Potential Effect of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bacopa monnieri</Emphasis> on Nitrobenzene Induced Liver Damage in Rats

The study was designed to evaluate the hepatoprotective activity of ethanolic extract of Bacopa monnieri in acute experimental liver injury induced by Nitrobenzene in rats. The extract at the dose of 200 mg/kg body weight was administered orally once every day for 10 days. The increased serum marker enzymes, Aspartate transaminase, Alanine transaminase and alkaline phosphatase were restored towards normalization significantly by the extract. Significant increase in SOD, CAT and GPx was observed in extract treated liver injured experimental rats. Histopathological examination of the liver tissues supported the hepatoprotection. It is concluded that the ethanolic extract of Bacopa monieri plant possess good hepatoprotective activity.     

Charge transport in conducting polyaniline co-doped with sulfosalicylic acid and dodecylbenzoyl sulfonic acid

We prepared conducting polyaniline （PAn） co-doped with sulfosalicylic acid （SSA） and dodecylbenzoyl sultonic acid （DBSA） in micro-emulsive polymerization, and studied its charge transport behaviors based on the measurement of its electrical conductivity in the temperature range between 203 K and 298 K. The conductivity was found to increase with temperature, similar to the case in semiconductors. Analyzing the experimental data with three models, namely the charge-energy-limitedtunneling model, Kivelson model and the three-dimensional variable range hopping （3D-VRH） model demonstrated that these models all describe well the charge transport behaviors of PAn co-doped with SSA and DBSA within the mentioned temperature range. From calculation with the 3D-VRH model, the hopping distance of the conducting PAn is obviously larger than its localization length. The PAn doped with SSA and DBSA enjoys desirable crystallinity due to the co-doping of two functional sulfonic acids. The macroscopic conductivity may correspond to three-dimensional transport in the network of the bundles, and the metallic islands may be attributed to quasi-one-dimensional bundles.     

Reconstruction from contour lines based on bi-cubic Bézier spline surface

INTRODUCTION In many research and application areas such as medical science, biomedical engineering, and CAD/ CAM, an object is often known by a sequence of 2D cross-sections. With improvements in data acquisi- tion and imaging techniques such as computed to- mography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ultrasound imaging, the cross-sectional images of the object of interest can be obtained with ease. The object in every 2D cross-section can be represented by the contour line…     

Death anxiety among nursing home residents: a comparison of the young-old and the old-old

The purpose of this research was (a) to determine whether there is a comparative difference in the level of conscious death anxiety between young-old and the old-old nursing home residents and (b) to assess the predictive value of educational attainment, gender, subjective health, functional ability, social support, and length of stay on the conscious death anxiety of the persons in the two age groups. A discriminant analysis of 228 residents from three nursing homes revealed that among the 103 young-old subjects poor subjective health, poor functional ability, poor social support, and extended stays in the facilities were indicative of high death anxiety. Among the 125 old-old subjects, high death anxiety was associated with poor subjective health, poor functional ability, and higher educational attainment. Further, it was found that age was an important variable. A significantly greater proportion of the older residents compared to the younger residents had higher conscious death anxiety. The results may direct practitioners and planners in program development for the elderly nursing home patient.     

Learning words through overhearing

Recent research indicates that toddlers can monitor others' conversations, raising the possibility that they can acquire vocabulary in this way. Three studies examined 2-year-olds' (N = 88) ability to learn novel words when overhearing these words used by others. Children aged 2,6 were equally good at learning novel words-both object labels and action verbs-when they were overhearers as when they were directly addressed. For younger 2-year-olds (2,1), this was true for object labels, but the results were less clear for verbs. The findings demonstrate that 2-year-olds can acquire novel words from overheard speech, and highlight the active role played by toddlers in vocabulary acquisition.     

Infants parse dynamic action

As observers of human behavior, infants are faced with a complex flow of motion in which pauses are rare and only occasionally coincide with boundaries between intentional actions. Two studies investigated whether, despite such complexity, 10- to 11-month-old infants (N = 16 for each study) possess skills for parsing ongoing behavior along boundaries correlated with the initiation and completion of intentions. After being familiarized with digitized sequences of continuous everyday action, infants showed renewed interest in test versions in which motion paused in the midst of an actor's pursuit of intentions (interrupting test videos). In contrast, pauses that suspended motion at intention boundary points (completing test videos) sparked no such renewed interest on infants' part. Moreover, basic salience differences between the two types of test videos were not the source of infants' increased interest when intentions were interrupted (Study 2). These findings demonstrate that infants readily detect disruptions of the structure inherent in intentional action, and hence parse ongoing behavior with respect to such structure. Such parsing skill is likely a prerequisite to the development of genuine intentional understanding.     

Relationally and physically aggressive children's intent attributions and feelings of distress for relational and instrumental peer provocations

Numerous studies have demonstrated that physically aggressive children exhibit hostile attributional biases in response to instrumental peer provocations, a social information-processing pattern that has been recognized as a contributor to peer-directed aggression. The present studies (N = 127 and N = 535) were designed to extend past research by evaluating the intent attributions and feelings of emotional distress of relationally and physically aggressive children in response to instrumental and relational provocation contexts. Results indicated that physically aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for instrumental provocation situations, whereas relationally aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for relational provocation contexts. Implications of these findings for the understanding of factors that may contribute to relational as well as physical aggression are discussed.     

Ultrasound and cadaveric prosections as methods for teaching cardiac anatomy: a comparative study

This study compared the efficacy of two cardiac anatomy teaching modalities, ultrasound imaging and cadaveric prosections, for learning cardiac gross anatomy. One hundred and eight first-year medical students participated. Two weeks prior to the teaching intervention, students completed a pretest to assess their prior knowledge and to ensure that groups were equally randomized. Students, divided into pre-existing teaching groups, were assigned to one of two conditions; "cadaver" or "ultrasound." Those in the cadaver group received teaching on the heart using prosections, whereas the ultrasound group received teaching using live ultrasound images of the heart. Immediately after teaching, students sat a post-test. Both teaching modalities increased students' test scores by similar amounts but no significant difference was found between the two conditions, suggesting that both prosections and ultrasound are equally effective methods for teaching gross anatomy of the heart. Our data support the inclusion of either cadaveric teaching or living anatomy using ultrasound within the undergraduate anatomy curriculum, and further work is needed to compare the additive effect of the two modalities.     

Beyond semantic accuracy: preschoolers evaluate a speaker's reasons

Children's sensitivity to the quality of epistemic reasons and their selective trust in the more reasonable of 2 informants was investigated in 2 experiments. Three-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (N = 90) were presented with speakers who stated different kinds of evidence for what they believed. Experiment 1 showed that children of all age groups appropriately judged looking, reliable testimony, and inference as better reasons for belief than pretense, guessing, and desiring. Experiment 2 showed that 3- and 4-year-old children preferred to seek and accept new information from a speaker who was previously judged to use the "best" way of thinking. The findings demonstrate that children distinguish certain good from bad reasons and prefer to learn from those who showcased good reasoning in the past.     

Enhanced handling and positioning in early infancy advances development throughout the first year

Behaviors emerge, in part, from the interplay of infant abilities and caregiver–infant interactions. Cross‐cultural and developmental studies suggest caregiver handling and positioning influence infant development. In this prospective, longitudinal study, the effects of 3 weeks of enhanced handling and positioning experiences provided to 14 infants versus control experiences provided to 14 infants at 2 months of age were assessed with follow‐up through 15 months of age. Behaviors in prone were immediately advanced. Short‐term advancements occurred in multiple behaviors, including prone, head control, reaching, and sitting behaviors. Longer term advancements, up to 12 months after the experience period, occurred in object transfer, crawling and walking behaviors. This suggests broad and long‐lasting changes can arise via brief periods of change in caregiver–infant interactions.