Speech characteristics of male and female characters in fictional television have received only scant attention in media content research. A content analysis of prime-time television revealed that male characters were more likely to initiate disruptive interruptions than female characters whereas female characters were more likely to use cooperative interruptions than male characters. Such diff...

This study builds on the assumption that large-scale social phenomena emerge out of the interaction between individual cognitive mechanisms and social dynamics. Within this framework, we empirically investigated the propagation of memory effects (retrieval induced forgetting and practice effects) through sequences of social interactions. We found that the influence a public figure has on an ind...

Background During its replication, influenza virus utilizes the host cellular machineries for many aspects of its life cycle. Characterization of such virus-host protein-protein interactions is a must to identify determinants of pathogenesis. The M2 ion channel protein plays a crucial role during the entry and late stages of the viral life cycle where its C-terminal domain, well conserved among...

This paper presents the design of a virtual free improviser, known as “Maxine”, built generate creative output in interaction with human musicians by exploiting a pitch detection algorithm’s idiosyncratic interpretation of a relatively noisy and pitchless sonic environment. After an overview of the system’s design and behavior, a summary of improvisers’ critiques of the system are presented, fo...

This chapter reviews contemporary research on virtual collaboration. In particular, we focus on synchronous communication and collaboration processes in virtual conferencing environments. In a virtual conference, interactants are geographically distant but their avatars (virtual representations) appear in the same virtual conference room. Two types of virtual collaboration are examined. First, ...

Oil derived from oil shale deposits is known to contain many organic complexes. The formation of carcinogenic hydrocarbons is temperature-dependent and is associated with retorting of the oil. Furthermore, oil shale is a rich source of inorganic elements such as the metals. Biological studies have demonstrated that concentrated extract of tars from combustion of shale oil are carcingenic to the...

with ASPM siRNA, there is defective cleavage furrow orientation, cytokinesis failure and an increase in apoptosis. Dominant negative expression of GFP-ASPM C-terminal fusion proteins induces cytokinesis failure in HeLa cells. To further investigate the functions of ASPM in cell division we are currently performing a foetal brain yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screen to identify direct interactants of t...

This paper presents a study about the role of grammar in on-line interactions conducted in Portuguese and in English, between Brazilian and English-speaking interactants, with the aim of teaching Portuguese as a foreign language (PFL). The interactions occurred by means of chat and the MSN Messenger, and generated audio and video data for language analysis. Grammar is dealt with from two perspe...

Social interactions often affect the fitness of interactants. Because of this, social selection has been described as a process distinct from other forms of natural selection. Social selection has been predicted to result in different evolutionary dynamics for interacting phenotypes, including rapid or extreme evolution and evolution of altruism. Despite the critical role that social selection ...

Decapod crustaceans, like many other animals, engage in agonistic behaviors that enhance their ability to compete for resources with conspecifics. These agonistic behaviors include the release of chemical signals as well as physical aggressive and submissive behaviors. In this study, we report that Caribbean spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus, use both urine-borne chemical signaling and physical a...