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PubMed1981

The association between mothers' social support and provision of stimulation to their children.

Specific forms of maternal social support were analyzed for their relationship to a validated measure of home stimulation (the Inventory of Home Stimulation). The 69 study families were chosen to represent a wide variability of social support at the time of the child's birth. All index children had been discharged from a neonatal intensive care unit 3 years before the study. The overall Maternal Social Support Index (MSSI) developed for the study explained a significant (p less tha 0.1) amount of variance in the home stimulation of 3-year-olds after income, race, maternal age, and other possible confounding variables had been controlled. In addition, specific MSSI items were strongly associated with various forms of environmental stimulation. The data suggest that augmentation of specific aspects of mothers' social support networks may increase their children's informal learning opportunities.

Child Development↗
PubMed1993

Proteases--structures, mechanism and inhibitors.

Proteases have been divided into four mechanistic classes: serine proteases, metalloproteases, aspartic proteases, and cysteine proteases. Once a new enzyme is classified by the use of general inhibitors, it is possible to design reactive inhibitors by using mechanistic information learned through study of other members of the same protease family. The most useful types of inhibitors for serine proteases are transition-state inhibitors including alpha-ketoesters and phosphonates, and mechanism-based inhibitors such as heterocyclic isocoumarin inhibitors. Some of these inhibitors are quite specific toward individual target serine proteases. Many proteases are involved in various disease states, and potent inhibitors of these enzymes have the potential to be developed as new therapeutic agents. In the future, it is likely than numberous specific protease inhibitors will be tested clinically for the treatment of human disease.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1997

Hyperbaric and hypobaric chamber fires: a 73-year analysis.

Fire can be catastrophic in the confined space of a hyperbaric chamber. From 1923 to 1996, 77 human fatalities occurred in 35 hyperbaric chamber fires, three human fatalities in a pressurized Apollo Command Module, and two human fatalities in three hypobaric chamber fires reported in Asia, Europe, and North America. Two fires occurred in diving bells, eight occurred in recompression (or decompression) chambers, and 25 occurred in clinical hyperbaric chambers. No fire fatalities were reported in the clinical hyperbaric chambers of North America. Chamber fires before 1980 were principally caused by electrical ignition. Since 1980, chamber fires have been primarily caused by prohibited sources of ignition that an occupant carried inside the chamber. Each fatal chamber fire has occurred in an enriched oxygen atmosphere (> 28% oxygen) and in the presence of abundant burnable material. Chambers pressurized with air (< 23.5% oxygen) had the only survivors. Information in this report was obtained from the literature and from the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society's Chamber Experience and Mishap Database. This epidemiologic review focuses on information learned from critical analyses of chamber fires and how it can be applied to safe operation of hypobaric and hyperbaric chambers.

Atmosphere Exposure Chambers↗
PubMed1997

The development of a model for geodesic learning: the geodesic information processing model.

The current article suggests that alternatives to the current traditional learning methods are essential if learning institutions are to provide people with effective life skills that enable them to be autonomous learners. This suggestion is based on a body of literature on alternative learning which stresses the need for fundamental change and hence, a paradigm shift in the perception of learning in order to cope with the world-wide information explosion. The alternative non-traditional approach proposed is geodesic learning which stresses learning how to learn and self-directed inquiry as essential life-skills which enable systems as well as the people in the systems to bring about their own transformation in response to changing situations and requirements. The current article discusses an alternative service delivery model, the geodesic information processing model, which falls within the realms of the geodesic philosophy. The implications of this alternative approach for the speech-language therapist are discussed.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Different kinds of information affect word learning in the preschool years: the case of part-term learning.

Two studies investigated how preschool children's interpretations of novel words as names for parts of objects were affected by 3 kinds of information: (a) whole object familiarity, (b) whole part juxtaposition, and (c) syntactic information indicating possession. Study 1 tested 3- to 4-year-olds and found that although there was evidence that all information affected children's part-term interpretations to some extent, they were most systematic when provided with 2 or more kinds of information. Study 2 adapted the procedure for use with 2.5-year-olds and found the same general pattern of results. Variations across studies were found that may reflect changes in how different kinds of information affect word learning with development.

Affect↗
PubMed2005

Lexical information drives perceptual learning of distorted speech: evidence from the comprehension of noise-vocoded sentences.

Speech comprehension is resistant to acoustic distortion in the input, reflecting listeners' ability to adjust perceptual processes to match the speech input. For noise-vocoded sentences, a manipulation that removes spectral detail from speech, listeners' reporting improved from near 0% to 70% correct over 30 sentences (Experiment 1). Learning was enhanced if listeners heard distorted sentences while they knew the identity of the undistorted target (Experiments 2 and 3). Learning was absent when listeners were trained with nonword sentences (Experiments 4 and 5), although the meaning of the training sentences did not affect learning (Experiment 5). Perceptual learning of noise-vocoded speech depends on higher level information, consistent with top-down, lexically driven learning. Similar processes may facilitate comprehension of speech in an unfamiliar accent or following cochlear implantation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Effects of manipulating relative and absolute motion information during observational learning of an aiming task.

In the visual perception perspective of observational learning, the manipulation of relative and absolute motion information in visual demonstrations optimally directs learners' search towards appropriate task solutions. We assessed the effect of emphasizing transformational information and removal of structural information using point-light kinematic displays in approximating the model's relative motion patterns. Participants viewed computer-simulated point-light demonstrations or normal video demonstrations before and intermittently throughout 100 acquisition trials with knowledge of results on an underarm modified-dart aiming task. On the next day, all participants performed 20 retention trials without demonstrations. The kinematics of spatial and temporal coordination and control variables were examined relative to the model's action, as well as performance scores. The results indicated that approximation of the model's spatial and temporal coordination and control patterns was achieved after observation of either type of demonstrations. No differences were found in movement outcomes. In a second experiment, the effects of manipulating absolute motion information by slow-motion demonstrations were examined relative to real-time demonstrations. Real-time demonstrations led to a closer approximation to the model's spatial and temporal coordination patterns and better outcome scores, contradicting predictions that slow-motion displays convey intact relative motion information. We speculate that the effect of visual demonstration speed on action perception and reproduction is a function of task constraints--that is, novelty or familiarity of relative motion of demonstrated activities.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Conceptual information permeates word learning in infancy.

Three experiments document that conceptual knowledge influences lexical acquisition in infancy. A novel target object was initially labeled with a novel word. In both yes-no (Experiment 1) and forced-choice (Experiment 2) tasks, 2-year-olds' subsequent extensions were mediated by the conceptual description of the targets. When targets were described as artifacts, infants extended on the basis of shape. When targets were described as animates, infants extended on the basis of both shape and texture. Experiment 3 revealed similar results for 1.5-year-olds. These results challenge the notion that expectations in word learning (e.g., the "shape bias") (a) emerge late and (b) rest entirely on correlations between perceptual object features and words. Instead, the results indicate that both perceptual and conceptual information permeate word learning in infancy.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed2004

Variational learning and bits-back coding: an information-theoretic view to Bayesian learning.

The bits-back coding first introduced by Wallace in 1990 and later by Hinton and van Camp in 1993 provides an interesting link between Bayesian learning and information-theoretic minimum-description-length (MDL) learning approaches. The bits-back coding allows interpreting the cost function used in the variational Bayesian method called ensemble learning as a code length in addition to the Bayesian view of misfit of the posterior approximation and a lower bound of model evidence. Combining these two viewpoints provides interesting insights to the learning process and the functions of different parts of the model. In this paper, the problem of variational Bayesian learning of hierarchical latent variable models is used to demonstrate the benefits of the two views. The code-length interpretation provides new views to many parts of the problem such as model comparison and pruning and helps explain many phenomena occurring in learning.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2004

Use of sequence information in associative learning in control subjects and cerebellar patients.

Previous studies of our group have shown that cerebellar patients are impaired in their ability to associate a color and a numeral or two colors with a button push. The aim of the present study was to examine whether control subjects make use of sequence information in visuomotor associative learning tasks and if this ability is impaired in cerebellar patients. A group of eight patients with degenerative cerebellar disease and eight age, sex and IQ matched controls were tested. Subjects had to learn the association between pairs of colored squares and a button push. Two colored squares were shown one after the other in a fixed or random order on a computer screen. Control subjects but not cerebellar patients took advantage of the fixed order information of colored squares in order to improve associative learning. Differences between groups could not be explained by differences in verbal and visuospatial short-term memory, color discrimination, affective state or motor disturbances. Results suggest that impaired sequencing of sensory stimuli may contribute to disorders in visuomotor associative learning in cerebellar patients.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Character of proprioceptive information processing during learning in rats chronically intoxicated with alcohol].

A conditioned alimentary reflex was elaborated in rats placed into K-shaped maze after 8 months of intoxication with 35 degrees alcohol. The most important changes in experimental animals, as compared to intact ones, were revealed in the character of processing of proprioceptive information coming to the brain during learning. It was found that in the animals temporal relations between the processes of analysis and synthesis and the fixation of memory trace changed. Unlike intact animals, in "alcoholic" ones the new proprioceptive information as related to the previous experience was fixed in the long-term memory and only afterwards underwent analytic and synthetic processing. It is suggested that learning was not in enlarging the information capacity of each singled-out motor unit of full decision, but in their combination into one and only one decision.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed1987

Hippocampal control of cingulate cortical and anterior thalamic information processing during learning in rabbits.

Past studies of the neural determinants of discriminative avoidance conditioning in rabbits have fostered a theoretical model that describes the interactive functioning of the cingulate cortex (Brodmann's Areas 24 and 29), the anterior ventral and medial dorsal thalamic nuclei (AVN and MDN) and the hippocampus. Here we test hypotheses of the model concerning the influence of the hippocampus on cortical and thalamic information processing. The rabbits learned to perform locomotory conditioned responses (CRs) in an activity wheel in response to an acoustic (pure tone) positive conditional stimulus (CS+). A shock unconditional stimulus (US) was given 5 s after CS+ onset, but locomotion during the CS+ - US interval prevented the US. The rabbits also learned to ignore a second tone (a negative conditional stimulus, CS-) of different auditory frequency than the CS+, that did not predict the US. Multi-unit activity and intracranial macropotentials were recorded in the cingulate cortex and the AVN during acquisition, overtraining, extinction, reacquisition and reversal training. Data were obtained in intact rabbits and in rabbits with bilateral lesions of the subicular complex, the origin of projections of the hippocampal formation to the cingulate cortex and AVN. In addition, the activity in the AVN was recorded in a separate group of rabbits with posterior cingulate cortical (Area 29) lesions. Subicular and Area 29 lesions were associated with an enhancement of the training-induced CS+ elicited neuronal response in the AVN. The frequency of CRs was enhanced in animals with subicular lesions. CS elicited unit responses in the cingulate cortices were attenuated in rabbits with subicular lesions. Both of the lesions were associated with significantly increased amplitudes of the CS elicited average cortical and thalamic macropotentials. These results suggested the following conclusions: subiculocortical afferents provide an enabling influence that is essential for CS elicited excitation in the cingulate cortex; the cingulate cortical excitatory response in intact animals exerts a limiting influence on the activity in the AVN; the enhanced AVN neuronal response in rabbits with lesions is due to the absence of the limiting influence and it contributes to the increased CR frequency in those animals. It is hypothesized that the hippocampus via subiculocortical projections, governs the flow of CR-inducing thalamocortical excitatory volleys. This governance determines the timing of CR output. The results of hippocampal processing of contextual information acting through the subiculocortical projection determines the moment most appropriate for the CR.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1998

Creating the practice-learning environment: using information technology to support a new model of continuing medical education.

Many of the traditional approaches to providing continuing medical education (CME) have failed to improve physician performance and health care outcomes. In the current health care environment, physicians are being held to unprecedented levels of accountability to patients, payers, and society at large. A greater emphasis is being placed on measuring and improving the clinical and fiscal outcomes of medical care. If they are to help physicians practice more effectively and efficiently, CME developers must reformulate the missions and goals of their programs. CME must become a means for improving patient outcomes through enhanced physician performance. The author describes how a new practice-learning model for CME might be implemented using currently available information technology. She also discusses how CME programs, with the help of information technology, can help physicians identify learning opportunities, find the best resources for learning, and apply learning to practice. She then briefly discusses three programs that have begun to utilize information technology to expand the scope of CME: the Maintenance of Competence Program in Canada, the Stanford Health Information Network for Education, and a computer-simulation program at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Competency-Based Education↗