The Structure of the Individual Mental Lexicon from the Standpoint of L. S. Vygotsky's Ideas

Research on the structure of an individual's mental lexicon has shown that, among the set of concepts belonging to a single semantic field, there is typically one particular concept that stands out. The processes of storage, identification, and retrieval of this concept are faster and more successful than they are for the others. For example, in the vertical hierarchy of the concept fruit—apple—antonovka [McIntosh to give a familiar U. S. example—Trans.], apple plays this type of lead role and also occupies the most prominent position in the horizontal series apple—pear—plum—cherries—orange. Concepts with such characteristics are referred to as basic, source, or primary concepts. What is the reason for their special status?     

Ecological effects of larval trematode infestation on littoral marine invertebrate populations

Evidence is presented that, contrary to common scientific “belief”, larva digeneans have profound effects on various components at various levels of the littoral marine ecosystem. Their ecological capacity includes: —Reduction of the breeding potential of host populations by “parasitic castration”; —Structural modification of host populations by generation of erratic growth patterns, size-class differential mortality and “negative growth”; —Induction of host-population mortality and control by increased susceptibility to environmental stress; —Induction of changes in community structure by removal of hosts from their normal trophic levels; —Interference with major energy-flow pathways by precocious removal of hosts from their normal food-web position; —Interference with host-biomass, production and turnover-rate estimations by by-passing of hostassimilated energy; —Interference with predator-prey systems by affecting either component(s) of such systems.The notorious neglect of these factors by marine ecologists and, even more, their total unawareness of the effects these factors produce, raise serious doubts about the validity of marine ecological data and concepts. For the parasitologist, on the other hand, the study of ecological aspects of marine parasite (digenean) biology may open new avenues of research. With a true synthesis of both scientific disciplines, we may eventually arrive at a point where “more complete knowledge of life cycles will permit more intelligent and more effective regulatory methods, the reduction of morbidity, the advancement of health, and the conservation of natural resources.”The latter statement has not been cited from a recent issue of a scientific journal; it has been written down as long as 46 (!) years ago by one of the most outstanding investigators of marine digenean life cycles—Horace W. Stunkard (1940, p 15), but has lost nothing of its actuality. It is hoped that Stunkard's far-sighted words might encourage parasitologists to devote some of their scientific power and skill to the study of marine ecoparasitological problems—for the sake of a better understanding of ecological processes and to the benefit of the endangered marine life.     

Trying to understand axonal regeneration in the CNS of fish

In contrast to the situation in mammals and birds, neurons in the central nervous system (CNS) of fish—such as the retinal ganglion cells—are capable of regenerating their axons and restoring vision. Special properties of the glial cells and the neurons of the fish visual pathway appear to contribute to the success of axonal regeneration. The fish oligodendrocytes lack the axon growth inhibiting molecules that interfere with axonal extension in mammals. Instead, fish optic nerve oligodendrocytes support—at least in vitro—axonal elongation of fish as well as that of rat retinal axons. Moreover, the fish retinal ganglion cells re-express upon injury a set of growth associated cell surface molecules and equip the regenerating axons throughout their path and up into their target, the tectum opticum with these molecules. This may indicate that the injured fish ganglion cells reactivate the cellular machinery necessary for axonal regrowth and pathfinding. Furthermore, the target itself provides positional marker molecules even in adult fish. These marker molecules are required to guide the regenerating axons back to their retinotopic home territory within the tectum. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

BesitztAnemia Sori? Untersuchungen über die Entwicklung des Sporophylls vonAnemia phyllitidis (Schizaeaceae)

Observations of young fertile leaf primordia provide information about the development of the sporophyll ofAnemia phyllitidis Sw. The marginal meristem which surrounds the leaf primordium forms the pinna primordia, firstly the two “spore pinnae” by meristem fractionation. These are turned with their adaxial side towards the leaf apex and continue marginal meristem fractionations until products of the 5th order are formed.—In the sporophyll development two events are significant: (1) The fractionation products of the 2nd order reverse their direction of coiling. (2) From the marginal meristem of the fractionation products of the 5th order the sporangia arise in acropetal succession each originating from one initial cell.—Three observations—the fractionation products of the 2nd order being accessory outgrowths of the leaf margin, their reversed coiling direction, and the aggregation of the sporangia on the last segments—lead to the following concept of a sorus type: Each fractionation product of the 2nd order represents a marginal acropetal sorus with a branched receptaculum.     

Hormonal Aspects of Senescence in Detached Tobacco Leaves

The objective of the present work was to describe the simultaneous changes in endogenous levels of cytokinins, abscisic acid, indoleacetic acid and ethylene in detached, senescing tobacco (Nicotiana rustica L.) leaves. These measurements were related to changes in chlorophyll contents, ¹⁴CO₂ fixation and proline contents — three parameters which have been considered to reflect senescence. Effects of exogenous hormonal treatments on these parameters, as well as on endogenous hormonal levels, provided further evidence for the interrelationships between hormones and for their roles in senescence. Starting with actively growing attached leaves and ending with well-advanced senescence in detached leaves, our data indicate a chronological sequence of three hormonal states: (a) cytokinins — high activity, abscisic acid, auxin and ethylene — low contents (actively growing, attached leaves); (b) cytokinins — low activity, abscisic acid — high, auxin and ethylene — low contents (apparent induction of senescence in detached leaves); and (c) cytokinins and abscisic acid — low, auxin and ethylene — high contents (senescence proper in detached leaves).     

Song characteristics and morphological traits in four populations of the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus L.

We investigated four populations of the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus with respect to differences in morphological traits and characteristics of their communication signals. A special focus was laid on possible correlations between morphological and song traits of males that could be used by females to infer quality cues of potential mates. We also tested whether females exhibit preferences for males of their own population. Specific song features (onset accentuation, offset, syllable period) of males—but not of females—differed between populations. We observed size differences both in males and females from different populations, but the size ranks of the two sexes were not always correlated. Environmental factors appear to have a strong influence on different size traits, compared to genetic origin. In all populations a specific song feature, the accentuation of syllable onsets, showed a similar correlation with a morphological trait, hind leg size, but its correlation with other size indicators sometimes differed in sign. Females did not prefer songs of males from their own population. The best predictor for song attractiveness was—unexpectedly—not the onset accentuation but the offset depth.     

A case for resurrecting lost species—review essay of Beth Shapiro’s, “How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-extinction”

The title of Beth Shapiro’s ‘How to Clone a Mammoth’ contains an implicature: it suggests that it is indeed possible to clone a mammoth, to bring extinct species back from the dead. But in fact Shapiro both denies this is possible, and denies there would be good reason to do it even if it were possible. The de-extinct ‘mammoths’ she speaks of are merely ecological proxies for mammoths—elephants re-engineered for cold-tolerance by the addition to their genomes of a few mammoth genes. Shapiro’s denial that genuine species de-extinction is possible is based on her assumption that resurrected organisms would need to be perfectly indistinguishable from the creatures that died out. In this article I use the example of an extinct New Zealand wattlebird, the huia, to argue—contra Shapiro—that there are compelling reasons to resurrect certain species if it can be done. I then argue—again, contra Shapiro—that synthetically created organisms needn’t be perfectly indistinguishable from their genetic forebears in order for species de-extinction to be successful.     

Ontogeny of the cricket Phaeophilacris bredoides Kaltenbach (Orthoptera, Gryllidae)

Development of Phaeophilacris bredoides Kalt. was studied under stable laboratory conditions: temperature of 26°C, air humidity 60%, and 12L: 12D photoperiod (Knyazev, 1985). The life cycle of Ph. bredoides includes four stages: egg, pronymph, nymph, and adult. The duration of embryonic development is 28 days. The nymphal ontogeny lasts 230 days and consists of 25 instars. The duration of nymphal instars (days) is: 1st—16, 2nd—6, 3rd—8, 4th—10, 5th—10, 6th—15, 7th—10, 8th—8, 9th—9, 10th—11, 11th—11, 12th—8, 13th—9, 14th—10, 15th—7, 16th—9, 17th—7, 18th—7, 19th—7, 20th—10, 21st—11, 22nd—7, 23rd—9, 24th—6, and 25th—9. The duration of adult life is 126 days in males and 125 days in females. Three periods were distinguished in the imaginal ontogeny of males and females: pre-reproductive, reproductive, and post-reproductive. The pre-reproductive period begins with the molt to the adult and ends with the onset of reproductive behavior in males and with the first copulation in females. Its duration is 4 (3–6) days in males and 5 (2–7) days in females. The reproductive period in males starts with the onset of reproductive behavior on the 4th (3rd–6th) day and lasts 119 (98–135) days. In females it begins when they start responding to males’ courtship behavior and lasts 116 (97–133) days. The female reproductive period includes two alternating phases: copulation and egg-laying. The egg-laying phase is initiated by successful copulation. The post-reproductive period in females starts when oviposition ceases and in males, when their reproductive behavior disappears. This period lasts about 3 (2–3) days in males and 4 (2–7) days in females, until the insect dies.     

Rhabdomyolysis and acute myoglobinuric renal failure following heroin use.

Four life-threatening dermatoses—Stevens-Johnson syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, Kaposi''s varicelliform eruption and purpura fulminans—are unique in their abrupt onset and rapid progress to death, but prompt diagnosis and proper therapy can often cure the condition or prevent undesirable sequelae. Since two of the four conditions can follow the use of a variety of drugs and all may be secondary to an infectious agent, any physician may encounter them in practice and should be aware of their seriousness.     

Are dogs able to recognize their handler's voice? A preliminary study

Abstract

A number of studies have dealt with the ability of dogs to rely on olfactory cues to recognize their owner or handler. However, in the absence of these cues (e.g., when working at a distance from their owner) dogs have to use other senses to interact with their owner. Considering the high sensitivity of their auditory system, we can hypothesize that dogs are able to use vocal cues for this purpose. Certainly, it is commonly assumed that dogs can discriminate between people on the basis of their voice, and yet there is a clear lack of empirical data on this subject. The present study assesses the importance of the handler's olfactory and visual cues versus the importance of his/her vocal cues to the working behavior of dogs. I compare the ability of working dogs to obey different vocal commands issued either by their handler (HV) or by a stranger (SV) via loudspeakers in different olfactory contexts: presence of their handler (H) or of a stranger (S). The dogs' performance (percentage of correct responses) decreased when the acoustic cues were modified (H+HV tended to differ from the H+SV—p = 0.09—and differed from the S+SV conditions—p = 0.05) but not when only the olfactory cues were changed (no difference between H+HV and S+HV conditions—p > 0.1). Consequently, we can assume that dogs rely, at least in part, on acoustic parameters of voices to recognize and cooperate with their handler.     

A reversal of the shift towards earlier spring phenology in several Mediterranean reptiles and amphibians during the 1998–2013 warming slowdown

Herps, especially amphibians, are particularly susceptible to climate change, as temperature tightly controls many parameters of their biological cycle—above all, their phenology. The timing of herps’ activity or migration period—in particular the dates of their first appearance in spring and first breeding—and the shift to earlier dates in response to warming since the last quarter of the 20^th century has often been described up to now as a nearly monotonic trend towards earlier phenological events. In this study, we used citizen science data opportunistically collected on reptiles and amphibians in the northern Mediterranean basin over a period of 32 years to explore temporal variations in herp phenology. For 17 common species, we measured shifts in the date of the species’ first spring appearance—which may be the result of current changes in climate—and regressed the first appearance date against temperatures and precipitations. Our results confirmed the expected overall trend towards earlier first spring appearances from 1983 to 1997, and show that the first appearance date of both reptiles and amphibians fits well with the temperature in late winter. However, the trend towards earlier dates was stopped or even reversed in most species between 1998 and 2013. We interpret this reversal as a response to cooling related to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) in the late winter and early spring. During the positive NAO episodes, for certain species only (mainly amphibians), the effect of a warm weather, which tends to advance the phenology, seems to be counterbalanced by the adverse effects of the relative dryness.     

Care Wounds: Precarious Vulnerability and the Potential of Exposure

What does it mean to offer care when the act of caring is wounding to its giver? For peer specialists—individuals with lived experience as patients in the psychiatric system—this question shapes how they use their own histories to provide support for individuals experiencing psychiatric crisis. Peer support is unique in the way it draws on empathetic resonance and depends on carefully deployed vulnerability; where one connects with others through the recognition of shared experience and mutual hurt. For peers, care works when this guidance, reassurance, and "being with"—all of which draw upon their own stories of traumatic history and variegated suffering—mitigate the present crisis being experienced by another. Drawing on twenty-eight months of fieldwork with a peer-staffed crisis respite center in the eastern United States, I argue that the peer specialist becomes the embodiment of a novel intersection of intimacy and compensation; one that poses vulnerability not as a consequence, casualty, or risk factor in the commodification of care, but as its principle vector of resonance and the assumption on which it is based. For peers, care that works—in that it creates a mutual resonance for the recipient—becomes simultaneously care that wounds its giver.     

Host plants alter their volatiles to help a solitary egg parasitoid distinguish habitats with parasitized hosts from those without

When attacked by herbivores, plants emit volatiles to attract parasitoids and predators of herbivores. However, our understanding of the effect of plant volatiles on the subsequent behaviour of conspecific parasitoids when herbivores on plants are parasitized is limited. In this study, rice plants were infested with gravid females of the brown planthopper (BPH) Nilaparvata lugens for 24 hr followed by another 24 hr in which the BPH eggs on plants were permitted to be parasitized by their egg parasitoid, Anagrus nilaparvatae; volatiles from rice plants that underwent such treatment were less attractive to subsequent conspecific parasitoids compared to the volatiles from plants infested with gravid BPH females alone. Chemical analysis revealed that levels of JA and JA-Ile as well as of four volatile compounds—linalool, MeSA, α-zingiberene and an unknown compound—from plants infested with BPH and parasitized by wasps were significantly higher than levels of these compounds from BPH-infested plants. Laboratory and field bioassays revealed that one of the four increased chemicals—α-zingiberene—reduced the plant's attractiveness to the parasitoid. These results suggest that host plants can fine-tune their volatiles to help egg parasitoids distinguish host habitats with parasitized hosts from those without.     

Hair diameter distribution in sheep interspecies hybrids

Hair diameter distribution was studied in wild sheep species (argali—Ovis ammon, mouflon—O. Musimon; domestic sheep—O. aries) and their hybrids. In wild species and their hybrids, rather distinctly separated subpopulations of thin (underwool) hairs (10–22 μm diameter) and thick (kemp) hairs (85–302 μm) were detected, and intermediate diameters were rare. In domestic sheep, the kemp subpopulation was very poor, not distinctly separated from the underwool, while maximal hair diameter was <150 μm. In wild × domestic crosses, the kemp subpopulation was clearly expressed, shifted to lower diameter range, and maximal diameters was <200 μm. The same restriction was found in two-month-old wild species lambs compared with adults.     

The agrochemical effectiveness of some phosphorus-nitrogen compounds with the direct P−N bond

Phosphorus-nitrogen compounds characterized by the direct P?N bond, represented by trimeric and tetrameric phosphorus nitridoamide—[PN(NH₂)₂]_3–4, phosphorus oxytriamide—PO(NH₂)₃ and ammonium diamidophosphate—NH₄PO₂(NH₂)₂, were applied as fertilizers in a vessel experiment with barley and their agrochemical effectiveness was compared with that of ammonium phosphate—(NH₄)₂HPO₄. The results obtained indicate that the above compounds are of nutritive value for plants.     

Accès à des sulfures d'alkyle et de furannyle à partir de dithio-acétals de pentoses

Sodium iodide—zinc in N,N-dimethylformamide at 150° converted 2,5-anhydro-3,4-di-O-p-tolylsulfonyl-D-xylose diisobutyl dithioacetal into a mixture of three substituted furans, namely 2-[(isobutylthio)methyl]furan (2), and its 3-isobutylthio- (3), and 4-isobutylthio- (5) derivatives. The relative proportions of 2, 3, and 5, determined by g.l.c.—mass spectrometry, varied according to the relative proportions of reactants employed. A similar type of transposition—elimination is also encountered in the absence of sodium iodide. Compound 3 is also produced from D-xylose disobutyl dithioacetal by extended treatment with 2-methylpropanethiol—hydrochloric acid. The furan derivatives 3 and 5 were characterized mainly by n.m.r.—spectral studies on their Diels—Alder adducts with maleic anhydride, and the mechanism of their formation is discussed. 2,5-Anhydro-3,4-di-O-p-tolylsulfonyl-D-xylose ethylene dithioacetal (13), its ribo epimer (15), and its L-arabino diisobutyl dithioacetal analog (20) all reacted with sodium iodide—zinc in N,N-dimethylformamide exclusively by an E2 type of elimination with formation of the anticipated 3-alkenes, namely 2,5-anhydro-3,4-dideoxy-D-glycero-pent-3-enose ethylene dithioacetal (14) and its diisobutyl dithioacetal analog.     

Purification of Debranching Enzyme from Mature Rice Seeds

Two indole alkaloids which induce the Epstein-Barr virus early antigen of Raji cells (B lymphocyte) were found in the cultured broth of Actinomycetes NA34-17, from which teleocidin B was also obtained. The active compounds isolated were identified from their spectral data and chemical evidence as (—)-indolactam V and (—)-14-O-acetyl indolactam V.     

Resource scheduling methods in cloud and fog computing environments: a systematic literature review

In recent years, cloud computing can be considered an emerging technology that can share resources with users. Because cloud computing is on-demand, efficient use of resources such as memory, processors, bandwidth, etc., is a big challenge. Despite the advantages of cloud computing, sometimes it is not a proper choice due to its delay in responding appropriately to existing requests, which led to the need for another technology called fog computing. Fog computing reduces traffic and time lags by expanding cloud services to the network and closer to users. It can schedule resources with higher efficiency and utilize them to impact the user's experience dramatically. This paper aims to survey some studies that have been done in the field of scheduling in fog/cloud computing environments. The focus of this survey is on published studies between 2015 and 2021 in journals or conferences. We selected 71 studies in a systematic literature review (SLR) from four major scientific databases based on their relation to our paper. We classified these studies into five categories based on their traced parameters and their focus area. This classification comprises 1—performance 2—energy efficiency, 3—resource utilization, 4—performance and energy efficiency, and 5—performance and resource utilization simultaneously. 42.3% of the studies focused on performance, 9.9% on energy efficiency, 7.0% on resource utilization, 21.1% on both performance and energy efficiency, and 19.7% on both performance and resource utilization. Finally, we present challenges and open issues in the resource scheduling methods in fog/cloud computing environments.

     

Endogene Hyphen bei Botrytis cinerea Pers.

Endohyphae in Botrytis cinerea Pers. Genesis, following differentiation and significance for pathogenesis The formation of endohyphae (secondary hyphae) in different cell types of Botrytis cinerea Pers. (6 isolates) is described. The following differentiation possibilities of these endohyphae within and—after egress—outside their cells of origin are presented. The influence of external factors (substrate, temperature, humidity, O₂-concentration) on these processes is considered. The significance of the endohyphae for pathogenesis is mainly due to their direct infectivity as well as the ability to develop normal mycelium.