bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Neural Correlates of Semantic Competition during Processing of Ambiguous Words
Authors: Bilenko Natalia Y. , Grindrod Christopher M. , Myers Emily B. , Blumstein Sheila E. 
Published: August 2008

Abstract
The current study investigated the neural correlates that underlie the processing of ambiguous words and the potential effects of semantic competition on that processing. Participants performed speeded lexical decisions on semantically related and unrelated prime–target pairs presented in the auditory modality. The primes were either ambiguous words (e.g., ball) or unambiguous words (e.g., athlete), and targets were either semantically related to the dominant (i.e., most frequent) meaning of the ambiguous prime word (e.g., soccer) or to the subordinate (i.e., less frequent) meaning (e.g., dance). Results showed increased activation in the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) for ambiguous-related compared to unambiguous-related stimulus pairs, demonstrating that prefrontal areas are activated even in an implicit task where participants are not required to explicitly analyze the semantic content of the stimuli and to make an overt selection of a particular meaning based on this analysis. Additionally, increased activation was found in the left IFG and the left cingulate gyrus for subordinate meaning compared to dominant meaning conditions, suggesting that additional resources are recruited in order to resolve increased competition demands in accessing the subordinate meaning of an ambiguous word.
Losing your Head: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Effects of Body Inversion
Authors: Minnebusch Denise A. , Suchan Boris , Daum Irene 
Published: August 2008

Abstract
The present study aimed to further explore the mechanisms underlying the perception of human body shapes. Behavioral and electrophysiological inversion effects were studied for human bodies with and without heads and for animal bodies (cats, dogs, and birds). Recognition of human bodies (with heads) was adversely affected by stimulus inversion, and the N170 had longer latencies and higher amplitudes for inverted compared to upright human bodies. Human body shapes presented without heads yielded the opposite result pattern. The data for animal bodies did not yield consistent effects. Taken together, the present findings suggest that human bodies might be processed by specialized cortical mechanisms which are at least partly dissociable from mechanisms involved in object or face processing.
Event-related Potential Evidence that Automatic Recollection Can Be Voluntarily Avoided
Authors: Bergström Zara M. , de Fockert Jan , Richardson-Klavehn Alan 
Published: August 2008

Abstract
Voluntary control processes can be recruited to facilitate recollection in situations where a retrieval cue fails to automatically bring to mind a desired episodic memory. We investigated whether voluntary control processes can also stop recollection of unwanted memories that would otherwise have been automatically recollected. Participants were trained on cue–associate word-pairs, then repeatedly presented with the cue and asked to either recollect or avoid recollecting the associate, while having the event-related potential (ERP) correlate of conscious recollection measured. Halfway through the phase, some cues switched instructions so that participants had to start avoiding recall of associates they had previously repeatedly recalled, and vice versa. ERPs during recollection avoidance showed a significantly reduced positivity in the correlate of conscious recollection, and switching instructions reversed the ERP effect even for items that had been previously repeatedly recalled, suggesting that voluntary control processes can override highly practiced, automatic recollection. Avoiding recollection of particularly prepotent memories was associated with an additional, earlier ERP negativity that was separable from the later voluntary modulation of conscious recollection. The findings have implications for theories of memory retrieval by highlighting the involvement of voluntary attentional processes in controlling conscious recollection.
Hearing Faces: How the Infant Brain Matches the Face It Sees with the Speech It Hears
Authors: Bristow Davina , Dehaene-Lambertz Ghislaine , Mattout Jeremie , Soares Catherine , Gliga Teodora , Baillet Sylvain , Mangin Jean-François 
Published: August 2008

AbstractSpeech is not a purely auditory signal. From around 2 months of age, infants are able to correctly match the vowel they hear with the appropriate articulating face. However, there is no behavioral evidence of integrated audiovisual perception until 4 months of age, at the earliest, when an illusory percept can be created by the fusion of the auditory stimulus and of the facial cues (McGurk effect). To understand how infants initially match the articulatory movements they see with the sounds they hear, we recorded high-density ERPs in response to auditory vowels that followed a congruent or incongruent silently articulating face in 10-week-old infants. In a first experiment, we determined that auditory–visual integration occurs during the early stages of perception as in adults. The mismatch response was similar in timing and in topography whether the preceding vowels were presented visually or aurally. In the second experiment, we studied audiovisual integration in the linguistic (vowel perception) and nonlinguistic (gender perception) domain. We observed a mismatch response for both types of change at similar latencies. Their topographies were significantly different demonstrating that cross-modal integration of these features is computed in parallel by two different networks. Indeed, brain source modeling revealed that phoneme and gender computations were lateralized toward the left and toward the right hemisphere, respectively, suggesting that each hemisphere possesses an early processing bias. We also observed repetition suppression in temporal regions and repetition enhancement in frontal regions. These results underscore how complex and structured is the human cortical organization which sustains communication from the first weeks of life on.
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to the Primary Motor Cortex Interferes with Motor Learning by Observing
Authors: Brown Liana E. , Wilson Elizabeth T. , Gribble Paul L. 
Published: August 2008

AbstractNeural representations of novel motor skills can be acquired through visual observation. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to test the idea that this “motor learning by observing” is based on engagement of neural processes for learning in the primary motor cortex (M1). Human subjects who observed another person learning to reach in a novel force environment imposed by a robot arm performed better when later tested in the same environment than subjects who observed movements in a different environment. rTMS applied to M1 after observation reduced the beneficial effect of observing congruent forces, and eliminated the detrimental effect of observing incongruent forces. Stimulation of a control site in the frontal cortex had no effect on reaching. Our findings represent the first direct evidence that neural representations of motor skills in M1, a cortical region whose role has been firmly established for active motor learning, also underlie motor learning by observing.
Temporo-parietal Junction Activity in Theory-of-Mind Tasks: Falseness, Beliefs, or Attention
Authors: Aichhorn Markus , Perner Josef , Weiss Benjamin , Kronbichler Martin , Staffen Wolfgang , Ladurner Gunther 
Published: August 2008

Abstract
By combining the false belief (FB) and photo (PH) vignettes to identify theory-of-mind areas with the false sign (FS) vignettes, we re-establish the functional asymmetry between the left and right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). The right TPJ (TPJ-R) is specially sensitive to processing belief information, whereas the left TPJ (TPJ-L) is equally responsible for FBs as well as FSs. Measuring BOLD at two time points in each vignette, at the time the FB-inducing information (or lack of information) is presented and at the time the test question is processed, made clear that the FB is processed spontaneously as soon as the relevant information is presented and not on demand for answering the question in contrast to extant behavioral data. Finally, a fourth, true belief vignette (TB) required teleological reasoning, that is, prediction of a rational action without any doubts being raised about the adequacy of the actor's information about reality. Activation by this vignette supported claims that the TPJ-R is activated by TBs as well as FBs.
Remembered but Unused: The Accessory Items in Working Memory that Do Not Guide Attention
Authors: Peters Judith C. , Goebel Rainer , Roelfsema Pieter R. 
Published: August 2008

AbstractIf we search for an item, a representation of this item in our working memory guides attention to matching items in the visual scene. We can hold multiple items in working memory. Do all these items guide attention in parallel? We asked participants to detect a target object in a stream of objects while they maintained a second item in memory for a subsequent task. On some trials, we presented this memory item as a distractor in the stream. Subjects did not confuse these memory items with the search target, as the false alarm rate on trials where the memory item was presented in the stream was comparable to that on trials with only regular distractors. However, a comparable performance does not exclude that the memory items are processed differently from normal distractors. We therefore recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by search targets, memory items, and regular distractors. As expected, ERPs evoked by search targets differed from those evoked by distractors. Search targets elicited an occipital selection negativity and a frontal selection positivity indexing selective attention, whereas the P3b component, which reflects the matching of sensory events to memory representations, was enhanced for targets compared to distractors. Remarkably, the ERPs evoked by memory items were indistinguishable from the ERPs evoked by normal distractors. This implies that the search target has a special status in working memory that is not shared by the other items. These other, “accessory” items do not guide attention and are excluded from the matching process.
Concurrent Cloud-to-Ground Lightning and Precipitation Enhancement in the Atlanta, Georgia (United States), Urban Region
Authors: Rose L. S. , Stallins J. A. , Bentley M. L. 
Published: August 2008

AbstractThis study explores how the Atlanta, Georgia (United States), urban region influences warm-season (May through September) cloud-to-ground lightning flashes and precipitation. Eight years (1995–2003) of flashes from the National Lightning Detection Network and mean accumulated precipitation from the North American Regional Reanalysis model were mapped under seven different wind speed and direction combinations derived from cluster analysis. Overlays of these data affirmed a consistent coupling of lightning and precipitation enhancement around Atlanta. Maxima in precipitation and lightning shifted in response to changes in wind direction. Differences in the patterns of flash metrics (flash counts versus thunderstorm counts), the absence of any strong urban signal in the flashes of individual thunderstorms, and the scales over which flashes and precipitation enhancement developed are discussed in light of their support for land-cover- and aerosol-based mechanisms of urban weather modification. This study verifies Atlanta’s propensity to conjointly enhance cloud-to-ground lightning and precipitation production in the absence of strong synoptic forcing. However, because of variability in aerosol characteristics and the dynamics of land use change, it may be a simplification to assume that this observed enhancement will be persistent across all scales of analysis.
A Case Study of an Outbreak of Twin Tropical Cyclones
Authors: Schreck Carl J. , Molinari John 
Published: August 2008

Abstract
Previous studies have found that twin tropical cyclogenesis typically occurs 2–3 times a year in the Pacific Ocean. During October 1997, however, three sets of twin tropical cyclones developed in the central Pacific within a single month. Tropical cyclone archives indicate that this is the only such outbreak from 1969 to 2006. This case study explores the background and synoptic conditions that led to this unique event. All three twin tropical cyclogenesis events occurred within a broad and long-lasting envelope of warm water, low surface pressure, active convection, and weak or easterly vertical shear. Westerly winds at the equator and trade easterlies farther poleward created strips of cyclonic vorticity through a deep layer. A low-pass filter showed that these favorable conditions shifted eastward with time at 1–2 m s−1. In addition to the gradual eastward movement, the equatorial westerlies and convection were modulated by higher-frequency westward propagation. These anomalies appear to have been associated with convectively coupled n = 1 equatorial Rossby waves. The twin tropical cyclones formed only when the sum of the two modes produced equatorial westerlies in excess of 5 m s−1 and brightness temperature below 270 K. Applications of these results are proposed for the operational prediction of twin tropical cyclogenesis.
On High Winds and Foehn Warming Associated with Mountain-Wave Events in the Western Foothills of the Southern Appalachian Mountains
Authors: Gaffin David M. 
Published: August 2008

Abstract
Extremely high winds of 40–49 m s−1 [90–110 miles per hour (mph)] were reported across the western foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains on 22–23 December 2004, 17 October 2006, 24–25 February 2007, and 1 March 2007. The high winds in all four of these events were determined to be the result of mountain waves, as strong southeast winds became perpendicular to the mountains with a stable boundary layer present below 750 hPa and a veering wind profile that increased with height. Adiabatic warming of the descending southeasterly winds was also observed at the Knoxville airport during all four events (although of varying intensities), with the 850-hPa air mass immediately upwind of the Smoky Mountains determined to be the source region of these foehn winds. An interesting similarity among these four events was the location of the strongest 850-hPa winds northwest of the region, with a rapidly decreasing speed gradient observed over the mountains. These 850-hPa winds northwest of the mountains were also stronger than the 700-hPa winds in the region. It was hypothesized that strong low-level divergence developed in the foothills, as the stronger 850-hPa winds on the western side accelerated away from the mountains while the mountains prevented a rapid return flow from the eastern side. This low-level divergence likely helped to further strengthen the mountain-wave-induced mesolow and high winds in the western foothills.
A 12-yr climatology of high wind events induced by mountain waves at Cove Mountain was also constructed. This climatology revealed that these events occurred primarily at night between November and March. Composite maps of mountain-wave events that produced warning-level and advisory-level winds revealed that an axis of stronger 850-hPa winds was typically located west of the mountains (away from the foothills). This finding (using reanalysis data instead of model data) further suggested that low-level divergence normally contributed to the intensity of mountain-wave-induced mesolows and winds in the western foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains.
Aging Characterization of Adhesives and Bonded Joints by Non-Destructive Damping Measurements
Authors: Shiloh K. , Eliahu A. , Rosenberg A. , Zilber R. , Buchman A. , Ungarish M. 
Published: August 2008

Long term performance of adhesive joints in various environments is the main concern of bonding technology in both military and civil applications. Joint strength can be greatly degraded by aging. Periodic non-destructive strength evaluation of bonded devices is, thus, a critical necessity for quality assurance. Developing a tool for non-destructive testing of joint strength in bonded devices is the long-term goal of the present study. The method revealed here is application of vibration analysis, concentrating on the damping behavior of the tested object. Contrary to other non-destructive evaluation methods, which indicate only the presence of defects, this method is sensitive mainly to the material properties, thus can assess material degradation. In this case, the property of interest is the strength. In stage 1 of this research (Shiloh et al., 1996) it was shown that aging of adhesives and bonded joints can be evaluated non-destructively by vibration analysis, based on the internal friction (damping) effect. Good correlation between the specific damping capacity (SDC) and the shear strength of bonded joints was determined. In stage 2 (Shiloh et al., 1998), an additional step towards the target application was achieved, by broadening the range of the tested specimen. Additional adhesives and adherends as well as various geometries and sizes of the bonded joints were tested. The effect of the following factors was established: adhesive aging or shear strength, adherends, temperature, sample size [up to diameter of 356 mm (14")] and sample shapes (flats and rings). The results show that the method is most promising. For more reliable wide-ranging guidelines, theoretical analysis by numerical simulation of vibrational stresses is required.
The HOPE Study and MICRO-HOPE Substudy
Authors: Patel Vinod , Panja Srinivas , Venkataraman Asok 
Published: August 2008

Background ACE inhibitors have a special role in diabetes care. They have been proven to reduce urinary albumin excretion and reduce the rate of progression of diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy. 1-3 There is proven benefit post myocardial infarction, with a greater beneficial effect in patients with diabetes in comparison to those without. 4 The effect of ACE inhibitors in patients who have low ejection fractions or overt cardiac failure is well described.5 More recent studies indicate other benefits of ACE inhibitors such as improving dyslipidaemia and insulin sensitivity. Cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of mortality among patients with type 2 diabetes. A recent study reports the standardised mortality ratio to be considerably higher in people with diabetes with the vast majority of the excess due to cardiovascular disease (type 1 diabetes: women x 6.41, men x 2.94, type 2 diabetes: women x 1.6, men x 1.41).6 Patients with type 2 diabetes who have no evidence of previous coronary heart disease were found to be at the same risk of myocardial infarction and cardiovascular death as non-diabetic patients who had already suffered from a myocardial infarction.7 The diabetes subject cohort of the HOPE Study, (Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation Study), sought to investigate whether ACE inhibitor treatment with ramipril in high-risk patients with diabetes lowers the risk of cardiovascular events.8 Within this main study the MICRO-HOPE substudy investigated the effect of ACE inhibitor treatment with ramipril on microalbuminuria and diabetic retinopathy. 9 The aim of this article is to offer a clinical summary of the above studies and suggest recommendations for clinical practice.
Retinal perfusion pressure and pulse pressure: clinical parameters predicting progression to sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy
Authors: Patel Vinod , Sailesh Sankaranarayanan , Panja Srinivas , Kohner Eva 
Published: August 2008

Background and aims his paper investigates the roles of retinal perfusion pressure and pulse pressure in progression to sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy. Retinal perfusion pressure is dependent upon the systemic blood pressure and the intra-ocular pressure. We have examined the hypothesis that the early deleterious effect of hypertension on the retinal circulation which leads to perfusion pressure damage is due to a unique relationship between the intra-ocular pressure and the systemic blood pressure. Clinically this is manifest as hypertensive retinopathy and diabetic retinopathy. Materials and methods From a prospective database, data on all new patients with background diabetic retinopathy referred during a three year period (n=104) were analysed for progression to sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy. Results Retinal perfusion pressure and pulse pressure were found to be the strongest predictors of progression to sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy (Chi Square linear trend statistic, relative risk ratios). Progression to maculopathy by quartilesFor retinal perfusion pressure, the relative risk ratios increased from 1.00 in the first quartile (39.7—50.1 mmHg), to x 5.8 in the second quartile (50.2—56.1 mmHg), to x 6.4 in the third quartile (56.2—60.0 mmHg), to x 9.1 in the fourth quartile (60.1—75.3 mmHg) (p=0.012). For pulse pressure the values were x 1.00, x 4.0, x 4.5, x 6.0 respectively (p=0.021). For systolic pressure the values were x 1.00, x 3.4, x 5.5, x 5.5 respectively (p=0.026). Diastolic pressure was not significant. Progression to proliferative retinopathy by quartilesFor retinal perfusion pressure, the relative risk ratios increased from 1.00 in the first quartile to x 2.9 in the second quartile, x 4.2 in the third quartile to x 4.1 in the fourth quartile (p=0.002). For pulse pressure the values were x 1.00, x 1.7, x 3.8, x 5.5 respectively (p=0.002). For systolic pressure the values were x 1.00, x 0.5, x 2.9, x 3.8 respectively (p=0.008). Diastolic pressure was not significant. Conclusion Retinal perfusion pressure and the pulse pressure are important predictors of progression to sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy.
Effect of losartan on insulin sensitivity and serum lipids in hypertensive type 2 diabetic patients
Authors: Mulcahy Michael P , Ahmed Kahlid , Luzio Stephen , Owens David R , Lazarus John H 
Published: August 2008

Background Insulin resistance and hypertension are common co-existing conditions. Antihypertensive agents have differing effects on insulin sensitivity (SI). We studied 11 mildly hypertensive insulin-resistant type 2 diabetic patients to observe any changes in SI, glucose effectiveness (SG), serum total cholesterol, serum triglycerides and blood pressure (BP) with the introduction of the angiotensin II inhibitor, losartan. Methods To assess SI and SG, we used the frequently sampled, intravenous glucose tolerance test with minimal model analysis prior to and after three months treatment with losartan potassium 50—100 mg daily. BP was assessed using a Space Labs 24-hour BP recording device before, during and after treatment with losartan. Results There were no significant differences in SI and SG pre-and post-treatment, however, there was a non-significant reduction in mean BP, total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations. Conclusion There were no adverse effects of losartan on SI or SG. The lower but non-significant serum total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations warrant further study.