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2016

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Mental Imagery In Humanoid Robots, Kristsana Seepanomwan Jan 2016

Mental Imagery In Humanoid Robots, Kristsana Seepanomwan

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Mental imagery presents humans with the opportunity to predict prospective happenings based on own intended actions, to reminisce occurrences from the past and reproduce the perceptual experience. This cognitive capability is mandatory for human survival in this folding and changing world. By means of internal representation, mental imagery offers other cognitive functions (e.g., decision making, planning) the possibility to assess information on objects or events that are not being perceived. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that humans are able to employ this ability in the early stages of infancy. Although materialisation of humanoid robot employment in the future appears …

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Autonomous Learning Of Multiple Skills Through Intrinsic Motivations: A Study With Computational Embodied Models, Vieri Giuliano Santucci Jan 2016

Autonomous Learning Of Multiple Skills Through Intrinsic Motivations: A Study With Computational Embodied Models, Vieri Giuliano Santucci

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Developing artificial agents able to autonomously discover new goals, to select them and learn the related skills is an important challenge for robotics. This becomes even crucial if we want robots to interact with real environments where they have to face many unpredictable problems and where it is not clear which skills will be the more suitable to solve them. The ability to learn and store multiple skills in order to use them when required is one of the main characteristics of biological agents: forming ample repertoires of actions is important to widen the possibility for an agent to better …

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Profiling Igg N-Glycans As Potential Biomarker Of Chronological And Biological Ages: A Community-Based Study In A Han Chinese Population, Xinwei Yu, Youix Wang, Jasminka Krištić, Jing Dong, Xi Chu, Siqi Ge, Hao Wang, Honghong Fang, Qing Gao, Di Lui, Zhongya Zhao, Hongli Peng, Maja P. Baković, Lijuan Wu, Manshu Song, Igor Rudan, Harry Campbell, Gordan Lauc, Wei Wang Jan 2016

Profiling Igg N-Glycans As Potential Biomarker Of Chronological And Biological Ages: A Community-Based Study In A Han Chinese Population, Xinwei Yu, Youix Wang, Jasminka Krištić, Jing Dong, Xi Chu, Siqi Ge, Hao Wang, Honghong Fang, Qing Gao, Di Lui, Zhongya Zhao, Hongli Peng, Maja P. Baković, Lijuan Wu, Manshu Song, Igor Rudan, Harry Campbell, Gordan Lauc, Wei Wang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

As an important post-translation modifying process, glycosylation significantly affects the structure and function of immunoglobulin G (IgG) molecules and is essential in many steps of the inflammatory cascade. Studies have demonstrated the potential of using glycosylation features of IgG as a component of predictive biomarkers for chronological age in several European populations, whereas no study has been reported in Chinese. Herein, we report various patterns of changes in IgG glycosylation associated with age by analyzing IgG glycosylation in 701 community-based Han Chinese (244 males, 457 females; 23-68 years old). Eleven IgG glycans, including FA2B, A2G1, FA2[6]G1, FA2[3]G1, FA2[6]BG1, FA2[3]BG1, A2G2, …

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A Randomised Control Trial Of Salvage Radiotherapy And Androgen Deprivation Therapy Following Prostatectomy: Commentary On Five Year Follow-Up Findings, Scott Williams, John W. Yaxley, Geoffrey D. Coughlin, Robert A. Gardiner Jan 2016

A Randomised Control Trial Of Salvage Radiotherapy And Androgen Deprivation Therapy Following Prostatectomy: Commentary On Five Year Follow-Up Findings, Scott Williams, John W. Yaxley, Geoffrey D. Coughlin, Robert A. Gardiner

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

No abstract provided.

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Climate Change And Malaria Control: The Importance Of Mitigation And A Call To Action, Emmanuel O. Adewuyi, Kazeem Adefemi Jan 2016

Climate Change And Malaria Control: The Importance Of Mitigation And A Call To Action, Emmanuel O. Adewuyi, Kazeem Adefemi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Malaria has remained an important target for global disease control efforts for decades. The streams of funds and, consequently, availability of effective interventions for the disease have resulted in considerable reduction in its burden, globally. Despite the relative success of such global efforts, malaria remains a significant threat in over a hundred countries, worldwide, leading to about one million deaths and hundreds of millions of hospital visits, annually. Many researchers and health commentators have argued that global warming, a consequence of climate change, could be linked – directly or indirectly – to the persistence as well as the re-emergence of …

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Motherhood And Female Identity In Oriana Fallaci And Valeria Parrella: A Case Of Literary Matérnage?, Aureliana Di Rollo Jan 2016

Motherhood And Female Identity In Oriana Fallaci And Valeria Parrella: A Case Of Literary Matérnage?, Aureliana Di Rollo

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Contemporary women writers have provided a wide range of interpretations of the relationship between motherhood and female identity, drawing into their stories a range of issues related to the various experiences of motherhood. Among this rich variety, I analyse here two contemporary Italian novels: Lo spazio bianco (2008) by Valeria Parrella, and Lettera a un bambino mai nato (1975) by Oriana Fallaci. I argue that Parrella engages with the same question tackled by Fallaci thirty years earlier: can motherhood find its place in the life of an independent woman? Have thirty years opened up any possibility of negotiating a different …

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Undergraduate Catalog, Georgia Southern University Jan 2016

Undergraduate Catalog, Georgia Southern University

Undergraduate & Graduate Catalogs

No abstract provided.

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Animal Sentience: The Other-Minds Problem, Stevan Harnad Jan 2016

Animal Sentience: The Other-Minds Problem, Stevan Harnad

Animal Sentience

The only feelings we can feel are our own. When it comes to the feelings of others, we can only infer them, based on their behavior — unless they tell us. This is the “other-minds problem.” Within our own species, thanks to language, this problem arises only for states in which people cannot speak (infancy, aphasia, sleep, anaesthesia, coma). Our species also has a uniquely powerful empathic or “mind-reading” capacity: We can (sometimes) perceive from the behavior of others when they are in states like our own. Our inferences have also been systematized and operationalized in biobehavioral science …

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Nonhuman Mind-Reading Ability, Marthe Kiley-Worthington Jan 2016

Nonhuman Mind-Reading Ability, Marthe Kiley-Worthington

Animal Sentience

Harnad (2016) is mistaken that humans are better at mind-reading than other species. Humans have context-independent language, but nonhuman species, especially mammals, have context-dependent nonverbal skills – perceptual, communicative and social -- that can be much keener than our own.

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Animals Think And Feel: Précis Of Beyond Words: What Animals Think And Feel (Safina 2015), Carl Safina Jan 2016

Animals Think And Feel: Précis Of Beyond Words: What Animals Think And Feel (Safina 2015), Carl Safina

Animal Sentience

Abstract: Evolution, brain science, and the logic of behavior in free-living animals all converge to show that to varying degrees many animals have conscious experience, thoughts, and emotions.

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Crystal Structure Of (E)-2-[(2- Bromo-3-Pyridyl)Methylidene]-6-Methoxy-3,4-Dihydronaphthalen-1-One And 3-[(E)-(6- Methoxy-3,4-Dihydronaphth-2-Oylidene)Methyl]-1h-Pyridin-2-One, Sarah K. Zingales, Morgan E. Moore, Andrew D. Goetz, Clifford W. Padgett Jan 2016

Crystal Structure Of (E)-2-[(2- Bromo-3-Pyridyl)Methylidene]-6-Methoxy-3,4-Dihydronaphthalen-1-One And 3-[(E)-(6- Methoxy-3,4-Dihydronaphth-2-Oylidene)Methyl]-1h-Pyridin-2-One, Sarah K. Zingales, Morgan E. Moore, Andrew D. Goetz, Clifford W. Padgett

Chemistry: Faculty Publications (1990-2023)

The title compounds C17H14BrNO2, (I), and C17H15NO3, (II), were obtained from the reaction of 6-meth­oxy-3,4-di­hydro-2H-naphthalen-1-one and 2-bromo­nicotinaldehyde in ethanol. Compound (I) was the expected product and compound (II) was the oxidation product from air exposure. In the crystal structure of compound (I), there are no short contacts or hydrogen bonds. The structure does display [pi]-[pi] inter­actions between adjacent benzene rings and adjacent pyridyl rings. Compound (II) contains two independent mol­ecules, A and B, in the asymmetric unit; both are non-planar, the dihedral angles between the meth­oxy­benzene and 1H-pyridin-2-one mean planes being 35.07 (9)° in A and 35.28 (9)°in B. In …

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Cognitive Evidence Of Fish Sentience, Jonathan Balcombe Jan 2016

Cognitive Evidence Of Fish Sentience, Jonathan Balcombe

Animal Sentience

I present a little-known example of flexible, opportunistic behavior by a species of fish to undermine Key’s (2016) thesis that fish are unconscious and unable to feel. Lack of a cortex is flimsy grounds for denying pain to fish, for on that criterion we must also then deny it to all non-mammals, including birds, which goes against scientific consensus. Notwithstanding science’s fundamental inability to prove anything, the precautionary principal dictates that we should give the benefit of the doubt to fish, and the state of the oceans dictates that we act on it now.

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Why Human Pain Can’T Tell Us Whether Fish Feel Pain, Victoria A. Braithwaite, Paula Droege Jan 2016

Why Human Pain Can’T Tell Us Whether Fish Feel Pain, Victoria A. Braithwaite, Paula Droege

Animal Sentience

In his target article, Key (2016) reviews the neuroanatomy of human pain and uses what is known about human pain to argue that fish cannot experience pain. We provide three reasons why the conclusions reached by Key are unsupported. They consider (i) why it is not sufficient to conclude that only human neural structures can process conscious pain, (ii) why an understanding of pain in humans and non-human animals needs to be based within a framework of consciousness, and (iii) evidence already exists that fish treated with noxious stimuli lose the ability to perform normal behaviours: This was a behavioral …

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Fish Brains And Behaviour Indicate Capacity For Feeling Pain, Donald M. Broom Jan 2016

Fish Brains And Behaviour Indicate Capacity For Feeling Pain, Donald M. Broom

Animal Sentience

Abstract: Studies of behaviour are of major importance in understanding human pain and pain in other animals such as fish. Almost all of the characteristics of the mammalian pain system are also described for fish. Emotions, feelings and learning from these are controlled in the fish brain in areas anatomically different but functionally very similar to those in mammals. The evidence of pain and fear system function in fish is so similar to that in humans and other mammals that it is logical to conclude that fish feel fear and pain. Fish are sentient beings.

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Comparative Evolutionary Approach To Pain Perception In Fishes, Culum Brown Jan 2016

Comparative Evolutionary Approach To Pain Perception In Fishes, Culum Brown

Animal Sentience

Arguments against the fact that fish feel pain repeatedly appear even in the face of growing evidence that they do. The standards used to judge pain perception keep moving as the hurdles are repeatedly cleared by novel research findings. There is undoubtedly a vested commercial interest in proving that fish do not feel pain, so the topic has a half-life well past its due date. Key (2016) reiterates previous perspectives on this topic characterised by a black-or-white view that is based on the proposed role of the human cortex in pain perception. I argue that this is incongruent with our …

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No Cortex, No Cry, Vladimir Dinets Jan 2016

No Cortex, No Cry, Vladimir Dinets

Animal Sentience

In his target article, Key (2016) argues that since fish don’t have a frontal cortex (part of the brain known to be important for feeling of pain in humans and rodents), they cannot feel pain or other noxious stimuli. I comment on the logic used in this extrapolation and other arguments presented in the paper.

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Fighting Forms Of Expression, Paul J.B. Hart Jan 2016

Fighting Forms Of Expression, Paul J.B. Hart

Animal Sentience

Even though Key (2016) has done a very thorough job of assembling evidence showing that fish are unlikely to have the neurological capacity to be conscious and feel pain, there will still be a significant number of behavioural biologists who want to continue maintaining that fish do have consciousness and suffer from pain. In this commentary the reasons for people resisting the conclusions of the evidence are discussed. The reasons revolve around three aspects of the debate: the overblown respect humans have for the powers of consciousness in our day-to-day behaviour, the often used assumption that the possession of complex …

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No Evidence That Pain Is Painful Neural Process, Riccardo Manzotti Jan 2016

No Evidence That Pain Is Painful Neural Process, Riccardo Manzotti

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) claims that fish do not feel pain because they lack the neural structures that have a contingent causal role in generating and feeling pain in mammals. I counterargue that no conclusive evidence supports the sufficiency of any mammalian neural structure to produce pain. We cannot move from contingent necessity in mammals to necessity in every organism.

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Could Fish Feel Pain? A Wider Perspective, Yew-Kwang Ng Jan 2016

Could Fish Feel Pain? A Wider Perspective, Yew-Kwang Ng

Animal Sentience

Key’s (2016) target article provides some strong arguments but also makes some logical mistakes. The arguments are not sufficient to support a definite conclusion that fish cannot feel pain. A multi-faceted perspective taking into account brain structure, chemical secretion in brain, animal behavior, and evolutionary biology may be useful and appears, at least in some aspects, to suggest the opposite conclusion from that of the target article.


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Lack Of Neocortex Does Not Imply Fish Cannot Feel Pain, Georg Striedter Jan 2016

Lack Of Neocortex Does Not Imply Fish Cannot Feel Pain, Georg Striedter

Animal Sentience

Some contemporary scientists are using comparative neurobiological data to argue that non-mammalian vertebrates have feelings, most notably of pain (e.g., Braithwaite, 2010; Mashour and Alkire, 2012), while Key (2016) uses the same general data to reach the opposite conclusion. In a nutshell, he argues that fish cannot feel pain because fish don’t have a neocortex, which humans need to consciously experience pain. I don’t know how these scientists can look at essentially the same data and reach such disparate conclusions, but I suspect that some of them have strong a priori beliefs and, therefore, view the data through differently tinted …

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Mediating Claims Through Critical Anthropomorphism, Gordon Burghardt Jan 2016

Mediating Claims Through Critical Anthropomorphism, Gordon Burghardt

Animal Sentience

Key’s (2016) discussion of his claim that fish do not feel pain ignores the history of attempts to study the attribution of mental states to other species. Although willing to accept that mammals feel pain, Key claims that fish lack the mammalian neural mechanisms underlying pain and are unconscious of their experiences. Consequently, we do not need to be overly concerned about fishing practices that would otherwise be viewed as painful. Key uses a flawed anthropomorphic lens. All attributions of mental events to organisms other than oneself involve inferences derived from anthropomorphic processes through which we process physiological and behavioral …

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Fish Lack The Brains And The Psychology For Pain, Stuart W.G. Derbyshire Jan 2016

Fish Lack The Brains And The Psychology For Pain, Stuart W.G. Derbyshire

Animal Sentience

Debate about the possibility of fish pain focuses largely on the fish’s lack of the cortex considered necessary for generating pain. That view is appealing because it avoids relatively abstract debate about the nature of pain experience and subjectivity. Unfortunately, however, that debate cannot be entirely avoided. Subcortical circuits in the fish might support an immediate, raw, “pain” experience. The necessity of the cortex only becomes obvious when considering pain as an explicitly felt subjective experience. Attributing pain to fish only seems absurd when pain is considered as a state of explicit knowing.

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Pain And Fish Welfare, Eliane Gonçalves-De-Freitas Jan 2016

Pain And Fish Welfare, Eliane Gonçalves-De-Freitas

Animal Sentience

The evolutionary approach of Key’s (2016) target article, generically comparing humans with fish of all kinds, is simplistic. The author ignores published research on structural and molecular aspects of pain in fish. The target article reads more like a selective polemic against fish welfare than an even-handed analysis.

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Drawing The Line On Pain, Bjorn Merker Jan 2016

Drawing The Line On Pain, Bjorn Merker

Animal Sentience

The structure of Key's (2016) argument that fish do not feel pain is flawed, betraying a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of feelings and their role in the brain's functional division of labor. The evidence Key marshals in support of his premature commitment to an exclusively corticocentric view of consciousness in humans is plagued by repeated failures of scholarship.

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Brain Processes For “Good” And “Bad” Feelings: How Far Back In Evolution?, Jaak Panksepp Jan 2016

Brain Processes For “Good” And “Bad” Feelings: How Far Back In Evolution?, Jaak Panksepp

Animal Sentience

The question of whether fish can experience pain or any other feelings can only be resolved by neurobiologically targeted experiments. This commentary summarizes why this is essential for resolving scientific debates about consciousness in other animals, and offers specific experiments that need to be done: (i) those that evaluate the rewarding and punishing effects of specific brain regions and systems (for instance, with deep-brain stimulation); (ii) those that evaluate the capacity of animals to regulate their affective states; and (iii) those that have direct implications for human affective feelings, with specific predictions — for instance, the development of new treatments …

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Pain In Fish: Weighing The Evidence, James D. Rose Jan 2016

Pain In Fish: Weighing The Evidence, James D. Rose

Animal Sentience

The target article by Key (2016) examines whether fish have brain structures capable of mediating pain perception and consciousness, functions known to depend on the neocortex in humans. He concludes, as others have concluded (Rose 2002, 2007; Rose et al. 2014), that such functions are impossible for fish brains. This conclusion has been met with hypothetical assertions by others to the effect that functions of pain and consciousness may well be possible through unknown alternate neural processes. Key's argument would be bolstered by consideration of other neurological as well as behavioral evidence, which shows that sharks and ray are fishes …

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Why Babies Do Not Feel Pain, Or: How Structure-Derived Functional Interpretations Can Go Wrong, Helmut Segner Jan 2016

Why Babies Do Not Feel Pain, Or: How Structure-Derived Functional Interpretations Can Go Wrong, Helmut Segner

Animal Sentience

The response to pain involves a non-conscious, reflexive action and a conscious perception. According to Key (2016), consciousness — and thus pain perception — depends on a neuronal correlate that has a “unique neural architecture” as realized in the human cortex. On the basis of the “bioengineering principle that structure determines function,” Key (2016) concludes that animal species such as fish, which lack the requisite cortex-like neuroanatomical structure, are unable to feel pain. This commentary argues that the relationship between brain structure and brain function is less straightforward than suggested in Key’s target article.

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Anthropomorphic Denial Of Fish Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach Jan 2016

Anthropomorphic Denial Of Fish Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) affirms that we do not know how the fish brain processes pain but denies — because fish lack a human-like cortex — that fish can feel pain. He affirms that birds, like fish, have a singly-laminated cortex and that the structure of the bird brain is quite different from that of the human brain, yet he does not deny that birds can feel pain. In this commentary we describe how Key cites studies that substantiate mammalian pain but discounts the same kind of data as evidence of fish pain. We suggest that Key's interpretations are illogical, do not …

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Why Is Fish “Feeling” Pain Controversial?, E. Don Stevens Jan 2016

Why Is Fish “Feeling” Pain Controversial?, E. Don Stevens

Animal Sentience

In his excellent target article, Key (2016) develops a mechanistic argument in an attempt to show why it is unlikely that fish can “feel” pain or for that matter, “feel” anything. The topic is controversial and likely to achieve the goal of getting many hits for the inaugural issue of the new journal, Animal Sentience. In my view, the question is unlikely to be answered, for two reasons. First, because the proponents of the “fish feel pain” controversy are untrained and unskilled in the details and jargon of neurophysiology and/or neuroanatomy, and the opponents of the controversy, like Key, …

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Pain And Other Feelings In Humans And Animals, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio Jan 2016

Pain And Other Feelings In Humans And Animals, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio

Animal Sentience

Evidence from neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neuropsychology suggests that the experience of feelings in humans does not depend exclusively on structures of the cerebral cortex. It does not seem warranted to deny the possibility of feeling in animals on the grounds that their cerebral cortices are not comparable to those of humans.

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