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Abstract Stereotypes are not only pervasive, they can also lead to discrimination against negatively-stereotyped groups. A gender-intelligence stereotype holds that men and boys are smarter than women and girls, despite no such evidence. Developmental research suggests that even children endorse this stereotype, and negative perceptions about self-worth in girls may be a consequence. Here we tested whether the stereotype about intelligence may, instead, be rooted in facial dominance, such that faces higher in dominance are considered smarter than faces lower in dominance. Across two studies, we found that 6- to 10-year-olds used facial dominance to make intelligence judgments (Experiment 1), even under divided attention (Experiment 2). Children judged more dominant faces as smarter than less dominant faces, whether the two faces were male or female. They did not, however, judge men as smarter than women when selecting between male and female faces that were matched in dominance. What is more, there was some evidence that children considered dominant female faces to be smarter than less dominant male faces, suggesting that dominance in faces may be prioritized over face gender when intuiting intelligence. These findings contrasted with children’s judgments of niceness where both dominance, and a gender stereotype, were used to infer prosociality. Altogether, our findings provide novel evidence for an association between dominance and intelligence, which appears to predate a gender-intelligence stereotype.

Alum sludge (AS) from water treatment plants is an abundant, non-toxic residue with high Si and Al contents. These characteristics make it an ideal precursor for zeolite synthesis, not only reducing the environmental impacts from AS disposal but also adding value to the waste by promoting its reuse. Herein, we propose a route to prepare zeolitic materials from AS, aiming for its application as a component of slow-release fertilizers, using mild conditions and cost-effective hydrothermal synthesis. X-Ray Diffraction revealed the formation of sodalite (Na-SOD) in short times (5-10 h) and moderate temperatures (100-120ºC), with sodium silicate addition favoring Si-quartz consumption and zeolite crystallization, without a fusion step. The Na-SOD showed a desirable cation exchange capacity, reaching 117 mg g-1 for K+. A K-SOD fertilizer was then prepared with an average 490 nm size, 2 m2 g-1 BET surface area, and slow-release behavior. Incubation in soil confirmed that Al was inactive in K-SOD and did not immobilize phosphate, in addition to promoting high K+ availability. The results support the potential of AS reuse for application in agriculture as an efficient and sustainable fertilizer.

Accumulating evidence suggests that there is a spontaneous preference for numerical, compared to non-numerical (e.g., cumulative surface area), information. However, given a paucity of research on the perception of non-numerical magnitudes, it is unclear whether this preference reflects a specific bias towards number, or a general bias towards the more perceptually discriminable dimension (i.e., number). Here, we found that when the number and area of visual dot displays were matched in mathematical ratio, number was more perceptually discriminable than area in both adults and children. Moreover, both adults and children preferentially categorized these ratio-matched stimuli based on number, consistent with previous work. However, when number and area were matched in perceptual discriminability, a different pattern of results emerged. In particular, children preferentially categorized stimuli based on area, suggesting that children's previously observed number bias may be due to a mismatch in the perceptual discriminability of number and area, not an intrinsic salience of number. Interestingly, adults continued to categorize the displays on the basis of number. Altogether, these findings suggest a dominant role for area during childhood, refuting the claim that number is inherently and uniquely salient. Yet they also reveal an increased salience of number that emerges over development. Potential explanations for this developmental shift are discussed.

Summary: The neural computations for looming detection are strikingly similar across species. In mammals, information about approaching threats is conveyed from the retina to the midbrain superior colliculus, where approach variables are computed to enable defensive behavior. Although neuroscientific theories posit that midbrain representations contribute to emotion through connectivity with distributed brain systems, it remains unknown whether a computational system for looming detection can predict both defensive behavior and phenomenal experience in humans. Here, we show that a shallow convolutional neural network based on the Drosophila visual system predicts defensive blinking to looming objects in infants and superior colliculus responses to optical expansion in adults. Further, the neural network’s responses to naturalistic video clips predict self-reported emotion largely by way of subjective arousal. These findings illustrate how a simple neural network architecture optimized for a species-general task relevant for survival explains motor and experiential components of human emotion.

The large rates of students' failure is a very frequent problem in undergraduate courses, being even more evident in exact sciences. Pointing out the reasons of such problem is a paramount research topic, though not an easy task. An alternative is to use Educational Data Mining techniques (EDM), which enables one to convert data from educational database into useful information, in order to understand and improve teaching and learning processes. In this way, the objective of this paper is to propose mathematical models based on EDM techniques to estimate the probability of a student in a mathematics degree course at IFSP (Federal Institute of São Paulo) to fail in exact sciences disciplines, and later on, indicate which aspects contribute significantly for the Students' failure rates in these branches. We present three logistic regression models that which were applied based on socioeconomic data and student performance over 4 years. For interpretation and evaluation of such models, odds ratio, ten-fold Cross Validation method and the metrics: accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and area under the ROC curve (AUC) were used. It was noted that through Cross Validation, the models achieved accuracy values accounting for over 70%, sensitivity over 70%, specificity over 60% and AUC over 0.75. Analyzing the predictive variables of these models, we identified that factors such as advantage age, rates of failure through the course and attendance in initial semesters can increase the probability of failure in exact science disciplines in the analyzed course.

ABSTRACT: Type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is characterized by defects in insulin secretion and combined peripheral resistance to the hormone. Several non-human primates (NHP) species develop T2DM, mainly captive animals with reduced physical activity and incorrect feeding. This case report describes the T2DM treatment of a black-eared marmoset (Callithrix penicillata) by diet reformulation and metformin oral administration. An adult female was diagnosed with T2DM after hyperglycemia and high serum fructosamine associated with glycosuria and obesity. Metformin hydrochloride (125mg/animal, orally, q24h) associated with feeding intervention was started. After 26 days, a significant reduction in weight, glycemia, and serum fructosamine could be observed, showing satisfactory results for the adopted therapy. Metformin is considered a safe drug for T2DM treatment due to its low hypoglycemia risk. The new diet consisted of sweet potato, squash, and varied fruits offered twice daily. In addition, thawed-mice newborns, egg whites, and small portions of pelleted primate food. In the present report, metformin use, associated with a low glycemic index diet, was effective in treating this particular marmoset and may present a potential for T2DM treatment in other NHPs.

Abstract Severe musculoskeletal diseases, such as those associated with congenital or traumatic events, that result in missing limbs may compromise the fitness and survival of free‐living felids. Here we report the space use of four amputee individuals from three felid species captured from 2017 to 2022 in Missouri (USA), Toledo and Badajoz (Spain), and Suitai Khairkhan Mountain (Mongolia). We describe home ranges and daily travel distances post‐release of free‐living felids that had either suffered a traumatic amputation or following a surgical amputation. We compared these data with those reported in the literature for felids without amputations. Forelimb or hindlimb amputation did not affect the hunting, mating, or territory patrolling behavior of any of the individuals. However, we recorded significant differences in the daily movement before and after the traumatic event of the Iberian lynx forelimb amputee. We attribute this difference to the physical impairment, although we consider other variables that may have played a role. Nevertheless, all animals appeared to cope well with their limb loss, showing home ranges and daily distances within those recorded for their sex and species. Unless amputee felids represent a threat to domestic livestock or humans, our data suggest these individuals may remain free‐living as they contribute to local population persistence and appear to maintain good general health and welfare.

Abstract The effects of warming on ecological communities emerge from a range of potentially asymmetric impacts on individual physiology and development. Understanding these responses, however, is limited by our ability to connect mechanisms or emergent patterns across the many processes that drive variation in demography. Further complicating this understanding is the gain or loss of predators to many communities, which may interact with changes in temperature to drive community change. Here we conducted a factorial warming and predation experiment to test generalized predictions about responses to warming. We used microcosms with a range of protists, rotifers, and a gastrotrich, with and without the predator Actinosphaerium, to assess changes in diversity, body size, function, and composition in response to warming. We find that community respiration and predator:prey biovolume ratios peak at intermediate temperatures, while species richness declined with temperature. We also found that overall biomass increased with species richness, driven by the effect of temperature on richness. There was little evidence of an interaction between predation and temperature change, likely because the predator was mostly limited to the intermediate temperatures. Overall, our results suggest that general predictions about community change are still challenging to make but may benefit by considering multiple dimensions of community patterns in an integrated way.

Stereotypes are not only pervasive, they can also lead to discrimination against negatively-stereotyped groups. A gender-intelligence stereotype holds that men and boys are smarter than women and girls, despite no such evidence. Developmental research suggests that even children endorse this stereotype, and negative perceptions about self-worth in girls may be a consequence. Here we tested whether the stereotype about intelligence may, instead, be rooted in facial dominance, such that faces higher in dominance are considered smarter than faces lower in dominance. Across two studies, we found that 6- to 10-year-olds used facial dominance to make intelligence judgments (Experiment 1), even under divided attention (Experiment 2). Children judged more dominant faces as smarter than less dominant faces, whether the two faces were male or female. They did not, however, judge men as smarter than women when selecting between male and female faces that were matched in dominance. What is more, there was some evidence that children considered dominant female faces to be smarter than less dominant male faces, suggesting that dominance in faces may be prioritized over face gender when intuiting intelligence. These findings contrasted with children's judgments of niceness where both dominance, and a gender stereotype, were used to infer prosociality. Altogether, our findings provide novel evidence for an association between dominance and intelligence, which appears to predate a gender-intelligence stereotype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of representing different magnitudes (i.e., number and cumulative area) for action planning and formal mathematics, there is much debate about the nature of these representations, particularly the extent to which magnitudes interact in the mind and brain. Early interaction views suggest that there are shared perceptual processes that form overlapping magnitude representations. However, late interaction views hold that representations of different magnitudes remain distinct, interacting only when preparing a motor response. The present study sheds light on this debate by examining the temporal onset of ratio and congruity effects as participants made ordinal judgments about number and cumulative area. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to identify whether the onset of such effects aligned with early versus late views. Ratio effects for both magnitudes were observed starting in the P100. Moreover, a congruity effect emerged within the P100. That interactions were observed early in processing, at the same time that initial ratio effects occurred, suggests that number and cumulative area processes interacted when magnitude representations were being formed, prior to preparing a decision response. Our findings are consistent with an early interaction view of magnitude processing, in which number and cumulative area may rely on shared perceptual mechanisms.

Abstract Nitrogen fertilization has been a critical factor for high crop productivity, where urea is currently the most used N source due to its high concentration and affordability. Nevertheless, urea fast solubilization leads to frequent losses and lower agronomic efficiency. The modification of urea structure by condensation with formaldehyde has been proposed to improve nutrient uptake by plants and to reduce environmental losses. Herein we show that the co-formulation with Zn strongly modifies the N release (in lab conditions) and, more important, the Zn source—ZnSO4 or ZnO—has a critical role. Urea–formaldehyde (UF) served as a matrix for the zinc sources, and chemical characterizations revealed that Zn particles influenced the length of the polymeric chain formation. Release tests in an aqueous medium showed that the UF matrix favors ZnO release and, on the other hand, delays ZnSO4 delivery. Soil incubation with the fertilizer composites proved the slow-release of N from UF, is ideal for optimizing nutritional efficiency. Our results indicated that the ZnO-UF system has beneficial effects for both nutrients, i.e., reduces N volatilization and increases Zn release.

There is general agreement that humans represent numerical, spatial, and temporal magnitudes from early in development. However, there is disagreement about whether different magnitudes converge within a general magnitude system and whether this system supports behavioral demonstrations of cross-magnitude interactions at different developmental time points. Using a longitudinal design, we found a relation between children's cross-magnitude interactions assessed at two developmental time points with different behavioral measures. More specifically, stronger cross-magnitude interactions in infancy (M = 9.3 months) predicted a stronger cross-magnitude congruity effect at preschool age (M = 44.2 months), even when controlling for performance on measures of inhibitory control, analogical reasoning, and verbal competence at preschool age. The results suggest a common mechanism for cross-magnitude interactions at different points in development as well as stability of the underlying individual differences. We argue that this mechanism reflects a nonverbal general magnitude system that is operational early in life and that displays continuity from infancy to preschool age.

Infants exhibit visual preferences for gender-typed objects (e.g., dolls, toy vehicles) that parallel the gender-typed play preferences of preschool-aged children, but the developmental stability of individual differences in early emerging gender-typed preferences has not yet been characterized. In the present study, we examined the longitudinal association between infants' (N = 51) performance on an object-preference task, administered between 6 and 13 months of age, and their play preferences at 4 years of age. Greater visual interest in a toy truck relative to a doll in infancy predicted significantly greater male-typical toy and activity preferences (e.g., play with vehicles, videogames) at age 4. These findings suggest that gender-typed object preferences present during the 1st year of life may represent the developmental precursors of gender-typed play preferences observed later in childhood.

Abstract The effects of climate change—such as increased temperature variability and novel predators—rarely happen in isolation, but it is unclear how organisms cope with multiple stressors simultaneously. To explore this, we grew replicate Paramecium caudatum populations in either constant or variable temperatures and exposed half to predation. We then fit thermal performance curves (TPCs) of intrinsic growth rate (rmax) for each replicate population (N = 12) across seven temperatures (10°C–38°C). TPCs of P. caudatum exposed to both temperature variability and predation responded only to one or the other (but not both), resulting in unpredictable outcomes. These changes in TPCs were accompanied by changes in cell morphology. Although cell volume was conserved across treatments, cells became narrower in response to temperature variability and rounder in response to predation. Our findings suggest that predation and temperature variability produce conflicting pressures on both thermal performance and cell morphology. Lastly, we found a strong correlation between changes in cell morphology and TPC parameters in response to predation, suggesting that responses to opposing selective pressures could be constrained by trade‐offs. Our results shed new light on how environmental and ecological pressures interact to elicit changes in characteristics at both the individual and population levels. We further suggest that morphological responses to interactive environmental forces may modulate population‐level responses, making prediction of long‐term responses to environmental change challenging.

ABSTRACT: This study carried out a survey about enteropathogenic agents in domestic cats’ shelter as a stage of investigation for the intermittent chronic diarrhea. Individual fecal samples from 39 cats with free access to the external environment were submitted to parasitological examination, parvovirus, and coronavirus by PCR, and Cryptosporidium spp., Giardia spp. and Tritrichomonas foetus by real-time PCR. From the cats evaluated, 30 (76.9%) were positive for one or more enteric agents, and coinfections were observed in 11 cats samples (28.2%). Helminth eggs were observed in 48.7% of cats (19/30), 16 (41%) were positive for parvovirus or coronavirus and 25.6% (10/30) were infected by protozoa. From the positives for protozoa, five cats were positive to T. foetus (12.82%). The first finding of this protozoan through PCR was in the southern Brazil, and the second was in the whole country. Chronic diarrhea in cats may be multifactorial in shelter animals where the population density is high and the control of parasitic, and viral infections are deficient. Moreover, it is due to poor hygiene conditions in these shelters. The factors associated with the proliferation of infectious diseases in shelters are correlated with new pathogens infections such as T. foetus.

Although average, species-level interaction strength plays a key role in driving population dynamics and community structure, predator-prey interactions occur among individuals. As a result, individual variation in foraging rates may play an important role in determining the effects of predator-prey interactions on communities. Such variation in foraging rates stems from individual variation in traits that influence the mechanistic components of the functional response, such as movements that determine encounters and behaviors such as decisions to attack. However, we still have little information about individual-level variation in functional responses or the traits that give rise to such variation. Here we combine a standard functional response experiment with wolf spiders foraging on fruit flies with a novel analysis to connect individual morphology, physiology, and movement to individual foraging performance. We found substantial variation in traits between males and females, but these were not clearly linked to the differences in the functional response between males and females. Contrary to expectations, we found no effect of body velocity, leg length, energetic state, or metabolic rate on foraging performance. Instead, we found that body mass interacted with body rotations (clockwise turns), such that larger spiders showed higher foraging performance when they turned more but the reverse was true for smaller spiders. Our results highlight the need to understand the apparent complexity of the links between the traits of individuals and the functional response.

The National Children's Study Cognitive Health Domain Team developed detailed plans for assessing cognition longitudinally from infancy to early adulthood. These plans identify high-priority aspects of cognition that can be measured efficiently and effectively, and we believe they can serve as a model for future large-scale longitudinal research. For infancy and toddlerhood, we proposed several paradigms that collectively allowed us to assess six broad cognitive constructs: (1) executive function skills, (2) episodic memory, (3) language, (4) processing speed, (5) spatial and numerical processing, and (6) social cognition. In some cases, different trial sequences within a paradigm allow for the simultaneous assessment of multiple cognitive skills (e.g., executive function skills and processing speed). We define each construct, summarize its significance for understanding developmental outcomes, discuss the feasibility of its assessment throughout development, and present our plan for measuring specific skills at different ages. Given the need for well-validated, direct behavioral measures of cognition that can be used in large-scale longitudinal studies, especially from birth to age 3 years, we also initiated three projects focused on the development of new measures.

A growing body of evidence suggests that non-symbolic representations of number, which humans share with nonhuman animals, are functionally related to uniquely human mathematical thought. Other research suggesting that numerical and non-numerical magnitudes not only share analog format but also form part of a general magnitude system raises questions about whether the non-symbolic basis of mathematical thinking is unique to numerical magnitude. Here we examined this issue in 5- and 6-year-old children using comparison tasks of non-symbolic number arrays and cumulative area as well as standardized tests of math competence. One set of findings revealed that scores on both magnitude comparison tasks were modulated by ratio, consistent with shared analog format. Moreover, scores on these tasks were moderately correlated, suggesting overlap in the precision of numerical and non-numerical magnitudes, as expected under a general magnitude system. Another set of findings revealed that the precision of both types of magnitude contributed shared and unique variance to the same math measures (e.g. calculation and geometry), after accounting for age and verbal competence. These findings argue against an exclusive role for non-symbolic number in supporting early mathematical understanding. Moreover, they suggest that mathematical understanding may be rooted in a general system of magnitude representation that is not specific to numerical magnitude but that also encompasses non-numerical magnitude.