University of Illinois at Chicago

About: University of Illinois at Chicago is a education organization based out in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 57071 authors who have published 110536 publications receiving 4264936 citations.

Children's normative beliefs about aggression and aggressive behavior

Abstract: Normative beliefs have been defined as self-regulating beliefs about the appropriateness of social behaviors. In 2 studies the authors revised their scale for assessing normative beliefs about aggression, found that it is reliable and valid for use with elementary school children, and investigated the longitudinal relation between normative beliefs about aggression and aggressive behavior in a large sample of elementary school children living in poor urban neighborhoods. Using data obtained in 2 waves of observations 1 year apart, the authors found that children tended to approve more of aggression as they grew older and that this increase appeared to be correlated with increases in aggressive behavior. More important, although individual differences in aggressive behavior predicted subsequent differences in normative beliefs in younger children, individual differences in aggressive behavior were predicted by preceding differences in normative beliefs in older children.

Self-focused attention and negative affect: A meta-analysis.

Abstract: This meta-analysis synthesized 226 effect sizes reflecting the relation between self-focused attention and negative affect (depression, anxiety, negative mood). The results demonstrate the multifaceted nature of self-focused attention and elucidate major controversies in the field. Overall, self-focus was associated with negative affect. Several moderators qualified this relationship. Self-focus and negative affect were more strongly related in clinical and female-dominated samples. Rumination yielded stronger effect sizes than nonruminative self-focus. Self-focus on positive self-aspects and following a positive event were related to lower negative affect. Most important, an interaction between foci of self-attention and form of negative affect was found: Private self-focus was more strongly associated with depression and generalized anxiety, whereas public self-focus was more strongly associated with social anxiety.

Hazardous duty pay and the foraging cost of predation

Abstract: We review the concepts and research associated with measuring fear and its consequences for foraging. When foraging, animals should and do demand hazardous duty pay. They assess a foraging cost of predation to compensate for the risk of predation or the risk of catastrophic injury. Similarly, in weighing foraging options, animals tradeoff food and safety. The foraging cost of predation can be modelled, and it can be quantitatively and qualitatively measured using risk titrations. Giving-up densities (GUDs) in depletable food patches and the distribution of foragers across safe and risky feeding opportunities are two frequent experimental tools for titrating food and safety. A growing body of literature shows that: (i) the cost of predation can be big and comprise the forager’s largest foraging cost, (ii) seemingly small changes in habitat or microhabitat characteristics can lead to large changes in the cost of predation, and (iii) a forager’s cost of predation rises with risk of mortality, the forager’s energy state and a decrease in its marginal value of energy. In titrating for the cost of predation, researchers have investigated spatial and temporal variation in risk, scale-dependent variation in risk, and the role of predation risk in a forager’s ecology. A risk titration from a feeding animal often provides a more accurate behavioural indicator of predation risk than direct observations of predator-inflicted mortality. Titrating for fear responses in foragers has some well-established applications and holds promise for novel methodologies, concepts and applications. Future directions for expanding conceptual and empirical tools include: what are the consequences of foraging costs arising from interference behaviours and other sources of catastrophic loss? Are there alternative routes by which organisms can respond to tradeoffs of food and safety? What does an animal’s landscape of fear look like as a spatially explicit map, and how do various environmental factors affect it? Behavioural titrations will help to illuminate these issues and more.

Alignment of whole genomes

Abstract: A new system for aligning whole genome sequences is described. Using an efficient data structure called a suffix tree, the system is able to rapidly align sequences containing millions of nucleotides. Its use is demonstrated on two strains of Mycoplasma tuberculosis, on two less similar species of Mycoplasma bacteria and on two syntenic sequences from human chromosome 12 and mouse chromosome 6. In each case it found an alignment of the input sequences, using between 30 s and 2 min of computation time. From the system output, information on single nucleotide changes, translocations and homologous genes can easily be extracted. Use of the algorithm should facilitate analysis of syntenic chromosomal regions, strain-to-strain comparisons, evolutionary comparisons and genomic duplications.