Sex and discipline differences in empathising, systemising and autistic symptomatology : evidence from a student population

Baron-Cohenʹs (2002) theory of autism suggests that deficits in theory of mind and weak central coherence in autism can be explained as features of an ‘extreme male brain’ in which empathising is weak and systemising is strong. The two studies presented investigate this theory by examining the relationships between theory of mind, central coherence, empathising, systemising and autistic-like symptomatology in a sample of undergraduates. Study 1 used 48 undergraduates in four equal groups of male and female science and humanities students. Consistent with the theory, there were sex differences in the expected directions on all tasks in the first study. Differences according to discipline were found only on the Block Design task. Individuals with the ‘male brain’ profile also tended to show higher levels of autistic symptomatology. There was no evidence of a link between empathising and social skills on one hand and systemising and central coherence on the other. In the second study, performance on the Mechanical Reasoning and the Social Skills Inventory tasks was compared with performance on the Baron‐Cohen Empathising and Systemising Quotients in a sub‐sample of 20 students from Study 1. Moderately significant correlations were found between the Systemising Quotient and the Mechanical Reasoning task and between the Empathising Quotient and the Social Skills Inventory. Findings are largely consistent with the distinction between empathising and systemising but raise some questions concerning the tasks used to measure these abilities

Towards a query language for annotation graphs

The multidimensional, heterogeneous, and temporal nature of speech databases raises interesting challenges for representation and query. Recently, annotation graphs have been proposed as a general-purpose representational framework for speech databases. Typical queries on annotation graphs require path expressions similar to those used in semistructured query languages. However, the underlying model is rather different from the customary graph models for semistructured data: the graph is acyclic and unrooted, and both temporal and inclusion relationships are important. We develop a query language and describe optimization techniques for an underlying relational representation.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Simulation of undular bores evolution with damping

Propagation of undular bores with damping is considered in the framework of perturbed extended Korteweg-de Vries (peKdV) equation. Two types of damping terms for the peKdV equation, namely linear and Chezy frictional terms, which describe the turbulent boundary layers in the fluid flow are considered. Solving the peKdV equation numerically using the method of lines shows that under the influence of damping, the lead-ing solitary wave of the undular bores will split from the nonlinear wavetrain, propagates and behaves like an isolated solitary wave. The amplitude of the leading wave will remain the same for some times before it starts to decay again at a larger time. In general the amplitude of the leading wave and the mean level across the undular bore decreases due to the effect of damping

Isolation and Characterisation of Thionin Genes in Rice (Oryza Sativa)

Thionins are cysteine rich, basic and toxic proteins that are assumed to be involved in the defense against pathogens. Two partial cDNA clones encoding for putative thionin in rice were isolated from endosperm (Rth-l) and shoots (Rth-2). The nucleotide sequences encoding for thionin precursor were further identified from the amplification of the 3' -end of the cDNA. The amino acid sequence for JRth-l isolated from endosperm showed 72% homology to barley leaf thionins DB4 (Bohlmann and Apel, 1987), 68% to pKG1940 (Gausing, 1987), 51% to hordothionin Hth-1 (Rodriguez-Palenzuela et 01., 1988), 50% to purothionin Pur-AI (Ohtani et 01., 1977), 33% to crambin Thi2Ca1 (Teeter et 01., 1981) and viscotoxin Vis A3 (Samuelsson et 01., 1974). The homologies for JRth-2 at the amino acid level were 83% to barley leaf thionins DB4 (Bohlmann and Apel, 1987), 71% to pKG1940 (Gausing, 1987), 46% to the hordothionin Hth-l (Rodriguez-Palenzuela et 01., 1988) and purothionin Pur-AI (Ohtani et 01., 1977), 41% to crambin Thi2CaI (Teeter et 01., 1981) and 33% to the viscotoxin Vis A3 (Samuelsson et 01., 1974). Like other thionin precursors, the putative rice thionin has an N-terminal domain characteristic of a signal peptide and an acidic C-terminal extension. In the expression studies, rice thionins mRNA were found to accumulate abundantly in endosperm and shoots only with a transcript size of around 600-700 bp. In both of these tissues, the expression of the thionin genes was strongly repressed by the exposure to light. Southern analysis showed that the rice thionin seemed to be coded by 1-2 genes

Planning for Development using Social Impact

Economic development activities change the physical and social environments in which individuals live. For planners, it is important to anticipate the types of changes that might occur, and to put measures in place that mitigate negative impacts and promote positive impacts on people and communities. Social Impact Assessment (SIA) was introduced as a tool for understanding the social impacts of development. There are three factors, however, that limit the use of SIA in developing countries. First, the original SIA tool was designed in a developed country, and as such the list of indicators developed may not suitable for local conditions. Second, there is no specific theoretical underpinning of the SIA tool, and thus no link between the SIA tool and particular theories of social behaviour. Third, there is no particular link between what SIA measures, and what should be done to mitigate the effects of development activities. The purpose of this paper is to address these three issues and in doing so, provide a SIA tool that can be applied usefully and practically in a developing country. The theoretical basis of SIA used in the paper is Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The tool, which was developed using ANT, principles consists of five stages of analysis: identification of principal actors (human and non-human) and the changes due to development; exploration of the ownership of resources (capital) that enables principle actors to change; identification of change agents attached to the capital of principal actors; tracing which interests of actors are aligned to deal with the development; and an analysis of the social change platform (mobilization of actors) based on connections of all principal actors with other actors. Each of these stages provides the basis for determining what should be assessed in SIA, how to structure the assessment, and how to interpret the results of a SIA.Social Impact Assessment (SIA), Actor-Network Theory (ANT), development impact, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Public Economics,

Development of an Rt Nested PCR-Elisa Diagnostic Test for the Detection of Newcastle Disease Virus

Newcastle disease virus causes an economically important poultry disease known as Newcastle disease in Malaysia. The velogenic strain of this virus causes 1 00% mortality in infected chicken. Therefore, a rapid and sensitive diagnostic method is necessary for the detection of the virus. In this study a sensitive one tube reverse transcription nested PCR was developed by using two nested pairs of primer which were designed from the consensus fusion gene sequences. The outer primer sequences are 5'-T ACACCTCATCCCAGACAGGGTC-3' (FOP1) and 5'- AGGCAGGGGAAGTGATTTGTGGC-3' (FOP2). The inner primer pair with the sequence of 5'-T ACTTTGCTCACCCCCCTT-3' (FIP1) and 5'-CATCTTCCCAACTGCCACT-3' (FIP2) were labeled with biotin and digoxigenin at their 5' ends respectively. The PCR condition for the outer primers is 90°C/30 s, 67°C/30 s and 72°C/30 s for 20 cycles in which a 532 bp PCR product was generated. While for the inner primers, the PCR condition used is 90°C/30 s, 55°C/30 s and 72°C/15 s for a total of 30 cycles for the amplification of a labeled 280 bp PCR product. The primer pairs used are highly specific enabling the identification of all the three different pathotypes of NDV. No cross-reactions with other avian infectious agents such as infectious bronchitis virus, infectious bursal disease virus, influenza virus, and fowl pox virus were observed. The detection limit of this one tube nested peR technique was 3 pfu/ml of NDV by agarose gel electrophoresis detection method and was about 100 fold more sensitive compared to that of a non-nested RT - peR. To facilitate the detection of the peR product, the amplified peR product was then subjected to a colorimetric detection method using ELIS A where the labeled peR product was captured in a streptavidin coated microtiter plate and was detected by using anti-digoxigenin-peroxidase enzyme conjugate and 2,2'-azinodiethylbenzothiazolinesulfonic acid (ABTS) as the substrate. Comparisons between the detection methods of agarose gel electrophoresis and ELISA showed that the latter was 10-fold more sensitive than the former. The efficacy of the nested PCR-ELIS A was also compared with the conventional NDV detection method (HA test) and nonnested RT-PCR by testing against a total of 35 tissue specimens collected from NDsymptomatic chickens. With the cutoff value of 0.154 having been calculated from 15 known negative samples, 21 of 35 (60%) samples were tested to be NDV positive by nested peR-ELISA. One of these positive samples, however, was negative by nested peR and gel detection method. Only 8 of 35 (22.9%) samples were tested positive by non-nested RT-PCR and 2 of 35 (5.7%) samples were positive by the conventional HA test. Due to the high sensitivity of nested PCR-ELISA for the detection of NDV from tissue specimens, a peR-ELISA based diagnostic test may be a useful screening test especially in dealing with large number of samples