed to short‐term loans (e.g. from banks), is well worth the additional cost, because of advantages in terms of risk‐sharing, access to intellectual property, impact on investment, and lesser vulnerability to capital flow reversal. It proceeds to discuss the extent to which authorities control appropriate policy levers and concludes with a brief look at the composition of capital outflows from developing countries.
Operationalising Capital Account Liberalisation: The Indian Experience
Authors: Reddy Y. V.
Published: March 2003

Although influenced by particular contextual factors that may not be capable of being generalised, the Indian experience of capital account liberalisation tends to vindicate a process approach, with the emphasis on caution and gradualism. This article explains the policy framework that governed liberalisation in the 1990s, and describes the current framework of controls; various facets of the Indian approach to managing the capital account; and current thinking on appropriate further steps. To date, the accent has been on progressively replacing administrative controls with prudential limits on transactions, these norms being guided by the country's absorptive capacities and financing needs, and by the need to achieve a mix of short‐term and long‐term, debt and non‐debt, and stable and volatile flows.
The Rapid Rise of Supermarkets in Costa Rica: Impact on Horticultural Markets
Authors: Alvarado Irene , Charmel Kiupssy
Published: March 2003

The supermarket sector in Costa Rica used to be a small retail segment, financed primarily by domestic capital and consisting in the 1980s mainly of supermarket co–operatives in the capital city focused on the upper–income segment of the market. It is now a major segment, dominating half the retail sector, expanded to towns and poorer customers and composed mainly of private firms in joint ventures with foreign capital. Moreover, it has been drawn into the regional economy, with the formation of the giant chain of CSU, La Fragua and Royal Ahold, operating in five countries. This rapid development has affected various agrifood supply chains through innovations in procurement systems, as illustrated by fresh fruit and vegetables.
Design Contradictions in the ‘New Architecture of Aid’? Reflections from Uganda on the Roles of Civil Society Organisations
Authors: Lister Sarah , Nyamugasira Warren
Published: March 2003

This article considers how changing trends in patterns and modalities of aid are affecting the roles of civil society organisations. It draws on research carried out in Uganda in 2001 to argue that donors are adopting an oversimplified conception of the roles of CSOs. In particular, by separating ‘service delivery’ from ‘advocacy’ roles, donors fail to appreciate a situation in which organisations play several roles simultaneously, and the vital synergy that can be created between roles. Furthermore, there is a danger that the changes in funding modalities will force a new dependence on government which will restrict CSOs’ ability to carry out the very role that donors are trying to enhance — that of ‘holding government to account’.
A computational analysis of conservation
Authors: Shultz Thomas R.
Published: March 2003

An approach to modeling cognitive development with a generative connectionist algorithm is described and illustrated with a new model of conservation acquisition. Among the conservation phenomena captured with this model are acquisition, the problem size effect, the length bias effect, and the screening effect. The simulations suggest novel explanations for sudden jumps in conservation performance (based on new representations of conservation transformations) and for the problem size effect (based on an analog representation of number). The simulations support the correlation‐learning explanation of length bias (that length correlates with number during number altering transformations). Some conservation phenomena that so far elude computational modeling attempts are also discussed along with their prospects for capture. Suggestions are made for theorizing about cognitive development as well as about conservation acquisition. A variety of classic puzzles about cognitive development are addressed in the light of this model and similar models of other aspects of cognitive development.
The development of delayed response: Parallel distributed processing lacks neural plausibility
Authors: Dehaene Stanislas
Published: March 2003

Munakata's model of the A‐not‐B task provides an excellent fit to behavioral data from human infants. From a neuropsychological standpoint, however, its architecture is not very plausible. Dehaene and Changeux's (1989) neuronal model of delayed response tasks, while admittedly very simple, relies on identified features of brain architecture such as multiple hierarchical pathways, bistable clusters with sustained activity, and diffuse reward systems. Ways in which the insights provided by both models might be combined are discussed.
Adolescents’ and adults’ views about the evidential basis for beliefs: Relativism and determinism re‐examined
Authors: Robinson E.J. , Apperly I.
Published: March 2003

Descriptions of adolescents and adults as holding relativist rather than absolutist epistemic stances leave open the questions how (or whether) they think individuals’ beliefs are determined, and what range of beliefs they take to be subject to individual interpretation. In three investigations, 17 and 20 year‐olds and older adults gave their views about why people might interpret the same evidence differently, and how their disagreement might be resolved. When different interpretations were made by people likely to have different vested interests, most participants judged that further evidence would not be sufficient for them to reach agreement. In contrast, when different interpretations were made by scientists who might be presumed to share the aim of understanding some phenomenon, participants of all ages were more likely to see the collection of further evidence as the route to agreement. However the 17 year‐olds were significantly less likely to hold this view about disputes between scientists than were those in the older age groups. Adolescents’ relativism extends to beliefs which older people take to be quite highly determined by evidence.
The course of human events: predicting the timing of primate neural development
Authors: Clancy Barbara , Darlington Richard B. , Finlay Barbara L.
Published: March 2003

A recent model of the timing in which neural developmental events occur in a variety of mammals has shown high predictability of the order and duration of these events across species when appropriately computed. The model, originally derived to study the developmental mechanisms of evolutionary change in the nervous system, is adapted in this paper to predict the course of those events in the developing human, a sequence that has been difficult to determine using non‐invasive neuroanatomical techniques. Using a modified version of our original regression model, we generate predicted times of occurrence for a large number of developmental events in the human embryo and fetus, and include a chart of comparable events for macaque monkeys. We discuss a bidirectional variability in the original model which allowed us to identify limbic and cortical primate neural events that are significantly deviant from the general mammalian norm, but which also proved predictable following modification. We test the modified model against empirically derived values for neural events not included in the original model, as well as through comparisons with human developmental sequences inferred by other methods. In view of the remarkable stability in the course of development across species, knowledge of the timing of human neural events need not be entirely restricted to the limited existent embryonic and infant data. Although the primate neural development sequence is somewhat more complex than that for other mammals, primate data continue to support a theory of developmental conservation across evolution.
The distribution of infant attention during object examination
Authors: Lansink Jeffrey M. , Mintz Shoshana , Richards John E.
Published: March 2003

The distribution of attention during toy play was studied in 6‐, 9‐ and 12‐month‐old infants. Heart rate and behavior measures of attention were collected as the infants interacted with objects. There was a large deceleration of heart rate at the beginning of behaviorally defined focused attention, but little heart rate change for looks that only had behaviorally defined casual attention. Heart‐rate‐defined sustained attention occurred more frequently at the transition from the first instance of casual attention within a look to focused attention and during the cycling between subsequent epochs of casual and focused attention. These results show that heart rate and behavioral measures of attention are closely related in young infants at the beginning and end of object interaction but are inconsistently related within a single look at an object.
The role of facial orientation in newborn infants’ preference for attractive faces
Authors: Slater Alan , Quinn Paul C. , Hayes Rachel , Brown Elizabeth
Published: March 2003

Several previous experiments have found that newborn and young infants will spend more time looking at attractive faces when these are shown paired with faces judged by adults to be unattractive. Two experimental conditions are described whose aim was to find whether the ‘attractiveness effect’ is affected by the orientation of the facial stimuli. Pairs of attractive and less attractive faces (as judged by adults) were shown to newborn infants (mean age 2 days 20.5 hours), where each pair was presented both upright and inverted through 180°. In the former (upright) condition, but not the latter (inverted) condition, the infants looked longer at the attractive faces, and the difference in attractiveness preference between the conditions was statistically significant. These findings are clear evidence that infants’ early representation of faces contains information about faces that is orientation‐specific. The results are discussed in terms of innate facial representations and rapid learning about faces in the hours from birth.
Object representation and predictive action in infancy
Authors: Hofsten Claes von , Feng Qi , Spelke Elizabeth S.
Published: March 2003

Previous research has shown that 6‐month‐old infants extrapolate object motion on linear paths when they act predictively on fully visible moving objects but not when they observe partly occluded moving objects. The present research probed whether differences in the tasks presented to infants or in the visibility of the objects account for these findings, by investigating infants’ predictive head tracking of a visible object that moves behind a small occluder. Six‐month‐old infants were presented with an object that moved repeatedly on linear or nonlinear paths, with an occluder covering the place where all the paths intersected. The first time infants viewed an object’s motion, their head movements did not anticipate either linear or nonlinear motion, but they quickly learned to anticipate linear motion on successive trials. Infants also learned to anticipate nonlinear motion, but this learning was slower and less consistent. Learning in all cases concerned the trajectory of the object, not the specific locations at which the object appeared. These findings suggest that infants form object representations that are weakly biased toward inertial motion and that are influenced by learning. The findings accord with the thesis that a single system of representation underlies both predictive action and perception of object motion, and that occlusion reduces the precision of object representations.
Associations Between Infant Brain Activity and Recall Memory
Authors: Carver Leslie J. , Bauer Patricia J. , Nelson Charles A.
Published: March 2003

Long‐term explicit memory is thought to involve a complex neural circuit including the medial temporal lobe, the medial diencephalon, the prefrontal cortex, and association cortices. When this memory system and associated neural circuitry develops is of great interest to developmental psychologists and developmental cognitive neuroscience researchers. In the present report, we provide evidence of a relation between behavioral and neurophysiological measures of long‐term explicit memory in 9‐month‐old infants. These measures provide converging evidence of the development of long‐term explicit memory at least by the end of the first year of life.
Reasoning about collisions involving inert objects in 7.5‐month‐old infants
Authors: Kotovsky Laura , Baillargeon Renée
Published: March 2003

The present research asked whether 7.5‐month‐old infants realize that an object cannot displace another object without contacting it. The infants in Experiment 1 were assigned to a contact or a no‐contact condition. The infants in the no‐contact condition saw static familiarization displays in which a tall, thin barrier stood across the bottom of a ramp; a cylinder rested against the left side of the barrier and a wheeled toy bug against its right side. The infants in the contact condition saw similar displays except that a large portion of the barrier’s lower half was removed so that the cylinder rested directly against the bug. Next, a small screen was placed in front of the bottom of the ramp; only the upper portion of the barrier was visible above the screen. The infants in the two conditions watched the same test event. The cylinder was released and rolled to the bottom of the ramp, partly disappearing behind the screen’s left edge; next, the bug rolled down the track, as though launched by the cylinder. The infants in the no‐contact condition looked reliably longer at the test event than did those in the contact condition. This result suggested that the infants (a) viewed the bug as an inert object that could move only when acted upon; (b) believed that the cylinder could not act on the bug without contacting it; (c) realized that the cylinder could contact the bug when the half‐barrier but not the barrier was present; (d) remembered after the screen was raised whether contact was possible between the cylinder and bug; and (e) were surprised in the no‐contact condition when the bug was launched down the track. A second experiment confirmed the results of Experiment 1. Previous research comparing infants’ responses to no‐contact and contact events has typically made use of self‐moving rather than inert objects. These experiments have consistently found that infants do not look reliably longer at no‐contact than at contact events. In the General Discussion, we examine the contrast between these prior results and the present results and speculate on how infants’ expectations about inert and self‐moving objects may be best characterized.
Noticing and commenting on what’s new: differences and similarities among 22‐month‐old typically developing children, children with Down syndrome and children with autism
Authors: O’Neil Daniela K. , Happe´ Francesca G.E.
Published: March 2003

Twenty 22‐month‐old typically developing children (TD), 11 children with Down syndrome (DS) and 10 children with autism (A), all functioning at a one‐ or two‐word linguistic level, were given eight series of four toys to explore. In each series, the first three toys (i.e. Trials 1–3) were identical, but the fourth toy (i.e. Trial 4) differed on a property or in identity. The children sat beside their mother and the experimenter while exploring the toys. Of interest was whether (1) the TD children would show more exploratory and communicative behavior related to the toys on Trials 1 and 4 than 2 and 3, and (2) how the response patterns of nontypically developing children would compare. The DS group showed a pattern of responding similar to that of the TD group with respect to their attention and interest in the toys, although a much lower rate of communicating with their mother. In contrast, the A group differed significantly from both other groups with respect to both the toys they found of interest and the timing of their topic initiations. Implications for observing declarative communication among children with Down syndrome and children with autism are discussed.
Comorbidity between verbal and non‐verbal cognitive delays in 2‐year‐olds: a bivariate twin analysis
Authors: Purcell Shaun , Eley Thalia C. , Dale Philip S. , Oliver Bonamy , Petrill Steven A. , Price Thomas S. , Saudino Kimberly J. , Simonoff Emily , Stevenson Jim , Taylor Eric , Plomin Robert
Published: March 2003

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the genetic and environmental aetiology of the comorbidity between verbal delay and non‐verbal delay in infancy. For more than 3000 pairs of 2‐year‐old twins born in England and Wales in 1994, we assessed verbal (vocabulary, V) and non‐verbal (non‐verbal, P) performance. V delay probands were selected who were in the lowest 5% of V; P delay probands from the lowest 5% of P. We assessed the comorbidity of delay both categorically, using twin cross‐concordances, and dimensionally, by applying a bivariate extension of DeFries and Fulker (DF) group analysis. Both approaches are bidirectional, in that probands can be selected for either V delay (and analysed in relation to their co‐twin’s P score) or P delay (analysed in relation to their co‐twin’s V score). From a categorical perspective, twin cross‐concordances indicated that comorbidity between V delay and P delay is substantially due to genetic factors whether probands are selected for V delay or for P delay. MZ and DZ cross‐concordances were 24% and 8%, respectively, for probands selected for V delay and 27% and 6% for probands selected for P delay. From a dimensional perspective using bivariate DF analysis, selecting for V delay yielded high bivariate group heritability (0.59) and a genetic correlation of 1.0. In contrast, when selecting on P, DF analysis indicated lower bivariate group heritability (0.20) and only a modest genetic correlation with V assessed dimensionally (0.36). These results are discussed in terms of the difference between categorical and dimensional approaches to quantitative traits and the bidirectional nature of comorbidity. Such multivariate genetic results could lead to diagnostic systems that are based on causes rather than phenotypic descriptions of symptoms.
The effect of early visual deprivation on the development of face processing
Authors: Geldart Sybil , Mondloch Catherine J. , Maurer Daphne , De Schonen Scania , Brent Henry P.
Published: March 2003

We evaluated the importance of early visual input for the later development of expertise in face processing by studying 17 patients, aged 10 to 38 years, treated for bilateral congenital cataracts that deprived them of patterned visual input for the first 7 weeks or more after birth. We administered five computerized tasks that required matching faces on the basis of identity (with changed facial expression or head orientation), facial expression, gaze direction and lip reading. Compared to an age–matched control group, patients’ recognition of facial identity was impaired significantly when there was a change in head orientation (e.g. from frontal to tilted up), and tended to be impaired when there was a change in facial expression (e.g. from happy to surprised). Patients performed normally when matching facial expression and direction of gaze (e.g. looking left or right), and in reading lips (e.g. pronouncing ‘u’ or ‘a’). The results indicate that visual input during early infancy is necessary for the normal development of some aspects of face processing, and are consistent with theories postulating the importance of early visual experience (de Schonen & Mathivet, 1989; Johnson & Morton, 1991) and separate neural mediation of different components of face processing (Bruce & Young, 1986).
Developmental changes in source memory
Authors: Drummey Anna B. , Newcombe Nora S.
Published: March 2003

Remembering how one learned a fact can be important in itself (e.g. for considering the value of information). However, source memory is also important, along with the temporal and perceptual information on which it is based, in giving memory an episodic or autobiographical quality. The present study investigated developmental changes in children’s ability to monitor source, in a paradigm adapted from Schacter, Harbluk and McLachlan (1984). This task, unlike previous source monitoring tasks used with children, has the potential to show the existence of a serious kind of source error called source amnesia. Children of 4, 6 and 8 years participated. They also completed measures believed to assess prefrontal function. Children showed a steady improvement with age in their ability to remember facts, but showed abrupt improvement between 4 and 6 years in their ability to monitor the source of those facts. Most notably, 4–year–old children displayed a great deal of source amnesia (i.e. errors of the kind committed by populations with frontal dysfunction), but 6– and 8–year–old children showed very few such errors. In addition, source memory was related, in some analyses although not in others, to behavioral measures often used to assess prefrontal functioning. The timing of the transition in source monitoring ability is discussed, including implications for childhood amnesia.
From hand to mouth in the evolution of language: the influence of vocal behavior on lateralized hand use in manual gestures by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
Authors: Hopkins William D. , Cantero Monica
Published: March 2003

Studies in human subjects indicate that manual gestures accompanied by speech are produced more often by the right compared to the left hand. Additional studies indicate that the production of sign language is controlled by the same brain areas as speech, suggesting similar neurobiological substrates for language that are not modality specific. We report evidence that chimpanzees exhibit preferential use of the right hand in gestural communication. Moreover, use of the right hand in gestural communication is significantly enhanced when accompanied by a vocalization, particularly among human‐reared chimpanzees. Taken together, the data suggest that the lateralization of manual and speech systems of communication may date back as far as 5 million years ago.
Conferences
Authors: Sanderson David , Nathanail Lola
Published: March 2003

Second Caribbean Conference on Science, Hazards and Hazard Management; Kingston, Jamaica, 9‐12 October 1996

Mitigating the Millennium: Seminar on Community Participation and Impact Measurement in Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation Programmes; Overseas Development Institute, London, 9 October 1996
Can Hazard Risk be Communicated through a Virtual Experience?
Authors: Mitchell Jerry T.
Published: March 2003

Cyberspace, defined by William Gibson as a consensual hallucination, now refers to all computer‐generated interactive environments. Virtual reality, one of a class of interactive cyberspaces, allows us to create and interact directly with objects not available in the everyday world. Despite successes in the entertainment and aviation industries, this technology has been called a ‘solution in search of a problem’. The purpose of this commentary is to suggest such a problem: the inability to acquire experience with a hazard to motivate mitigation. Direct experience with a hazard has been demonstrated as a powerful incentive to adopt mitigation measures. While we lack the ability to summon hazard events at will in order to gain access to that experience, a virtual environment can provide an arena where potential victims are exposed to a hazard's effects. Immersion as an active participant within the hazard event through virtual reality may stimulate users to undertake mitigation steps that might otherwise remain undone. This paper details the possible direction in which virtual reality may be applied to hazards mitigation through a discussion of the technology, the role of hazard experience, the creation of a hazard simulation and the issues constraining implementation.