Search results for " adaptation."
showing 10 items of 461 documents
The value of accessibility in the culturalandcreative industries Translation-driven settings
2020
The accessibility of Cultural Creative Industries(CCI) has grown exponentially in different parts of the globe and has increasingly become part of projects of significant importance in contemporary societies that rely on informational, global, and networked systems of communication, i.e., developed countries. CCI exist within public-domain areas and are stimulated by the critical rethinking of the means which can be used to support cultural development. CCI are in fact driven by structures of the knowledge-based economy, where information, originality, and creativity contribute to providing stimuli to their rise. Their emergence is the result of advances in cultural spheres and movements, a…
Birds facing climate change: a qualitative model for the adaptive potential of migratory behaviour
2015
Recent climate change is altering the migratory behaviour of many bird species. An advancement in the timing of spring events and a shift in the geographical distribution have been detected for birds around the world. In particular, intra-Palearctic migratory birds have advanced arrivals in spring and shortened migratory distances by shifting northward their wintering grounds. These changes in migratory patterns are considered adaptive responses facilitating the adjustment of the life cycle to the phenological changes found in their breeding areas. However, in some cases, populations exposed to the same selective pressures do not show any appreciable adaptive change in their behaviour. Basi…
Combining tDCS with prismatic adaptation for non-invasive neuromodulation of the motor cortex
2017
Abstract Background Prismatic adaptation (PA) shifts visual field laterally and induces lateralized deviations of spatial attention. Recently, it has been suggested that prismatic goggles are also able to modulate brain excitability, with cognitive after-effects documented even in tasks not necessarily spatial in nature. Objective The aim of the present study was to test whether neuromodulatory effects obtained from tDCS and prismatic goggles could interact and induce homeostatic changes in corticospinal excitability. Methods Thirty-four subjects were submitted to single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the right primary motor cortex to measure Input-Output (IO) curve as a…
Evidence for Human Adaptation and Foodborne Transmission of Livestock-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus
2016
We investigated the evolution and epidemiology of a novel livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain, which colonizes and infects urban-dwelling Danes even without a Danish animal reservoir. Genetic evidence suggests both poultry and human adaptation, with poultry meat implicated as a probable source.
Size invariance in visual number discrimination
1991
This study deals with the observer's ability to discriminate the numerosity of two random dot-patterns irrespective of their relative size. One of these two patterns was a reference one that was always composed of 32 dots randomly distributed within a K x K invisible square window (K = 1.92 degrees). The second one was the test pattern with one of the five magnifications (K = 0.64 degrees, 1.28 degrees, 1.92 degrees, 2.56 degrees, 3.20 degrees) and the relative number of dots varied on 11 levels (N = -15, -12, -9, -6, -3, 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15 dots). The observer's task was to indicate which of the two patterns contained more dots. The results show that the stimulus size, as an irrelevant s…
Left insular cortex and left SFG underlie prismatic adaptation effects on time perception: Evidence from fMRI
2014
Prismatic adaptation (PA) has been shown to affect left-to-right spatial representations of temporal durations. A leftward aftereffect usually distorts time representation toward an underestimation, while rightward aftereffect usually results in an overestimation of temporal durations. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural mechanisms that underlie PA effects on time perception. Additionally, we investigated whether the effect of PA on time is transient or stable and, in the case of stability, which cortical areas are responsible of its maintenance. Functional brain images were acquired while participants (n = 17) performed a time reproduction task an…
Resilience Patterns
2015
Resilience, or the capacity to be able to develop oneself successfully despite adverse circumstances, has become a concept of interest in recent years. There is a clear relationship between resilience, psychological well-being, and coping strategies. This study looked at 890 subjects with a mean age of 46.77 ( SD = 20.86) years, ranging from 18 and 95 years old. The participants were 40.6% men and 59.4% women. Using this sample, three clusters were developed by MATLAB R2010a and the Self-Organizing Maps toolbox. Two of these had high resilience, and the other one had low resilience; the psychological well-being variables and coping strategies were taken into account. Thereafter, multivaria…
Prismatic Adaptation as a Novel Tool to Directionally Modulate Motor Cortex Excitability: Evidence From Paired-pulse TMS
2014
Abstract Background The prismatic adaptation (PA) is a visuo-motor procedure that has captured the attention of neuroscientists in the last decades, hence it seems to affect high-order cognition. However, the basic neural processes related to PA and its effects on cortical plasticity are not clear yet. Objective/hypothesis The aim of the present study is to explore whether PA induces a direct effect on the motor cortices (M1) excitability. Methods Fourteen healthy participants were submitted to paired-pulse TMS to measure short-intracortical-inhibition (SICI) and intracortical-facilitation (ICF) on both the left and the right M1, before and after PA, that could induce a leftward or rightwar…
Do affective episodes modulate moral judgment in individuals with bipolar disorder?
2018
Abstract Background Bipolar disorder (BD) patients experience altered emotional states and deficits in social adaptation that may also be involved in deontological moral judgments in which participants have to choose whether to sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of a greater number. Methods In the present study we compared the utilitarian responses of BD patients in their different states (euthymia, mania, depression) and healthy controls to moral dilemmas with low (impersonal dilemma) and high (personal dilemma) emotional saliency. Results Our findings revealed an increased tendency to utilitarian judgments in the three groups of BD patients in impersonal dilemmas relative to …
Numbers and time doubly dissociate
2011
The magnitude dimensions of number, time and space have been suggested to share some common magnitude processing, which may imply symmetric interaction among dimensions. Here we challenge these suggestions by presenting a double dissociation between two neuropsychological patients with left (JT) and right (CB) parietal lesions and selective impairment of number and time processing respectively. Both patients showed an influence of task-irrelevant number stimuli on time but not space processing. In JT otherwise preserved time processing was severely impaired in the mere presence of task-irrelevant numbers, which themselves could not be processed accurately. In CB, impaired temporal estimatio…