Defensive responses to threat scenarios in Brazilians reproduce the pattern of Hawaiian Americans and non-human mammals

A former study with scenarios conducted in Hawaii has suggested that humans share with non-human mammals the same basic defensive strategies - risk assessment, freezing, defensive threat, defensive attack, and flight. The selection of the most adaptive strategy is strongly influenced by features of the threat stimulus - magnitude, escapability, distance, ambiguity, and availability of a hiding place. Aiming at verifying if these strategies would be consistent in a different culture, 12 defensive scenarios were translated into Portuguese and adapted to the Brazilian culture. The sample consisted of male and female undergraduate students divided into two groups: 76 students, who evaluated the five dimensions of each scenario and 248 medical students, who chose the most likely response for each scenario. In agreement with the findings from studies of non-human mammal species, the scenarios were able to elicit different defensive behavioral responses, depending on features of the threat. "Flight" was chosen as the most likely response in scenarios evaluated as an unambiguous and intense threat, but with an available route of escape, whereas "attack" was chosen in an unambiguous, intense and close dangerous situation without an escape route. Less urgent behaviors, such as "check out", were chosen in scenarios evaluated as less intense, more distant and more ambiguous. Moreover, the results from the Brazilian sample were similar to the results obtained in the original study with Hawaiian students. These data suggest that a basic repertoire of defensive strategies is conserved along the mammalian evolution because they share similar functional benefits in maintaining fitness.CNP

Caracterização sazonal do efeito de atrazina e 2,4-D sobre microrganismos de solos da microbacia do córrego do Espraiado, Ribeirão Preto-SP.

Com o objetivo de estudar o efeito sazonal de atrazina e 2,4-D sobre os microrganismos do solo e se isolar aqueles com potencial para degradar os herbicidas, foram coletadas mensalmente, durante o ano de 1996, amostras de solo de 9 pontos a profundidade de 0-20 cm em area de cana-de-acucar da microbacia do Espraiado, regiao de Ribeirao Preto. Os solos variaram de argiloso a arenoso. Suspensoes de solo, (5 g/50 ml), recem coletadas foram tratadas com atrazina (1 mg/ml) e 2,4-D (0,5 mg/ml) e incubadas a 30oC por 21 dias, juntamente com a testemunha. A populacao microbiana foi monitorada semanalmente por plaqueamento, contagem, fotografia e isolamento de colonias. Os resultados mostraram variacao sazonal significativa no comportamento quali e quantitativo da populacao microbiana. O crescimento dos microrganismos nas amostras de fevereiro a maio foi fortemente inibido por 2,4-D. No mes de junho, a atrazina inibiu o crescimento, ao passo que em agosto, 2,4-D passou a exercer forte efeito estimulante, com populacoes de ate 15 vezes maior que a testemunha. Em outubro, ambos herbicidas estimularam de maneira geral o crescimento. O tipo de solo apresentou pequena influencia. Os tratamentos promoveram crescimento diferenciado de populacoes homogeneas tipicas e caracteristicas para cada um dos herbicidas com a predominancia de bacterias para ambos, apesar de tambem serem detectados fungos e leveduras. Atrazina e 2,4-D na maioria das vezes agiram antagonicamente, sendo o 2,4-D inibidor mais potente sobre a populacao de solos arenosos, quando a inibiu. O tratamento com os herbicidas reduziu o grau de biodiversidade sendo comumente encontrado um unico tipo celular nas placas, distinto para atrazina e 2,4-D

On the Labeling Ambiguity in Absolute Participial Clauses in English

紀要論文/Departmental Bulletin Paperdepartmental bulletin pape

On the Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax of English Complementizers and Embedded Finiteness

departmental bulletin pape

The Stagelike Development of Temporal Adverbial Clauses in L2 English : An Organic Grammar Perspective

紀要論文 / Departmental Bulletin Paperdepartmental bulletin pape

Visualizing Contrastive Prosody in Second Language English

紀要論文/Departmental Bulletin Paperdepartmental bulletin pape

A Phase-based and Cartographic Analysis of Japanese Additive Focus Particle -Mo

紀要論文/Departmental Bulletin Paperdepartmental bulletin pape

A Triplet View on the Double Object Construction in English : Its Syntax, Phonology, and L2 Acquisition

紀要論文/Departmental Bulletin Paperdepartmental bulletin pape

Adsorptividade de solos da microbacia do Córrego do Espraiado, Ribeirão Preto: riboflavina como modelo de adsorção.

Em area onde foram desenvolvidos estudos sobre os efeitos dos herbicidas atrazina e 2,4-D sobre a populacao microbiana dos solos da microbacia do Espraiado, Ribeirao Preto-SP, foi tambem pesquisado o uso de riboflavina, composto organico facilmente detectavel por espectrofotometria a baixas concentracoes, como modelo de estudos de adsorcao de solos. Os solos empregados neste trabalho foram provenientes de 9 pontos selecionados da microbacia para estudos microbiologicos e se agruparam em argilosos e arenosos, com teores de materia organica de 0,15 a 3,50%. Os resultados de adsorcao mostraram que a riboflavina foi adsorvida pelos diferentes solos, em proporcoes variadas dependente do solo. As isotermas de adsorcao revelaram isotermas do tipo L, como as observadas para os herbicidas triazinicos, como a atrazina. Os valores experimentais, para amostras coletadas de 0-20 cm aplicados a equacao de Freundlich, mostraram correlacao variando de 0.93 a 0,99, e valores de K de 0,47 a 63,43 e 1/n de 0,42 a 1,42. Os valores de Kd para riboflavina em diferentes amostras variaram de 0,61 +- 0,26 (amostra de solo arenoso) a 56,1 +- 13,7 (amostra de solo argiloso) enquanto o Koc variou de 230 +- 32 (solo arenoso) a 4671 +- 780 (solo argiloso). Amostras de solos argilosos coletadas a 80-90 cm, com menor teor de materia organica, tiveram valores de Koc maiores, enquanto em solo arenoso foram semelhantes. Valores de Kd, Koc e constantes da equacao e Freundlich encontrados para riboflavina sao comparaveis aqueles de uma gama de herbicidas puplicados na literatura, tornando riboflavina um modelo pratico e conveniente para o estudo de adsorptividade de herbicidas em solos

The response of social anxiety disorder patients to threat scenarios differs from that of healthy controls

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the response of social anxiety disorder (SAD) patients to threat scenarios. First-choice responses to 12 scenarios describing conspecific threatening situations and mean scores of defensive direction and defensive intensity dimensions were compared between 87 SAD patients free of medication and 87 matched healthy controls (HC). A significant gender difference in the first-choice responses was identified for seven scenarios among HCs but only for two scenarios among SAD patients. A significantly higher proportion of SAD patients chose "freezing" in response to "Bush" and "Noise" scenarios, whereas the most frequent response by HCs to these scenarios was "check out". SAD males chose "run away" and "yell" more often than healthy men in response to the scenarios "Park" and "Elevator", respectively. There was a positive correlation between the severity of symptoms and both defensive direction and defensive intensity dimensions. Factorial analysis confirmed the gradient of defensive reactions derived from animal studies. SAD patients chose more urgent defensive responses to threat scenarios, seeming to perceive them as more dangerous than HCs and tending to move away from the source of threat. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the physiopathology of anxiety disorders involves brain structures responsible for defensive behaviors