Innovations in human genetics education. Medical student elective in clinical genetics.

The fourth-year medical student elective in clinical genetics has been enhanced by the addition of a problem-solving project. The assignment requires students to pose and answer a practical question about a professionally relevant genetic problem. Exemplary questions and the details of the exercise are given. Six of 10 students choosing an elective in clinical genetics have undertaken the project. Their feedback suggests that the requirements of decision making, library research, discussion with consultants, and medical writing in a limited time period are beneficial additions to the standard elective.     

Introducing student inquiry in large introductory genetics classes

An appreciation of genetic principles depends upon understanding the individual curiosity that sparked particular investigations, the creativity involved in imagining alternative outcomes and designing experiments to eliminate these outcomes, and the clarity of thought necessary to convince one's scientific peers of the validity of the conclusions. At large research universities, students usually begin their study of genetics in large lecture classes. It is widely assumed that the lecture format, coupled with the pressures to be certain that students become familiar with the principal conclusions of genetics investigations, constrains most if not all departures from the formats textbooks used to explain these conclusions. Here I present several examples of mechanisms to introduce meaningful student inquiry in an introductory genetics course and to evaluate student creative effort. Most of the examples involve altered student preparation prior to class and additional in-class activities, while a few depend upon a smaller recitation section, which accompanies the course from which the examples have been drawn. I conclude that large introductory classes are suitable venues to teach students how to identify scientific claims, determine the evidence that is essential to eliminate alternative conclusions, and convince their peers of the validity of their arguments.     

EEG in mathematical logical problem solving

The model of mathematical logic tasks was developed at which decision there was a value coherence in delta-range raised. In low-frequency ranges (delta, theta, and alpha) a coherence of potentials of frontal cortex were increased. In high-frequency ranges (beta1, beta2, gamma) in frontal cortex coherence was decreased, and its increasing in central, parietal, temporal, and occipital areas with prevalence in the left hemisphere. Most changes of quantity of positive connections observed in value diagonal coherence. Analysis of spectral power EEG has shown, that at the decision of tasks there is a generalised raising on a cortex in delta-range. Theta-activity increased in a frontal cortex, and gamma band was raised in occipital areas. A spectral power in an alpha range mainly decreased.     

Insightful problem solving in an Asian elephant

The "aha" moment or the sudden arrival of the solution to a problem is a common human experience. Spontaneous problem solving without evident trial and error behavior in humans and other animals has been referred to as insight. Surprisingly, elephants, thought to be highly intelligent, have failed to exhibit insightful problem solving in previous cognitive studies. We tested whether three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) would use sticks or other objects to obtain food items placed out-of-reach and overhead. Without prior trial and error behavior, a 7-year-old male Asian elephant showed spontaneous problem solving by moving a large plastic cube, on which he then stood, to acquire the food. In further testing he showed behavioral flexibility, using this technique to reach other items and retrieving the cube from various locations to use as a tool to acquire food. In the cube's absence, he generalized this tool utilization technique to other objects and, when given smaller objects, stacked them in an attempt to reach the food. The elephant's overall behavior was consistent with the definition of insightful problem solving. Previous failures to demonstrate this ability in elephants may have resulted not from a lack of cognitive ability but from the presentation of tasks requiring trunk-held sticks as potential tools, thereby interfering with the trunk's use as a sensory organ to locate the targeted food.     

农林院校《遗传学》与相关课程间教学内容的重复及解决途径

遗传学是农林院校的主干课程之一。通过对遗传学与相关课程教学内容的分析,它们之间存在着严重的重复现象,课程间的衔接也存在一些问题。文章探讨了教学内容重复和不完善衔接所导致的不良后果,提出了解决教学内容重复问题的途径及改善相关课程间衔接的建议,旨在缓解遗传学本科教学内容大幅度扩增与教学时数缩减的矛盾,并为今后有关课程的教材编写提供参考。     

Co-evolution and ecosystem based problem solving

Emergent cooperative relations in ecosystems are ill understood, but have the potential to strongly improve evolutionary computing. On the other hand, eco-evolutionary computation has the potential to provide new insights in the structuring and functioning of ecosystems. Here we study ecosystem based problem solving in a co-evolutionary framework of predators (solvers) and prey (problems), extended with a population of scavengers, which can eat the remains of prey (that is, cooperate with the predators in solving the problems). We show that such an artificial ecosystem of predators, prey and scavengers, with a selection and fitness regime favoring specialization, self-organizes in space and time such that (1) problems are automatically decomposed in easier to solve parts, (2) the predator, prey and scavenger populations differentiate in sub-populations according to this decomposition, and (3) predators and scavengers automatically co-localize in space such that the problems are indeed solved by predator–scavenger combinations which together correctly approximate the target function. That is, the use of a spatial co-evolutionary ecosystem as information processing unit for evolutionary computation gives rise to an emergent structure of niches, each consisting of complementary partial solutions. As a result, ecosystem based solutions are preferred over individual-based solutions in solving the studied function approximation task.     

Studying insight problem solving with neuroscientific methods

Insights are sporadic, unpredictable, short-lived moments of exceptional thinking where unwarranted assumptions need to be discarded before solutions to problems can be obtained. Insight requires a restructuring of the problem situation that is relatively rare and hard to elicit in the laboratory. One way of dealing with this problem is to catalyze such restructuring processes using solution hints. This allows one to obtain multiple insight events and their accurate onset times, which are required for event-related designs in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and Electroencephalogram (EEG), and to reliably record the activity associated with the restructuring component of insight. In this article, we discuss in detail the methodological challenges that brain research on insight poses and describe how we dealt with these challenges in our recent studies on insight problem solving.     

On problem solving with Hopfield neural networks

Hopfield and Tank have shown that neural networks can be used to solve certain computationally hard problems, in particular they studied the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Based on network simulation results they conclude that analog VLSI neural nets can be promising in solving these problems. Recently, Wilson and Pawley presented the results of their simulations which contradict the original results and cast doubts on the usefulness of neural nets. In this paper we give the results of our simulations that clarify some of the discrepancies. We also investigate the scaling of TSP solutions found by neural nets as the size of the problem increases. Further, we consider the neural net solution of the Clustering Problem, also a computationally hard problem, and discuss the types of problems that appear to be well suited for a neural net approach.     

Calcium homeostasis: solving the solubility problem

This report summarizes the evidence that the control of the concentration of free calcium ions in body fluids is centered at mineralized bone surfaces. This process involves an increase in the solubility of bone mineral produced by the non-collagenous proteins existing in the bone extracellular fluid (ECF) and on the adjacent surfaces of bone. The result is a basic equilibrium level produced in the absence of parathyroid hormone (PTH), which is well above the solubility of bone mineral. The effect of PTH is to increase the solubility of bone mineral still further, but the mechanism by which the hormone acts is unknown. The lining cells of the bone contain receptors for PTH and can be observed to respond to this hormone, but the relationship between this response and the increased solubility of bone remains to be discovered. Further research in this field is strongly urged.     

Innovative problem solving by wild spotted hyenas

Innovative animals are those able to solve novel problems or invent novel solutions to existing problems. Despite the important ecological and evolutionary consequences of innovation, we still know very little about the traits that vary among individuals within a species to make them more or less innovative. Here we examine innovative problem solving by spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) in their natural habitat, and demonstrate for the first time in a non-human animal that those individuals exhibiting a greater diversity of initial exploratory behaviours are more successful problem solvers. Additionally, as in earlier work, we found that neophobia was a critical inhibitor of problem-solving success. Interestingly, although juveniles and adults were equally successful in solving the problem, juveniles were significantly more diverse in their initial exploratory behaviours, more persistent and less neophobic than were adults. We found no significant effects of social rank or sex on success, the diversity of initial exploratory behaviours, behavioural persistence or neophobia. Our results suggest that the diversity of initial exploratory behaviours, akin to some measures of human creativity, is an important, but largely overlooked, determinant of problem-solving success in non-human animals.     

Stereoscopic vision: solving the correspondence problem

Neurons in early visual areas respond to horizontal disparity in images that do not give rise to stereopsis. False binocular matches, however, are discarded at the apex of the visual pathway: the activity of neurons in the primate inferior temporal cortex correlates directly with conscious depth perception.     

The study of interhemispheric asymmetry in spatial-perceptive problem solving

Features of brain interhemispheric asymmetry during solving the spatial figurative task (maze model) were studied in men and women with different intelligence quotients (IQ). It was shown that during task solving the rate of information processing was higher in the right brain hemisphere, and amplitude characteristics of the event-related potentials were higher in the left hemisphere. No gender and IQ differences in the character of interhemispheric interaction were found during the realization of the maze-model task. The results testify that the character of hemispheric interaction depends om the task rype rather than gender and intelligence level.     

Role of gravitation in solving a haptic comparison problem

The effect of haptic perception-reproduction task performed by means of a force feedback handle was studied under ground-based conditions and on board an orbital station. In contrast to visual perception, which exhibits a pronounced domination of vertically and horizontally oriented stimuli in such experiments, haptic perception did not display a dependence of responses on the tilt of the reference stimulus in the presence or absence of gravity. Thus, when solving a purely haptic problem, the CNS uses only proprioception, even in the presence of gravitation.     

Cooperative problem solving in rooks (Corvus frugilegus)

Recent work has shown that captive rooks, like chimpanzees and other primates, develop cooperative alliances with their conspecifics. Furthermore, the pressures hypothesized to have favoured social intelligence in primates also apply to corvids. We tested cooperative problem-solving in rooks to compare their performance and cognition with primates. Without training, eight rooks quickly solved a problem in which two individuals had to pull both ends of a string simultaneously in order to pull in a food platform. Similar to chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys, performance was better when within-dyad tolerance levels were higher. In contrast to chimpanzees, rooks did not delay acting on the apparatus while their partner gained access to the test room. Furthermore, given a choice between an apparatus that could be operated individually over one that required the action of two individuals, four out of six individuals showed no preference. These results may indicate that cooperation in chimpanzees is underpinned by more complex cognitive processes than that in rooks. Such a difference may arise from the fact that while both chimpanzees and rooks form cooperative alliances, chimpanzees, but not rooks, live in a variable social network made up of competitive and cooperative relationships.