Visual remapping of touch (VRT) is a phenomenon in which seeing a human face being touched enhances detection of tactile stimuli on the observer's own face, especially when the observed face expresses fear. This study tested whether VRT would occur when seeing touch on monkey faces and whether it would be similarly modulated by facial expressions. Human participants detected near-threshold tact...

Antibiotics with novel mechanisms of action are becoming increasingly important in the battle against bacterial resistance to all currently used classes of antibiotics. Bacterial DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV (topoIV) are the familiar targets of fluoroquinolone and coumarin antibiotics. Here we present the characterization of two members of a new class of synthetic bacterial topoII ATPase inh...

Behavioral therapy techniques for treating phobias often includes graded exposure of the patient to anxiety-producing stimuli (Systematic Desensitization). However, in utilizing systematic desensitization, research reviews demonstrate that many patients appear to have difficulty imaging the prescribed anxiety-evoking scene. They also express strong aversion to experiencing real situations. This...

In Hong Kong, 35% of residential mortgage loans are adjustable rate mortgages with variable tenor (VRT). That is, with a change in interest rates, the loan adjusts its maturity and principal payment such that the monthly installment remains the same. In other words, instead of bearing a volatility on monthly payments as in a ®xed-tenor variable payment (VRP) mortgage, VRT mortgagors bear intere...

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the development of treatments to help people reduce their public speaking anxiety (PSA) in a variety of circumstances. A review of literature suggests that several treatments have been found to be effective in reducing communication apprehension. However, it has not been determined whether Virtual Reality Therapy (VRT) has proven to be as...

This paper presents a novel music representation using a Variable Resolution Transform (VRT) which is particularly well adapted for music audio analysis. The VRT is inspired by continuous wavelet transform and it applies different wavelet function at different scale. This method enables a good flexibility of the transform in order to follow log scale of musical note frequencies and at the same ...